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As a professional family substance abuse counselor I have been writing blogs, articles and lecturing for many years. I doubt however, if I would be the complete clinician if I did not walk in many of your shoes, sharing the same trials and tribulations, victories and successes that you may have experienced with your loved one. Though we don't know each other, we know each other very well. Because of that special bond, I wish to share this story with you not as a clinician, but as mother and parent.
A few months ago, I believe my daughter had a relapse. I could tell by her irresponsible behavior, broken dinner engagements and a just checked out demeanor. When we discussed it, her answer to me was that she wasn't one of my clients and back off. Our relationship grew more unstable than ever before and climaxed with just a proverbial text for Mother's Day. How sad for both of us.
My daughter (let's call her Lucy) was and is a beautiful woman of 21. Though every mother thinks their child is beautiful, Lucy really is. Almost 6 ft. tall, a knockout figure, dark straight hair, olive skin and almond shaped smoldering eyes. She could have easily been a model. I can say this, as she is adopted, so I had nothing to do with her amazing looks. However, this beautiful young lady is covered with tattoos scattered about her body with little or no thought as to what she is permanently inking. One looks like a car engine and is supposed to be a music box; another is an Alligator eating a baby! Her ear lobes sport gages that are so big, the middle part of a sugar ice cream cone would fit comfortably through it.
Though I'm not thrilled that Lucy has decided to permanently use her body as a grease board, it does not make me love her any less.
From an early age, Lucy started pulling out her hair. Defiant toward teachers and combative at every turn toward her father and me, Lucy would fly into uncontrollable temper tantrums. By the time the 7th grade rolled around, Lucy could not attend the public school system and was sent to alternative schools in and out of California that specialized in behavioral issues. I honestly don't know when the dabbling into drugs took effect, but dabbling quickly turned into addiction. Lucy became a garbage pail for any drug from acid to mushrooms to heroin. Cutting and anorexic behavior became the norm as well.
Lucy managed to graduate from high school and opted to live with her birth grandparents in Oregon. Our communication at that time was tense and volatile and I had no idea if she was clean and sober or continuing with her addiction. She made it clear that she had no interest in considering any of my suggestions for continued education, career choices or even sober living options.
After a few years of doing little but lying on the couch, Lucy moved down to Los Angeles and reconnected with some family members professing that she needed a fresh beginning for her life. I was not part of this decision because I would have seen it as manipulative and covert. She swore that she was clean and sober, and these family members embraced her with open arms. Sadly, sobriety was the last thing on her mind, and so started the revolving door of rehabs and sober living housing.
Gratefully, somewhere along the way, Lucy did embrace a clean and sober life style. She attended AA meetings regularly, had a sponsor, and got a job and her own apartment. On her first year birthday of sobriety, we gathered like a flock of geese holding wads of Kleenex as we watched our loved one receive her one year chip. Finally, after all these years, maybe, just maybe Lucy might be on her way to experiencing the goodness that a sober lifestyle has to offer and we in turn could take a long awaited sigh of relief. That was 14 months ago.
Sadly and unfortunately many alcoholic/addicts become complacent about their recovery. They foolishly think they can start to pick and chose their recovery path believing that they now have learned when to cut off their alcohol intake, or because their drug of choice was alcohol, one line of coke is no big deal. The recovering alcoholic/addict knows that this thinking is "b.s.", but they forge ahead anyway.
So was true with my dear Lucy. She strongly stated that she hadn't relapsed as smoking a joint 3 times a day had nothing to do with substance abuse. However, that was just the beginning of the downward spiral. Lately when I see her, she is unfocused, easily agitated, defensive, dirty and making several trips to the bathroom. Was she throwing up her dinner, and back to the days of bingeing and purging, getting high or both? Regardless, it was clear that her clean and sober days were over.
I have spent many sleepless nights and shed buckets of tears over my daughter's disease and the devil that has her as a captive audience. But, there is nothing I can do, as she has not sought help and my involvement (for the umpteenth time) has more often than not proven futile. I am left with prayer. Praying that her "higher power" will take care of her and that hopefully one day, like once before, she will pick herself up from the ashes and scratch and claw her way back to a healthy lifestyle.
I will keep a candle burning in the window that next Mother's Day might be different, and my daughter and I will walk on the beach cracking each other up and holding hands. If not, then maybe the one after and so on. I will never give up.
If I can be of service, please visit my website www.familyrecoverysolutions.com and I invite you to explore my new book Reclaim Your Life - You and the Alcoholic/Addict at www.reclaimyourlifebook.com
In addition, I am a staff blogger for the Huffington Post's Living Section at www.huffingtonpost.com/carole-bennett
