Nine of ten emails come from mothers of addicts or alcoholics. The phone calls I get are from mothers 90 percent of the time.
"What do I do with him. Can you help?"
"My daughter's about to get out of prison? How can I get her to your place?"
"Am I enabling him by letting him live with me?" There are many variations of these questions.
They come from love and concern. From women who are truly baffled by what drugs and alcohol have done to the baby they brought home from the hospital. The child they fed, raised, and educated with great hopes morphed into a stranger they don't recognize.
Yet they hang on to hope.
I've listened to mothers who have lost a child to addiction. Their pain, even years later, is visible, palpable.
And when I share their stories with some of our residents and clients they say they never want it to happen to their mom.
But, tragically, it sometimes does.
