Foundation Stones – Recovery and Relapse

Both Recovery and Relapse places a stone in the foundation our addicts are building. These stones are the tools they gather along the way. Some of the tools our addicts will be given are the “12 Steps”.

A number of years ago I did a 12 Step based program called “Making Peace with your Past”. It was hard work. It included a lot of self discovery and working through some tough memories and emotions. It took me a good 6 months to complete working through it week after week with a counselor, and then a number of months after for me to really start implementing the steps.

I know just how hard it was for me getting through those 12 steps as well as the work it entailed and I was not an addict. Adding that (addiction) to the mix can only add more time, anxiety and work. For some of our addicts there has been something in their lives that they desire to cover over. Some emotional pain, some difficult trauma they prefer to forget, that sets them on the path to addiction. If they had the coping skills (tools), trusted someone with the pain who could have afforded them the guidance (stones) to overcome they may have never ventured down the path that is so hard to come back from. I know this was true for my son (and for my sister).

Learning these skills, acquiring the tools, placing the stones in the foundation is hard work.

The work recovery takes can be daunting, painful and humbling… And there will be times that something will come along and crash down a stone or two, or ten. A tool they have learned will get misplaced.

And relapse will happen.

A new skill can be learned from the relapse, so don’t discount the time of relapse as not being a part of the recovery. It takes great strength to come back from a relapse, and that strength was gained during the previous run of recovery. I have heard so many stories of addicts that the relapse to recovery time gets shorter. (My son included) Those tools and stones that have been placed in the foundation are still there, and it will be those remaining stones that hold them up and get them to the next run of Recovery.

When the foundation is complete and cured (a concrete term), then a life free of addiction can be built on it. Nicks and cracks will come, but the tools they have acquired along the way will become the mortar that fills them in.
Rushing the process will only produce a faulty foundation, similar to the biblical story of the foolish man who built his house on the sand… It takes wisdom to build a house on a rock, and that is what the work of Recovery is for.

Holding on to NO

I must admit that over the past 10 months saying NO has gotten easier. Each time I have said it and held to it I feel more empowered. It makes it easier when the next time comes around. I have chosen to NOT enable my son any longer while actively using drugs.

No money
No living at home
No rides, other than to treatment.

I have to stand firm on this.

Now 84 days clean saying NO gets a bit more difficult. He’s not actively using and I want to do whatever I can that will truly support his Recovery.

The calls come in…

Can you help me with this…

I just need help this one time…

I have nowhere to go until tomorrow when I can get into …

Weighing each request before I answer can be tiring and frustrating, but weigh them I must. Staying one or two steps ahead of my son is very important, his recovery and his life can depend on my staying the course.

We have paid for a few things here and there, never by handing him cash, when he needed a dress shirt, pants and shoes for a job interview per the request of the Halfway House (and yes I made sure it came from them) I bought the clothes and sent them. We have allowed him to sleep on the sofa a few times when he has been in transition between places, never more than 12 hours. I always made sure he had a placement the next morning. To which I would drive him...

Saturday night I received a text from him that said

“ I really don’t want to be here, I really wish I could come home but I know that’s not an option. I want to go back to the Sober House and be close to home. I don’t want to do drugs anymore. I can’t and I won’t. I want to move on with my life, get a job. Would you help me with the first two weeks rent at the Sober House?"

Has that positive slant doesn’t it?

He was in at New Hope in Weymouth waiting for a placement at a Halfway House. Once again he wanted to skip over the next step… each time he has done that he has failed. This time though he has 84 days of being Sober behind him.

Can he make it? Will he fail?

I chose the difficult road in my response telling him to

"Hang in there, get to a Halfway House, find a job, then move on to a Sober House. Do it the right way. Take your time; get as many clean days between you and the past as you can before you try to move on with your life.”

I thought; maybe I got through to him.

But truth be told I was expecting him to run the next day.

And he did.


I’m holding on to the NO’s, and will carefully use my Yeses for the purpose of his Recovery

Recovery means: Never Put All your Eggs in One basket

Being an active observer in my son’s recovery from addiction, I have been prone to disappointment and upset. It’s part of the recovery process, moving forward three steps, and falling back one. Working the program, and walking out of them; sometimes because you’ve been asked to leave and sometimes because they chose to.

Each time he has gotten into another recovery house I’ve been on the edge of my seat, expectantly waiting for the miracle of the transformed life. Hoping that this will be the place that makes the difference. I’ve now lost count of how many times he has been in Rehabs and Recovery Houses. November 2008 seems like a lifetime ago, sending him off to that first Detox, thinking at that time; in a few months this addiction thing will be a thing of the past and he’ll move on to a successful life.

Each failure hitting me hard; each time he would relapse I’d find myself trying to dig myself out of a pit of despair. Asking myself… Why? Why didn’t this work, why didn’t he take the next step? Why? Somewhere along the way I have come to a place of peace in this storm. I’ve stopped putting all my eggs in one basket,

meaning that I’ve stopped believing that “this is the place; this will be the one program that makes all the difference”. And I am so thankful I have.

Last week my son entered Teen Challenge on Thursday, and he walked out on Monday. Barely 4 days. Teen Challenge is a great program, and I know a number of people whose lives have been radically changed because of it. Upon his entering had my mind set been

“This is the place!!!! This is where it will happen”

I would have been crushed yesterday. Instead I was filled with a peace that truly passes all understanding (mine included). My son’s recovery is not confined to any one set of four walls. I am a firm believer that for true recovery to happen my son will need to submit his life completely to God. And God is big enough that He is never confined to a set of walls.

When my son is ready, when he truly wants to put this life behind him and has hit a bottom that hurts more than the pain recovery will take, he will encounter a God who has been waiting for him and Recovery will happen now matter what Recovery house he is in.

The Shoe Has Fallen

He called me in tears, “where do I go… what do I do. I have nowhere to go”

After nearly 60 days of recovery my son had to leave the Halfway House he is in due to breaking the rules by using a prescription medication not allowed by the house. He was in such a state of panic, I had to convince him to get on the train and just start heading as far south as his train pass would take him.

Once on the train he was able to calm down and make some calls. He thought he had secured a bed back at Starr that would be available in two days. He then made the connection with a friend to stay for a few days. As the days went by, one bed after another came and went. It would seem the doors are closing all around him, each with a resounding thud, each one escalating his feelings of fear and abandonment. He is homeless and running out of options and help.

With desperate pleas he text me on Easter Eve to come home, I couldn’t let him, as much as my mother’s heart wanted to take her lost boy in, I couldn’t. I had to be another door that would close on him. His sister picked him up after her shift at the hospital giving him a nights reprieve, a shower and some family time. He came for Easter dinner but he was tentative, afraid of being rejected by all of us.

By the evenings close he was sobbing. Not knowing where he would go.

I had all I could do to remain detached, to see this as his journey; a desperate one, but his none the less. A choice had to be made, would he agree to go to Teen Challenge or would he continue to remain homeless, and struggling to remain clean. He made the call… once he was willing a door opened for a night or two’s lodging. It wouldn’t be the perfect scenario, it would still be uncomfortable and awkward, and anything more and he may not take the much needed step in front of him.

Trying to stay detached and at arm’s length is one of the most difficult things I have ever done. My heart is crying out to run in, take him back home; protect him… but I cannot, and will not disrupt what God is doing. It will be his pain and his fear of more pain that will drive him to real Recovery and I will not stand in the way.

The Shoe has fallen,

and its sound is deafening in my heart, but I will stand fast in the strength that God is making available to me, and hold on to HOPE.

Milestones

According to the online dictionary the definition of milestone is; An important event, a turning point.

I’m particularly partial to “a turning point”. A Milestone marking a place in one’s life where they have turned; turned away from a behavior, turned away from despair, turned away from addiction. Turning to something better.

Today is a Milestone in my son’s life. Today he celebrates 50 days of sobriety. 50 days after he turned away from heroin and opiate abuse. 50 days after he turned away from a life of despair, 50 days after turning away from a life where his behavior was ruled by a drug addiction.

It’s also a Milestone in my life, For 50 days I have not enabled, for 50 days I have prayed without ceasing, for 50 days I’ve let go of the control and have allowed my son to work out his own recovery. For 50 days I have been thankful that he is safe, clean, and in good company, and for 50 days I have rested in the arms of Jesus knowing that He will continue the work He has started in my son.

After 50 days it’s beginning to be a joy when I hear my son’s voice; clear, strong and focused on the future. With each passing day, another 24 hour period of distance is added between him and the life of drug abuse. As that distance grows, he will have more milestones to celebrate; 100 days clean, 1 year clean; getting a job, working through broken relationships, offering restitution. Many Milestones, many places to stop and celebrate, to place a mark and say; I will continue to move forward!

Today I celebrate 50 days of victory over addiction with my son.

The Shoe or Hope

“Waiting for the other Shoe to fall” is an old saying. Its meaning: to wait for the inevitable next step or the final conclusion. That’s where I sit right now, waiting for the other shoe to fall.

My son, has been in recovery now for 30 days and doing well in a Halfway House.

But I wait…

For the phone to ring and hear him tell me;

he’s been kicked out,

or

he failed his drug test

or

he just can’t stand it anymore.

I’ve heard all three of these in the past. Each attempt at recovery as of late has ended in failure of one sort or another. And with each of those my hope seems to fade further in the past, out of reach. I’ve become afraid of hope and afraid to hope. It almost seems safer to settle in to the acceptance of his being an addict, for its there that I’ve learned how to detach from the emotion of my love for him. It’s there that I’ve stopped the enabling, and it’s there that I gained a peace in my home that has lulled me to a place of contentment.

Gaining these things has been huge, and yet here I hang between the shoe and hope. In order to grasp a hold of Hope I need to accept that the shoe may fall. And if/when it does I don’t have to live in the despair of his failure. That’s where I’m stuck right now, thinking that hope is futile and that his failure is inevitable. I’m afraid to grasp a hold of Hope, the last time I did I fell so hard when he did. My despair was dark and deep and it took all I had to take hold of the Hand of the Almighty and let Him pull me from that pit.

Yet I want to rejoice in his recovery, 30 days is such an accomplishment from where he has been. So how can I let go of the worry of the shoe falling and remain hopeful?

Oh God help me hold onto the Hope I can have in you. Hope in another person is what is futile, but the Hope that I find in You will and can be what will never fail. Placing my hope in the One who holds the future, who holds my son’s future, who even knows when the shoe will fall, that is the Hope that will not let me go.

So let the Shoe fall where it may…

Romans 15:13 (Holman Christian Standard Bible)
13 Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit

Loving with Closed Hands.

How does a mother stop loving her son or daughter?

Is it even possible?

Do we have to stop loving them just because they have become an addict?

My heart tells me no. We can’t and we won’t.

There are times that the line between love and hate is so thin you would think you’ve come to the place of no longer loving them. But we might as well resign ourselves to the fact that we will always love them.

Loving our addicts must take on a new dimension. We cannot get caught up in the Emotion of the Love. A dear friend of mine often says “Emotions do not have brains”. Changing how we love, that desire that comes out of our hearts to fix our wounded children, needs to change. We CANNOT fix them. No matter how deeply we love them. No matter how much love we pour out on them. It will be wasted.

We will become exhausted, overwrought and empty. We will be spinning our wheels and digging a hole for ourselves. Addiction prevents them from responding to the love we are trying to pour out. We can’t expect them to act and respond like our healthy children do. So we need to love them differently, we need to love them with closed hands.

Hands that hold onto our money and no longer give it to an addict that uses it to continue their habit

Hands that hold tight to hope all the while staying in the reality of the moment. Opening those hands too soon can actually rob our addict of the Hope that is before them.

Hands that stay active in our home, loving the children that are healthy, loving our spouses who are hurting through this. Fill those hands with loving the ones who have the ability to respond.

Hands that pray… praying for our addict, praying that they will come to the very end of themselves, that they hit the bottom and have nowhere else to look but up. That they will hear God calling them out of the darkness and they will cry out to Him for strength and help.

Hands that reach out to others in the same place you are. Keeping our hands full helping to comfort another parent is good medicine for our hearts that long to fix our addicts. We can’t fix them, but we just might be able to give hope to another hurting parent.

Loving with Closed hands is foreign to us. Our making our emotional love unavailable to them for a time will be the best gift we can give them and it can very well be what brings our addicts to the place where they will be forced into recovery.

Be willing to Love with Closed Hands.