Drug Addiction Stories & Info

Most of us learn how to be a mother by example. Naturally, as we are growing up, we learn from watching our own mother. How she acts, reacts and generally lives plays a big part in what kind of parent we ultimately become. I, like many others, learned how to be an alcoholic mother. I am not myself an alcoholic. In fact, I have consciously avoided alcohol much of my life because I saw what it did to both of my parents. However, since my mom was an alcoholic, that is the example I had to draw upon when I became a parent.

As an adult, I cannot “blame” my own mother for my parenting mistakes. I can, however, understand how and why I made many of the decisions which affected my parenting. The irrationality that IS alcoholism was a big part of my decision making process as a parent. Interestingly, I made just as many  mistakes trying not to be like my own mother.

I must point out that my own mother was a success in many ways. She was a financial genius. She was also brilliant when it came to investments, and was a top notch bookkeeper for some very influential people. So, in many ways, she was a very unique person, especially given the fact that she was indeed an alcoholic. I never want anyone to think of my mother as a “bad” person. She just had one very bad practice, and that was substance abuse. Sadly, that is something I simply could not understand as a child. She was just “Mom”.

That being said… it was the basis of many decisions I made and actions I took being a parent. I learned to over-react, disassociate and continue the dysfunction. I learned to avoid confrontation, which is something my mother thrived on. As a result, I never learned how to effectively communicate with my own children. Again, my mother’s influence also had a positive affect in that I did learn how to communicate with outsiders and business people… just not family.

My mother loved her children. Of that, I have no doubt. I didn’t think she did when I was younger, but I am wiser now and understand much more. By the same respect, I know that my own children have suffered as an ultimate result of alcoholism. I loved (and love) my children, some of whom are grown, with all of my heart. I guess I just wasn’t very good at showing them many times. I did try, however, to hug and otherwise show affection to them, which was lacking in my own mother/daughter relationship.

I don’t blame my mother. I do, however, to some extent blame alcohol and drugs. My mother was an alcoholic who also was very fond of codeine. I can still remember that huge bottle of codeine being in our linen closet next to the bathroom. Back then, the dangers of codeine were not as well known, and it was very easy to obtain. I also remember that my parents had a “beer refrigerator”. They had a separate refrigerator for their alcohol. Of course, when I was young, I didn’t realize that was odd.

Physically and mentally, I believe I have many signs of being the child of an alcoholic. I was the youngest, and evidence points to the fact that my mother drank throughout her pregnancy with me. Doctors and Psychiatrists have gone over with me how that ultimately effected my brain development. Back when I was young, however, there was no ADHD or other conditions. One was either normal, or different. I was “different”. Many have also told me that the youngest child of two alcoholics often becomes a psychotic. Thankfully, that is not what happened with me. Thankfully, I also did not become an alcoholic, a fate which has already begun to affect more than one of my children.

I’ve long since forgiven my mother, who is now deceased. I understand much more about alcoholism and drug addiction, and have done a lot of reflection and investigation into my own actions and feelings. Alcoholism has greatly affected me, and my family. I can’t use that as an excuse to justify my own mistakes, but it helps to understand them. One of my own daughters is now a Mother. I worry how alcoholism will interfere with her parenting.
If wishes were rainbows, the world would be beautiful. However, the realities are that wishes don’t change much. I wish my own mother had gotten rehab at some point in her life. I wish I had gotten help with dealing with being a child of two alcoholics. I wish I had done a lot of things differently with my own children. What I CAN do is forgive, which I have done. I can also educate myself and others on the dangers of alcoholism and how it affects families. I can apologize to my own children, and try to explain. Actions do speak louder than words. Sadly, substance abuse is an action that far too many parents choose.

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These reflexions from a mother was brought to you by Narconon Trois Rivières. To know more about Narconon and what it is doing to help resolve the drug problem in our society, please visit narconon.org.

If you need help to beat a drug or alcohol addiction, please call 1-877-782-7409 to learn what are your different recovery options.

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People thought I had it all. No, that’s not true. People probably didn’t think anything at all. I was just a co-worker, just a neighbor, just the woman who came into the grocery store at the same time every Thursday evening and the liquor store at the same time every Friday afternoon after work. My shyness could probably be traced back to junior high. I never quite fit in. I wasn’t one of those kids who got picked on, I didn’t even rate that much attention. 

I can not recall ever really having a date. I was 26 and just going through the motions of living, waiting for Friday so I could indulge all weekend in my rum and coke, usually more rum than coke as I began buying two big bottles every Friday instead of one.

I’m not sure when I began sneaking a couple of shots into my carrying cup. I’d get a coke from the vending machine and enjoy the drink for as long as it lasted. No one noticed, that’s how invisible I was to everyone. Then my boss asked me if I could stay late for a few days one week to finish up the finer points of a presentation he needed set up for a board meeting the following Tuesday.

I was touched that he liked my work enough to pick me till his assistant caught me in the break room and thanked me also. “I have plans all weekend so I suggested you since I knew you had no family or anything.”

Those words hurt but I just smiled and went on. I was not going to be able to make it to the liquor store that Friday so I stopped in on Thursday after work. I drank some rum and coke Friday evening while working on the presentation and really didn’t feel affected. Saturday was a different story. The more I thought about how I was at work while everyone else was off somewhere with people who wanted to be with them, the more I drank. I stumbled through offices ranting and raving. I cried and apparently messed up my boss’s assistant’s desk.

Some where along the way, I passed out. My boss found me. He had stopped by to see how the presentation was coming along. Needless to say I was fired. I was also charged with public intoxication but the charges were dropped in exchange for mandatory counseling.

I have friends now. They are in my support group. I have a new job, too. Just yesterday, two of the girls at work asked if I wanted to go to lunch this coming Friday with them. My therapy and support group not only helped me with my alcoholism but it gave me some self confidence as well.  I don’t feel alone anymore.

Sometimes I see it over and over in my mind. My family does not understand so I do not bother to try to explain it to them. They do not know how it feels to have a friend literally die in your arms, a buddy who would and did risk his life for his unit, who sacrificed his life for his unit. Even now, after being home for nearly two years, I can not sleep sometimes because I see his face, his final smile telling me to hang in there.

Sometimes I am told I am a hero because I went to war. Yet when I seek treatment for the nightmares and headaches, when I try to talk it out, when I take a chance on letting someone get close to me, I feel like I am being judged. My family tells me I am not but I am. I am judging myself and I am not coming out on the good side of it.

My mother does not look the other way when I go on drinking binges. She does not let me get away with it. She sought help for me, first through the VA and when that did not help, then through a treatment center. She would not let me fail myself as I felt I had failed my buddy by not dying in his stead.

When the humvee exploded that day, we all felt it but only he died. The headaches began that night but I shook them off. How do I go see the medic over a lousy headache when my buddy lost his life? How do I forget that day? I don’t.

I remember feeling like I just wanted to die. People were going about their daily lives here at home and yet my buddy never would again. I was going about my life. How fair was that?  I began drinking to forget.  I couldn’t.  Still, I drank more and more, hoping I could at least pass out and not have to deal with the nightmares. 

Still, my mother would not let it go. Sometimes I think if our mothers went to war to defend us, there would be a lot less casualties on our side because mothers will fight with a vengeance to protect their children. When moms go to war, they make things happen.  When it became apparent that I had turned into an alcoholic, my mother did just that: she went to war on a new enemy: alcoholism.

I have been clean about six months now. My mother takes me to Alcoholics Anonymous and sits in the car reading while I am in my meetings. She is helping me with my VA case and encouraging me as I return to school. She reminds me of what I keep forgetting: that she had a son over there, too, and that he is worth saving.

Thanks, Mom. I love you.