Mothers of Addicts United

More Other Mothers Tears . . . .

Your site is very moving. You are right, unless you've been there, drugs don't mean a whole lot. Here in Canada, people want pot legalized, (not the silent majority I believe). Our daughter started using around the age of 14 give or take a few months. Quickly became a 4th stage addict, ending up in the notorious east downtown area of Vancouver some 5/6 years later where her addiction took on monumental proportions of heroin. She is alive today, only through God's grace. That's a struggle for me, one of the many struggles we've been through. Km came from an average family, occasionally having a social drink, non-smokers, occasional church, etc. There is hope for us people be it addicts or parents. It's sites like yours that support that hope. When I read these sites, it makes me even more determined to speak out against drugs. We, like you, stuck by our daughter and forgave her and ourselves. Somehow Km stopped using (she's down to 25ml of methadone from 125) working daily as a receptionist at a rehab in Vancouver. We call each other weekly. We're from Ontario. She still has it rough, but continues to grow, we're a family again. Personally my walk with the Lord is very strong today ... much to do with this experience. Hopefully our story can be a help for someone going through this tragedy. To be truthful, we are still on the alert for any letdowns, but so far so good. Our hearts go out to others on this site who lost loved ones. Blessings, Rick/Marilyn

I also have a son that is an addict, he started using when he was 14 years old, today he is 43. Our family has been through hell. I've done my share of enabling and also tough love and came to this conclusion, I know in my heart I have done everything possible to help him and now I have two choices. When I mention anything about his pills he protects his drug with a vengence and doesn't talk to me for long periods of time and my heart breaks, or I can talk to him and ignore his using and it breaks my heart when I hear it in his voice. So because I never know when the last time I might hear his voice is, I never mention his drugs, because either way, he will continue to use and all I can do is try and heal myself, he has to find his way. I have been much better about letting go but it has been a long time coming. The family program at a rehab helped me more than anything, a very valuable lesson.

My brother-in-law is 34 years old. He has a wife of 14 years and a daughter who is 13. Currently, he is serving s short jail sentence for possession of drug paraphernalia, which he adamantly says is not his! His wife and child have gone without food, clothes, and electricity the majority of those 14 years. The day he was sentenced, the only food in the house were 2 eggs and 2 slices of bread. I asked my niece the other day how many times she had come home from school and the lights had been cut off for non-payment and she responded that she couldn't even begin to count the times. He never admits that anything is his and always denies that he's using, but the evidence is always there. He knows nothing but lies. I've seen the pain and anguish it's caused my husband and my mother and father-in-law. Praise be to Jesus that my husband has never chosen that road. He is a wonderful provider and loves God and his family. My sister-in-law told my brother-in-law that she wants to separate from him until he can prove to her that he can get help and stay clean. Now, he's threatening suicide. One year ago, he was in drug rehab for a month, but after being out for a month, he went right back to his old lifestyle. Please keep us in your prayers, it's very hard to cope!

I have read your page and the letters of others and I my self am having a hard time with the fact my brother is addicted to crack. As a sister, some say I don't have the same hurt as my parents but I do .when I came to terms with the fact my brother who is 34 and has been doing drugs science he was 15 and is now in jail for thirty days. It was hard for me to tell my mom and dad that no I would not help him get out this time and I would turn my back on him until he gets the help he needs. I also have another brother who feels the way I do. Our hearts are broken in tiny Pisces and we both have children of our own this is not easy for us this addicted trait is in our genes and it scares us to think of our own kids. I like many of you have give this to God and I pray every night that God would give my mom the same power to give him up and leave it in gods hands. Now his wife has left him and took there one girl and I can only hope that this along with all of us turning our backs on him that he will wake up and get the help he needs. Before it tears the rest of the family apart. Please keep us in your prays as I will all of you. Thank you for reading this. May God Bless.

My son has been an addict for 8 years now. He graduated college at age 22 with a 4.0 gpa top of his class as a court reporter. One can only imagine how my heart was filled with pride for his accomplisment. He was always a kind tenderhearted person. Infact he took things too seriously. He never really used drugs before this. He wouldn't even take cold medicine..."it makes me feel funny" he would say. So when I started to notice his erratic behavior and became concerned. My husband, parents, friends and other children told me I WAS NUTS. NOT JASON! Needless to say in time he made a believer out of all of the above. Our lives were all changed forever. He eventually began living with a girlfriend who is now the mother of my precious 3 year old grandaughter. There has of course been the slippery slope of tickets, bad checks, health problems, missing for days...etc. My heart is so sad because I love him so much I feel his every pain . Most of all I feel his shame and sadness for what his life has become. My husband has been relocated to a new area and I am having to leave to move 2,000 miles away from him and I am so afraid.. tears run down my face as I type this. I spend a lot of time with the baby so she is of great concern, mom has a drug problem too so no consolation there. Everyone tells me it will be the best thing for him but you all know my worst fear. Sometimes I thank God for every single moment I still get to spend with his sweet spirit here on earth. Don't know why I am writting this except that I know for once his story might fall on ears that hear.

I was sent this site by a friend who thought I may find comfort in it. I too am a mother of a drug addict 31 years old. Just 24 days ago, I received that dreaded call..."Come to the ER ..... your son is in critical condition". TERROR..ANGER..FEAR I arrived to wait 5 hours as the team of doctors tried to bring him back to life. He got an infection from the needle he was using for his heroine use. He suffered a heart attack and liver damage and was on life support for 7 days. He had an angel looking over him...because he is alive today as I type this. I took a picture of him so he could see what he looked like and what WE his family had to see as he was in his coma. The doctors explained to me ..the sad part is..HE WON'T REMEMBER THIS! The sadder part is that he is again using... and I have tried everything from tough love..to rehabs..detox... I don't know what to do with him. I won't enable his use.. I have begged for the hospital before his release to force him into a long term duel program (he is also bi-polar), but they told me he is an adult and that he did not intentionally know that he would give himself this toxic septic shock. WELL ..... what IS considered suicide? Do I get to sit now and wait for the next call? Only this time they won't be able to pull him through? Do I sit here and feel that somehow I was an awful mother? Do I sit here and look at his 2 young children and wonder what they witness? Do I sit and wonder what he is going to rip off next? Do I sit here and hate him for what he is doing and has done? I am sorry to ramble on but I just needed to vent. Below is a picture of my son as he lay on life support fighting for his life. As I look at him today, thin, dawn and sick, both mentally and physically, I wonder to myself ..... "Is there help?" Peace, My Friend ... and I thank you for listening to this woman spill a little of her heart and mind to someone who understands. I sit and hope to sing this to him one day ..... "The Monster's gone!! He's on the run and your Mommy's near. Beautiful, Beautiful, Beautiful, Beautiful Boy ..... Darlin', darlin', darlin' child" .... John Lennon
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I read your page, and it was so touching. It got me right in the heart, as my son, now 28 years old, is an addict. He has tried many times to quit. We have tried to help him ... and we have failed. He is now trying again. As you said, we are now at the point where we are letting go. It took us a long time to get here .... years. We have some contact with him, but not much anymore because the pain we have felt (and still feel), the lies he has told, the lives he has ruined ... all these things .. have destroyed us. We (his father and I, and his brother and sisters) know that this is something he must do on his own. He must truly want to do it. I have looked for places to go .... for me. I am having a hard time finding such a place for parents. We need a place to let it all out. I enjoyed reading what you had to say, not because misery loves company, but because I am starting now to realize that I am not as alone as I once thought.		My son was raised in the church, hearing the Word of God preached every week. Never, ever thought he would wind up taking drugs, and have to be dragged out of my house by a police officer, go to a 20/20 delinquent retention place, rehab, etc., etc. That when when he was between 14 and 18. He is now 23 and lives far away from me. We do keep in touch though. I also came to know I could not control his addiction through Tough Love groups and Al-Anon. Those groups saved MY LIFE ..... I turned him over to the Lord. This was one thing Mother could not fix, but it took much pain to realize that and many meetings. Today, I'm in a good place. I realize I could still lose him, but its not in my hands anymore. When I start worrying again, I read my Al-Anon literature, or talk to someone on the phone who "knows." And ... I concentrate on "my life" which is really the only life I can be responsible for. May God Bless our children, bring them back to his side and heal them.

I also am the mother of an addict, my son. We just found out and he is in a rehab for a week. It's so crowded, he can't stay longer and this really worries me. We have called everyone in the state and they are all overcrowded. I found this so hard to believe. He is 22, has had a problem with pills for 3 years, ADHD type child, but I never dreamed it would go this far. I am empowering myself and trying to learn that if he relapses, I cannot give him a home to come to, but must send him back to rehab and then a halfway house if we can find one with room for him.

My son is 24, a drug addict and an alcoholic. So far, he has been in five rehabs. As parents, we never think this will be our child. My son started using drugs when he was 15. I thought then that he was just trying things .... it would pass ... but was I wrong. He's been in trouble many times and is now a felon, and a habitual violator. I have tried so long and so hard to fix him, but I cannot. I have now given him back to God, his Father. It is just too much .... and too big ... for me to handle .... I have let go. I pray for God's will to be done and I am trying to hard to take care of me now. I cannot tell you the depth of my love for my son, but he belonged to God before he belonged to me and I must now give him back. "I" cannot fix this broken child.


Your story is so familiar ... it sounds like my own ... though very painful and so close to home. The only difference is ... mine is a son .... and you have had the courage to say, "I have had enough." I didn't .. and still don't ... have this courage even after my son got seventy years in prison, and still he tests positive for drugs. You have given me such hope and the insight to seek the help I have turned away from for so long. From the bottom of my heart ... I thank you. I am turning this over to God and I pray for the courage and the strength to get off my hiney and do something besides blame myself for being such a bad mom and with your's and God's help, start being a good mom once more. Thank you so much!		I just wanted to say that it took great strength for you to make this web site. It has helped me very much reading your pages over and over again. I am the sister and aunt of alcoholics and drug users. I pray that they wll be delivered from this. It is so hard watching this and seeing what they are doing to their lives. I worry so much about my mother who is in the same boat that you are in. She constantly worries and prays for them. She has bailed them out of trouble so many times and now the money has run out. When I read your pages to her over the phone, she cried and said that there really must be other people going through what she has and still is. Please continue to add to your pages and understand that what you have done took great courage. You will touch the lives of others. I wish that my mother had a computer to sit and view your pages. I have read your pages to her over the phone and she wants me to copy it so she can continue to read them over again as I have. May God be with you on your journey with this web site.
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I too, am the mother of an addict. My son was on drugs and alcohol for about 5 years. I had prayed for him for all those years because I knew what he was doing. His father and I were divorced, and he moved in with him after living with me and my new husband for 4 years. In November of 1994, he came to me and said, "Mom, I just got off my knees and asked the Lord into my life." I told him that was the smartest thing he had ever done. Then he said, "But Mom, I'm on drugs and I need help." Of course I prasied God and thanked him for saving my son's soul and life at the same time. We have a doctor friend in our church and I called him. He called a hospital and got him into the Chemical Dependency Unit that very night. He stayed for the 28-day program, and PRAISE GOD he has been clean and sober for over 5 years now. Prayer works!!! I have been able to help some mothers and sisters of addicts since then and would be more than happy to help anybody that went through what we did at that time. My son still struggles, goes to meetings every week and will for the rest of his life. But God WILL make a way where there seems to be no way. HE is so good to us. Let me know if I can be a word of encouragement to anyone who needs it. My son is not in church, but I know that will happen in HIS time. I also know God will send that special someone to share his life with him if it is HIS will. May God bless you in a very special way. Love and prayers to you.
Your site touched me very deeply. It was sent to me by one of the graphic clubs I belong to. I have a 22 year old son who has been incarcerated for about a year now. When he was arrested, he was very much addicted to "crank", and had dwendled down to nothing. It wasn't so much all the material things that "disappeared", or all the money that was stolen from us, but witnessing what the drugs were doing to our first born's body and mind. It's such a heartbreaking experience to see any child ravaged by drug abuse ... especially your own child. I have declared war on illegal drugs and am doing as much as I can to assist in helping clean up the availability of drugs (known users, suppliers) in our area. It is never ending. If possible, I would love to link my site to yours. I will pray for your precious daughter and her recovery.

My son came home one night, he had been living in a half way house and told us that he got kicked out and needed to call rehab and get himself in again. We let him call. When the hour passed that they were supposed to be here, we asked him what was going on as he was getting lethargic. We told him he had to leave as he could not spend the night here. I told my husband that I thought something was wrong and we should call the police. They came and he told them he had taken a bottle of Tylenol while he was here. They took him out in an ambulance. Fortunately there was no damage to his liver from the overdose. He then went into rehab again. Upon coming out he went into another half way house. He got kicked out of there for using again and was picked up by the police and was sent to jail. After spending three weeks in jail he talked his dad into letting him come home. I was happy he was in jail, I felt he was at least safe there. Well, he came home and was home two months, drug free, and had to go to court for some outstanding warrants. He was placed on house arrest and had to be drug tested weekly. I don't know if you know what house arrest is but they wear an anklet and cannot leave the house. He could leave only for work. He has been off house arrest now a month and has been drug free for eight months. He has met a wonderful young woman with a year old child and he is doing wonderfully. He sees a counselor specializing in addiction. I thank our Lord every day for having my son home and well and pray every day that he stays that way. I pray every day also that ours is a success story.

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