Struggling with how much of my life, I should allocate to my addicts? Trying to keep that healthy balance of being a mom and being an addict’s mom is a conflict within that only parents of addicts can relate too.
Parenting is not the same because anything you do for an addict most times only furthers the addiction. Even with the most innocent intentions, any helping hand becomes a way for them to advance in their world.
The turmoil I feel daily is heart-wrenching. I am determined to allow growth, and day by day, it becomes clearer to do that means truly letting go.
How can I let my baby go? Watch him flounder? Drown in the waves of addiction while I suffocate under the weight of codependency. When does this stop? Where does it end?
After 16 years and three sons all going through addiction, One or all of them always in the grip of dependency at any given time, I have learned that any expectation I have is probably too much for what they can do.
And any presumption they have for me is probably something I shouldn’t do.
So the merry go round continues. I recognize it only takes one of us to jump off for the revolving to stop. That doesn’t mean the chaos ceases. Usually, that only fuels the anger from my addict and the guilt from me. There is so much more to addiction that the abuse of a drug. That is where it starts, but for it to continue, there have to be many more players. Like dominoes one after the other falling down addiction, recovery, relapse. Addiction, recovery, relapse on and on and on.
And anyone can get sucked into the tornado of it all. One of many casualties caught up in the whirlwind and tossed out as debris.
Damaged and broken, I continuously pick myself up and carry on to try and forge a path towards a new life, the life I keep forgetting. Mine!
Stuck between what has been and what could be my devotion in question and my faith tested.
It’s crazy as dysfunctional as it has been in the last 16 years when things are relatively healthy I am at my worst. I can feel a change coming, so I’m never able to be at ease in the calm. I look for the chaos almost welcome it at times. The anticipation of this disease returning is worse than the turmoil that inevitably comes.
So how much is ok to give away? What part of me is left?
Then I realized Of all the things I have lost, nothing taken had has not been rebuilt or replaced.
Confidence replaced uncertainty.
The weakness renewed with strength.
Ignorance repaired with understanding.
Empathy restored indifference.
So back to the original question, how much of my life do I give to my addicts? I guess the answer is I don’t give them my life I help support them finding theirs!!!