Suffering Mother

A sad, yet necessary, aspect of my job is talking to parents of addicts and alcoholics still in the midst of their disease.

It happened again yesterday while I was driving back from our Las Vegas facility. I'd talked to this mother a month ago and as soon as I heard her voice I remembered her. She has a 20 something son who’s still using opiates. She's tried to help him stop. He's been to counseling and treatment. She’s given him money. He's been to jail and prison. Yet, after nine years, he's still using.

The pain in her voice came through the phone as she wrestled with different ways to help him. She spoke of the times he's cussed her out. He’s threatened suicide in an effort to extort money from her.

To help wrap her mind around this situation I told her my own story. I told her I didn’t change until people quit helping me. For the longest time I thought the problem was that people didn't understand.. They didn't know how to party. They were stick-in-the-muds. They just wanted to rain on my parade.

It wasn't until I was broke, homeless, and facing some new criminal charges, that I decided that I might have a problem. No longer was anyone trying to convince me to change. They’d given up. Even worse, they wouldn't loan me money or let me sleep on their couch. At first I was angry. I thought they were mean. While I blamed them for my problems, the reality is that I was suffering from my behavior – not them.

The mother agreed that she had to let her son go. Regardless of his threats or anger she realized that he had to deal with his problem himself. She understands that as long as others keep running interference for him he might never get clean.