heroin addicts mom

There is so much I want to say on this subject. So many directions I can go with this. There is so much here to address…and yet so little. It comes down to one thing only for me today.
Unconditional Love
When we have children, we believe we are to teach them right from wrong. We do this the best we know how, with whatever it is we have to work with. Many of us or perhaps most all of us have learned how to shame our kids or guilt them into the path we think they should be walking. This is not because we believe it works, and in fact most of us will contend that it does not work. We just fail to have the tools that do work. In some cases there may not tools that work.
What our children hear from us is that they need to be different than they are. They hear that they are not good enough. They hear they need to change. They hear our fear. They have their own fears.
When a child begins using drugs, it may be to fit in with their peers. It may be to escape their own fears. It may be to numb out all those thoughts of this and that.
Parents, me included can go crazy trying to fix or save this child. I have, I went so crazy I exhausted myself, my friends, and my family. I got so depressed I became suicidal. I felt there was something I must of done to cause it, and I needed to fix it.
What I have come to learn is that what I need is to not waste one more second looking at the problem, I need to love this child. The bible says we need to love. It is the greatest of all the commandments. To love. I thought loving my child meant helping her get better, I thought it meant fixing her. I thought it meant a whole lot of other things. She use to say to me, “you don’t love me”. I would think is she crazy, look at all this stuff I am doing and sacrificing for you, this is love!
Today, I know she was right, that wasn’t love and it wasn’t loving to always view her as a problem. To always be looking and wondering how high she was, and how to fix her. It was not loving or kind. It was judging her and telling her she wasn’t good enough.
Today the greatest thing I can do for her and for myself is just simply to love her, no matter what. Not to waste one more second on judging her. To be open and completely honest in sharing good things, in being loving towards her.
Unconditional means NO CONDITIONS! Just as it is, just as she is, just in this moment, I get to practice the art of loving. The more I practice, the better I become as with any skill.
Being a mom of a heroin addict is in hindsight one of the greatest gifts, it is teaching me how to love another human being, no matter what!
Cheryl Frei

I’d rather suffer!

This morning I am thinking about parents who are suffering and suffering deeply over a child they have who is addicted to drugs or alcohol. I was one of them some years back. It was horrible, I felt like alone, and on the edge of a nervous breakdown almost all the time! For years!
I thought about my daughter day and night, and worried and worried, and cried, and cried some more. I became an expert on treatment facilities, and knew how much each cost, what they had to offer, and what kind of payment they would take.
I constantly looked at her eyes and made wild speculations about what kind of drug whe was high on, and if she were going up or coming down. Not only that but, I became quite good at knowing how long this particular mood she was in would last, and when it would change. She became my life, her addiction became my life, my expression, my existance. I was dedicated to her addiction and the illusion that I would somehow be a part of her recovery from her addiction.
In the mean time, while I was under this illusion, I somehow became addicted to her addiction. My mood revolved around her addiction, coming up going down, on and on. I lost control of my own life, I lost all interest in my life. I was totally consumed with hers.
There is a way out, there is a method of recovery for parents who are addicted to their childs addiction!
Contact me today and get the help you need, that will benefit both you and your child! http://theunexpectedpath.com

screaming in the dark

The night seems to bring so much fear
maybe the stillness
maybe the moon
or the cooler air
Something about it,
brings up more fear than during the day.

I get more calls from parents in the evenings
when their children are away from the house
when their minds wonder off…
when the stories conjured up
grow more desperate,

it is late at night
when parents are found
screaming in the dark

Parents need a life coach!

I am just going to say it, parents who are experiencing a chile addicted to drugs or alcohol need a life coach!!! I say NEED, meaning ABSOLUTE MUST HAVE!!
Seriously parents, the stress and anxiety that creates “insanity” can cause a parent unbelieveable chaos, and parents need support!
Alanon, however wonderful it may be to some parents, is not enough! Alanon is not equipped to change your thinking quickly enough, I am talking about the kind of thinking that drives you nutty!
If you have never checked out coaching, please take the advice here of a life coach and a mother of a heroin addict!
It can be the change you are needing to give you back some energy, to de-stress, and to feel centered once again. Parents, you need to feel centered and strong for the long haul! Because generally speaking, addiction is a long haul!
Love and Light,
Cheryl

heroin babies

“Heroin babies” is a term I heard often when I was working in residential treatment. The younger adults, generally in their early twenties who would come in as heroin addicts.
There were some things that I noticed among this group of addicts that I hadn’t noticed in other young addicts, who used other types of drugs or alcohol – I have no idea why or what it means about these young “heroin babies”, these are simply things that stuck out in my mind.
There was almost always a real need/desire/want of these addicts for a closeness to mom, and once in a while it was a grandmother. It appeared to me as an immature relationship with mom. Both male and female addicts displayed this immaturity in the relationships they held with their moms. Not the type of adult relationship that I would expect from a twenty year old with their parents. I noticed often times these “heroin babies” would refer to their mothers as “mommy”, it was quite unsettling to me in the begining.
Another common thing among the “heroin babies”, was an uncanny intelligence in many areas, such as history, language, arts, etc… Intelligence high enough that it is easily noticeable and stood out from the IQ levels of other addict groups.
Yet an emotional immaturity that stood out as well. When a stressful event happens, there is much difficulty for the “heroin babies” in handling such events in a mature and positive manner that would promote forward growth. “Heroin babies” from what I witnessed tended to run away, and personalize outside events.
Extremes are always seen in the world of addiction. We always see addicts who have been so low, they could care less if their teeth were brushed in the past week or not, and the flip side where they need to brush their teeth six times a day. They have been notorious in surviving on no income, yet they desire and have the ability to earn very good incomes, often above average incomes.
This may be a little more noticable in the “heroin baby” category. When you stop to realize many have an addiction that costs them 200.00 to 400.00 dollars a day! Yeah a lot of creative resourcefulness goes into in funding a “heroin babies” addiction.
I personally did not notice a common thread with father involvement among the group of “heroin babies” being anything different from any other gorup of addicts. Some have their fathers involvement some did not. Some had fathers who were overly involved, some had fathers who were not known. Some had fathers step into a mothering role, once the mothers had become so distraught, they were no longer available emotionally for their children.
What can be useful in treatment for our “heroin babies” is really the thought I have in writing this post. From what I witnessed, what can I draw in and offer that can be useful and promote a positive life experience for the group of addicts who fit into the “heroin babies” category?
Traditional treatment for the most part sort of begins as a dumbed down series of simplistic thought, whereas our “heroin babies” might do much better with more intellectual groups where they are challenged and become curious enough to engage in treatment. Stimulate the IQ these “heroin babies” are gifted with.
The second part of treatment would in my humble opinion be worthy of working on emotional intelligence, and inner concepts of self. I believe our “heroin addicts” would achieve greater positive results in their lives by growing up emotionally and learning better ways of dealing with life stresses, events and situations.

the moment i realized

the moment i realized that i was really needing some help and support,

i panicked, and thought oh my god i might be leaving you behind.

i felt horrible

i felt like i was getting ready to betray you in some way

the moment i realized i could get better,

i panicked, and felt this deep sense of betrayal

as though i was going to leave you behind

behind to suffer without me

behind to suffer all alone.

i just can’t continue to suffer your addiction

i just can not continue to watch the horrors of it all

i just can’t stand seeing you like this, or me like this

i am leaving you behind, i am getting support and help

i am getting healthier

it just wasn’t meant to be

tears and pain and desolation
tears and pain and urgency
thinking it was right
thinking maybe this time
thinking maybe it would work
it just wasn’t meant to be…

Whats your biggest fear?

(Photo by Gabe Kirchheimer via Modest)

I see many parents who are emotionally unraveling.  Stuck in turmoil and fear, unable to stop the repetitive thoughts of what could happen, what might happen, and what perhaps already has happened.

I am asking you to  tell me, “what your biggest fear really is?”

Love and Light!~Cheryl

Strange evening

Actually it has been a strange day altogether, not just this evening.  Tomorrow afternoon is another court date for my 28 year old daughter who showed up a couple of months ago at 4 in the morning  with a can of gas in hand.  I guess she had intended to come in and dump it on me while I slept and light fire to me.

None of this is straight from her mouth as she has refused to see me or write an explanation since that early morning visit.  She is still in jail, and I got word last week from the prosecutor that he intends to drop the charges against her.  Not altogether surprised but definitly a let down. 

I would like to see her get some long over due help for her drug problems and now for what appears to be some mental health issues, but it doesn’t look as though it is going to happen this time around either.  I would like to think it will not take me being killed for the law to actually take a stand and follow the law, or the judge to actually use his or her power to keep me and society safe. 

Tonight is a strange evening as I wonder about securing our home, ways of trying to safeguard my family members who live in my home, and myself.  In life we all have a potential possibility of being harmed by someone or something, yet there is for me and my family a feeling of a more intense sense of awareness that we are not safe from one of our own.  We are not safe from a family member, my own child non the less who has made a choice to use drugs, to harm her brain, and now has become a threat to me, and perhaps her entire family.

I want her to love herself…I want her to care about herself….

Isn’t it what we hope with our children, that they will turn the corner and begin to realize they have worth! 

 We want soooo badly for them to stop hurting themselves and start loving themselves.

As a recovery coach I see it all around me, parents who want their children back, want the children they once knew to return

to them and to their families, parents who are heartbroken.

I am a parent who has experienced firsthand the pain and suffering that is unlike any thing else I have ever been through in my

life, as I watched my daughter become addicted to various drugs, one after another, after another.  When she simply got into

too much trouble with one, she would switch to another.  Seventeen years I have spent as a mother of a drug addict.  I know the pain,

the deep torture that only a parent knows. 

I had to try every mehtod of tough love, contracts, alanon, family therapy, counseling, in patient out patient.  It didn’t matter what the cost,

all that mattered was the fight to save this girls life, but here we are seventeen years later and she sits in jail, not speaking with any of the

family-angry and believing that we all somehow did this to her.   The delusions are strong, stronger than the facts, stronger than the truth.

As a parent and a life coach, I had to stop focusing on her and her addiction, and begin to take care of ME.

I was so worn out, so depleted and exhausted so many times.  I had become seriously ill, and a voice in my head kept saying, your going to

get cancer or something worse if you don’t stop holding onto all this pain and agony…I had to start taking car eof myself.  I had to start doing

for myself all the things I wanted her to do for herself.  Put my money where my mouth is and start seeing my own worth as a person, stop

beating myself up and get living my life! 

Ahh, today, I love my daughter, and I love me more.  I am not afraid to say it.

Today I love my daughter and wish her well, I send good thoughts her way.

Today, I have a life that I love living, I get excited about getting up in the morning, I

get excited to go to work, I get excited to come home, and even to slip into bed at night.

I have healed the hurt, the pain and have stepped into the life I decided to live… I am joyful today.

You can be also!  Check out life coaching and begin living a life that holds some joy for your soul. 

Much love and light to you!~Cheryl