Parents with addicted children
Mar 12, 09- (by Syd)
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There’s been a lot of pain in meetings about having addicted children. At a meeting today, a mother expressed her sorrow and helplessness over having a son who is squandering his life. She said that he came home with clothes all wet and was hallucinating, telling her of the strange things that he was seeing climbing the draperies and floating through the air. She called EMS who came and got him. But there were no beds available at the hospitals so he was released still high and hallucinating.
Her question was what can she do? She wants to help him but feels that she is losing who she is. The group discussed how powerless we are over others. And that losing ourselves in order to try to save someone else who is lost means that two people are then lost.
Perhaps all we can do is love the other person, tell them we love them, and want them to get help. We then take care of ourselves so that we don’t lose our health, our spirituality and our minds. If someone is an adult, there isn’t much else that can be done. We can offer a lot of prayers for the sick and suffering to seek their HP and have God hold them in his hands. There are a lot of people out there who need those prayers today.
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I have been doing a great deal of research and now lecture at addiction treatment centers, as well as with other groups and organizations. One thing that helps loved ones of the addict/alcoholic AND the addict/alcoholic, as well, is to understand the disease of addiction; namely what has happened to their brain. This in turn helps them appreciate that in order to change their brain, they need to stop the substance abuse. This website, http://www.hbo.com/addiction is an excellent resource, and it has a section specifically for adolescent addiction because their brains are entirely different than those of an adult. The site is a collaborative production of HBO, NIAAA, NIDA and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
Nothing is nothing more powerful to make me see how powerless I am than when my son is out of control…
Powerlessness sounds like a much simpler concept than it is. I think you have to work AlAnon & the steps for awhile for to see the results. Some people give up on it too soon.
An AA Demon said…
“We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it.” Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 83
Mary Christine,
1Corinthians 10: 21 You cannot drink the chalice of the Lord, and the chalice of devils: you cannot be partakers of the table of the Lord, and of the table of devils.
Thanks!
I’m sorry for the pain I have caused. But nobody is perfect in this world and for a parent to disown a child is inherently WRONG! My mother just said to me…”it’s not right for me to watch you kill yourself”….so she chooses to be in the dark? I have a productive life, but moments of misjudgement” What can I do to help her? Her verdict is to be “fixed”, but what is that? 1 year, 2 years? 10 years?…..I wish I had more loving parents and not narcissistic assholes.