One Mom Talking: The ongoing story of one mom, three teens, and heroin.

Friends, I have been toying with the idea of creating a conference for parents of addicts.  To that end, I am starting with a survey (see link below).  This is simple, and anonymous.  I would greatly appreciate it if you would do two things: (1) follow the link and complete the survey; and (2) copy and paste the link onto your blog so that we can get as much feedback as possible.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/XGQNQ9V

Thank you all, as always, for being online as resources and support for me and for each other.  God bless!

    Today is Dan’s day in court and this is how I’m feeling about it!  Ha!  Yes, just a little intimidated!  Right now, as I type this, he is having his sentencing hearing.  And I feel so bad that I’m not there.  I know that it’s okay that I’m not there.  I know that my absence from that courtroom is significant because it emphasizes the results of his drug use.  It demonstrates that there are losses to him as a result of his behavior; not just through the court system … but personal, family losses … like not having his mother show up in court.

I have been there for all of his other court hearings.  I always wanted him to be able to look out and see my face — know that I was loving and supporting him.  This time, he’ll have to know it somewhere in his heart. 

But I still feel sad, and a little scared and, well, you all know what I mean.  I feel like inventing a new set of words to describe the emotional storms we experience as parents of addicts.  So, anyway, I’ll report in when I find out the results. 

Your friend,
Kay

See that title?  “Thank God” — that’s what I’m doing this morning.  It was good for me to vent out all of my worries here last night.  This morning I did my Bible study and went to church (found a church here in SC that I like lots).  Conveniently, the pastor taught about giving your troubles to God, knowing that pain and suffering are part of life.  Knowing that a life with God doesn’t mean we won’t experience those things – but instead assures us that (a) they are temporary and (b) we will never experience them alone. 

The song I sang this morning with gusto, and with my hands in the air:

I’m trading my sorrows
I’m trading my shame
I’m laying them down for the Joy of the Lord.
I’m trading my sickness
I’m trading my pain
I’m laying them down for the Joy of the Lord.

I tried to attached the video but it’s not working.  If you want to see it, go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXi5iq1zAl4&feature=related.  God bless!

I’ve been gone awhile.  I moved across the country with my daughter.  Packing up the house was hard.  I didn’t do a good job of it.  And if friends hadn’t shown up and pushed it along, I never would have been out by my target date.  I left stuff there.  I threw away so much.  I have so little.  Materially, I’m pretty darn broke.

I think the move was right.  I think this is the right thing for my daughter and probably even for me.  I walked a mile along the shore of the Atlantic earlier this evening and felt something that I think was PEACE.  But it didn’t last long.

I made the mistake of watching a Lifetime movie tonight.  Why do I do that?  It was about high school kids who were partying too much and one of them ended up killing a man who came in to break up the party.  Of course this brought back vivid memories of when my house was the party house.  Memories and guilt and sadness and that overall feeling of cluelessness.  You know:  HOW DID I NOT COMPREHEND THE DANGER??  WHY DID I NOT STOP THEM??

I’ll tell you … I need a group.   But Al-Anon just doesn’t seem to do it for me.  I should probably go anyway.  I probably should.

Tonight I’m just one mom talking, as I’ve always been.  Now that we’re away from it all and attempting to create a “normal” life, I realize that there is no such thing.  Or that this is it.  It doesn’t go away.  I want to get my daughter into some kind of program but she has put up such a wall.  She’s just starting to relax a little, even around me.  I think I should let her settle in.  Not push.  And then I get back to that doubt about my own ability to have a clue what to do for her.  Tired.

Really, I don’t mean to sound completely down.  I’ve had some very good days these past few weeks.  Including a letter from Dan.  He is back in jail after a relapse at rehab.  He voluntarily put himself back in jail though – which is a good sign.  He didn’t want to risk using again.  So he’s been clean since sometime in may except for that one slip.  His sentencing is scheduled for 9/7.  They will likely let him out on probation.  He will probably stay at his dad’s house again.  I am across the country, but the idea of that still frightens me on several levels:  The possibility of him using again, the effects on Al who has been living with his dad now that I’ve moved, and the effects on their dad who is trying to shoulder a lot by allowing Dan back in the house.  And me and my daughter, who will just always have that wonder in the back of our minds when the phone rings.  Will it be the bad news this time?

It’s 11:30PM and I am going to try to sleep.  I have been sleeping well.  Thank goodness.  But maybe not tonight.  Feeling it a little heavy tonight.  Glad to vent here.  God bless!

Just thinking of David Bowie!

Anyway CHANGES are in the works around here.  I’m packing, packing, packing.  It’s always a bigger job than I expect.  Another drawer, another closet … where did all of this stuff come from?

Going to visit Dan tonight at rehab.  He’s doing good so far.  He’s been there two weeks tomorrow.  He does physical work outside on the grounds for eight hours a day, six days a week.  I thought they had NA or AA meetings, but he’s not in that.  He just works, works, works, and goes to Bible study, plays basketball, chess and cards, and sleeps.  He says it’s good.  He has to do this work for three months to prove that he’s serious about the program and then he’ll actually be in “the program.”  Interesting.  I gave him my guitar.  I got scared thinking maybe he’d leave the facility and sell the guitar for drugs.  But he has not.  Hooray.  So combine this two weeks with the nine or so he was in jail — he’s been clean almost three months.  Longest time in a long time. 

In the meantime, I leave in a few days for my new home.  Scary leaving Dan and his brother here.  But they are becoming men.  And I am taking care of my daughter.  Looking forward to the road trip.  My sister is flying out to take that trip.  Three ladies in a car across country should be fun.  If I can just finish cleaning out this house!

Okay…gotta go.  Check in with you all when I’m settled on the east coast!

Seems like a simple, all-American activity — The Yard Sale.  I’m having one this weekend, selling much of what I own to raise money for my move across to the East Coast.  It has not been a simple process for me.

My ADD issues aside (“What do I do with all these items??”), this is an emotional process.  I sort slowly, reminiscing about a book or a set of DVDs or a game I played with my kids when they were little and simple games held their interest. 

I’m closing a chapter of my life, and it’s time to release the “stuff” that I gathered along that path — a good, cleansing process.  But like the cleaning of a wound:  a sting before the pain subsides.

A yard sale on 4th of July weekend.  God Bless the USA!  ~Kay