After 16 years of addiction between all three of my boys, I have many times been in so much despair i found myself giving up hope. I’ve cried, begged, and pleaded to God to save my boys. I’ve questioned, negotiated, tried to make deals. Nothing has worked and has only left me worse than them at times. Maybe the answer was always right there.  God began working on me in small steps. Showing me examples and gently putting people in my life that could testify to the only way i could help my sons was to help myself.
I don’t even know how we got so entangled that I became as sick as them. I cannot recollect where and when our lives became their addictions, but I do know when I knew I was part of the problem. That was devastating and took time to accept, but in the face of this disease taking any of them with it, I had to face some harsh realizations.
Instead of asking God to save them, I started asking for strength and guidance; I asked God to take over with them and to help me have patience while he worked in our lives.
As anyone that has ever been in this situation knows stepping back and handing over control is part of our addiction and just as hard to put down as it is for them and drugs.  Our intuition and innate instinct are to fix. It comes as natural as breathing, and with me, I would dare say for me it had developed into a need. To stop me would be easier to cut off my hands then ask me to drop everything I considered my role as a mom.
The first realizations didn’t come quick like I said this had been 16years, and just now I am finally at a place where I can look in the mirror and reflect on my part in this. Forgiving myself for not being stronger is much harder for me. Parenting isn’t always ensuring they are happy. Sometimes it’s letting them be sad. Letting them be angry.  If they’re never unhappy, never have to experience disappointment, they will never learn what true happiness is. They won’t recognize contentment.
I as a parent thought to be a good mom meant all the good stuff. I never got the memo that being a good mom also involved giving them the gift of self-reliance and that they would only get through me letting go. How could I expect them to know something I left untaught? How would they learn to handle the bad while only being allowed to experience the good?
These are things I have had to come to terms with. I had to give up hope and pick up faith. I had to be at my bottom for God to show me they’re recovery.
I am still so far from where I need to be, but I know now I am farther than I’ve been. Daily I am shown my mistakes. If I ignore them I can smile and go on but my son’s won’t. If I accept them I will be sad (for a time)  but they will go on. Being the parent of an addict means accepting the things we can do to help them is most likely allowing them to help thmselves.

To hang on we must let go…