We Need To Stop Making Excuses

As parents we get caught up in a world of addiction that none of us really fully understand.

Today is the day that we have to stop making all the excuses. 

Believe me. I know. As a parent it is hard to understand and it's hard to stop making excuses for our loved ones behavior.

As one parent to another it is time to stop the denial. 

Stop denying the mistakes that our kids make. They are called mistakes for a reason. As hard as it is as a parent we have to allow our kids to make them. Sometimes their mistakes lead to making bad choices.

The mess left will be their mess to clean up in the end. So be it. That is a life lesson.

How will they learn lessons? How will they grow from the mistakes they have made?

And YES, this also means even if they are using and abusing heroin or other drugs. Even if they have fallen into that bottomless pit.

We as parents have to allow them to hit that bottom. We have to allow them that fall. I know that is hard. They will never find their bottom as long as we parents are giving them the means to stay in their addiction.

Our kids will never be able to explain it nor why they ever tried heroin so we have to stop pressing them for that answer. Our kids will never be able to explain why they repeated mistakes even when they knew the hole they were digging was too big for them to ever climb out of.

They can never explain it, BUT we have to allow them to STOP making excuses. We as parents have to stop making excuses for their addictive behaviors. It starts with stopping the enabling. We cannot ever expect them to reach their bottom when we are throwing them the rope. We have to allow them to own it.

We have to allow that no one ever forced them to do anything they didn't want to do. Yes they were no doubt influenced. Yes they were probably manipulated into it, but in the end our kids said, YES!

Rather than making excuses for them, not blaming everyone including yourself, there comes a time that we have to make them (or allow them)... own it! We as parents have to show them that they are being held accountable.

They don't have to explain it, but they do have to learn from it!

Now, you might wonder why this is so important?

Holding our sons, daughters or loved one accountable is forcing them from the victim mentality of the disease and will allow them the challenge gaining victor mentality over their addiction.

It will put them back in control of their life.

Those in recovery should rise up to the challenge and be empowered. Know you are worth it! Being a victor in this disease will help them in their first steps of recovering from this disease.

We as the parents need to stop with the victim mentality and take control over our own lives. We as parents need to take on the victor mentality by realizing that our child can recover from this disease and be free of the disease of addiction. We have to allow this in order for recovery and healing for ourselves.


We as the parents are in control of your own lives but by realizing all of this we in fact are on the first step of healing ourselves.

© 2016 Gossip Girl

Let's Be Honest: The Do's and Don't of Dealing With an Active User

Let's be honest for a moment. Stop what you are doing, close your eyes, and think about your addict for a moment. Maybe you just found out that someone you love is using. If so, you are at the right place to find information. At the very top of this blog you will see a tab called, Treatment/ Recovery Assistance. Click on the link to

Things I've Learned From An Addict

Any lessons I've learned have proven to be due to getting caught up in the tangled web of enabling adult kids.

Are we the only parents who have a couple of kids who...

We flinch when the phone rings and we see it is one of our kids?

OR

Have kids who act as though we have nothing to do but wait on them to call because they need us to do something for them?

Only call when they want something? Mostly just money

They need cigarettes, gas for their car- they are unemployed and looking for work- really!

Act as though we have hit it big in the lottery? OR We have chickens laying golden nuggets?

Think that when they need money, we should have it to give them?

Paying for or funding a vehicle?

I have over the years loaned out two vehicles to one of the kids- He didn't have a vehicle and I wanted to help. We worked at the same place and he left me stranded without a ride to work on many occasions. I was also paying the insurance each and every month. He left it on the side of road abandoned  when the head gasket blew and I had to have it towed home.

When he returned my car it was totally gone- motor destroyed- he forgot to add fluids.

Another vehicle he put in his name. Never leave the title of your car in the glove box when you loan a car out.

And just last year I bought him a car because he was crying he wouldn't have a way to work. The day after- he wrecked it- and never returned to his job.

Although he asked me and begged me- I have never added a line to my phone for him. BECAUSE...

Twice for two adult children they asked to be added to our car insurance and they would pay over and beyond the payment we were paying. That never happened.

Providing a place to live?

If this includes crashing at my house on my couch- then yes- many, many, times over the years.

Bailing them out of jail?

Oh yes- this time he had the bail money but I got wrangled into signing the bond.

I can't do this anymore!

I have learned to give them food and feed them when they are hungry. Put a little gas in their gas tank yourself if you want to. Don't give in to money for any reason. What if the money you give them is the last high they get before they die from an overdose?

Get help from others. Call Help 4WV. Go to a NarAnon meeting. Reach out to the groups in the community on Facebook. Seeking professional help for your loved one will save their life.

By all means try to get your loved one into treatment. Addiction is a treatable disease. People do recover and they get better from it. The road is long but with the proper foundation in place and positive people in their lives they will long productive lives.

When you have to answer that phone ask your loved one if they are ready for treatment.

Treat it like the disease it is. Hoping your loved one will just stop or just say no will never work. When you start treating addiction like the disease that it is and you remove the crutch which is your enabling you will find it will become much easier to talk to your loved one about getting treatment.

With a good treatment plan in action this disease is treatable for life!

Update: I am Addicted To The Addict

We are twelve years into our sons heroin addiction. We've used words like addict, addiction for a very long time.

I just recently realized that I am addicted to our addict. I concentrate all my energy and focus all my attention on words like controlling the addict and fixing the addict. Seeking everyday ways to

When Someone You Love Makes Bad Choices

Restoring The Sanity Back Into Our Lives

Well, I can say I am finally there. Step Two of Nar Anon is:

Believing that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

Yes I admit it. I love an addict and surrounded my entire life with the emotions associated with the addict in our life. Anger, hurt, resentments and grudge- just to name a few. Loving our addict has occupied a significant amount of time, energy and YES thought. The thoughts are based entirely on the addict I love and on fixing him.

If I could just fix him that means I can change him, right?

Soon all of this manifested into a total obsession around our
addict. This obsession hasn't allowed time for anything else. In admitting we were powerless it opened the window of time to fill that void. We are as addicted to our addict as he is to heroin. Just how in the world did things get this messed up?

That realization is that loving our addict we have accepted that we were less sane because of the insanity addiction and our own personal addict we love and all that it has created in our lives.

All of the focus has been on, What If we did this or that?  This has now become a normal routine in our lives. We didn't realize that we have focused that much time, attention and energy. Now we are drained. All that I am aware of now is the negative energy and the oppression around my life and our home.

The insanity and challenges of doing the same thing over and over again repetitively and expecting something different to change have left me with what I call, carpal tunnel of the brain. I do believe in a Higher Power but the focus on our addict caused so many questions, like Why Us? Why Are We Having To Go Through This? We were all created for a purpose what purpose is there in addiction?

After eleven years of dealing with heroin abuse and this crazy ride on the Addiction Tilt-A-Wheel ride in some amusement park, I didn't want to be at in the first place somewhere along the way I lost belief of returning any sanity to our lives.

There was no way ever that I was going to accept our son's addiction as some, Que' Sera Sera. Whatever will be, will be. But then I had to realize the rest of the words to that song says, The future's not ours to see.

There it was right there in front of me the whole time.

I didn't realize that in asking so many questions and being faced with all of the doubts and uncertainties of this addiction that I have lost some faith along the way. Faith that our addict can recover from this hold heroin has on his life right now.

In this release, I have had to realize that spirituality comes to us in many forms. In accepting that there is a Higher Power that can restore our sanity I have had to keep an open mind. Along with the Nar-Anon Promise, We will not regret the past, nor wish to shut the door on it.

In these eleven years, I have held tightly onto anger, hurt, resentment and grudge. This was my retreat whenever I felt threatened to let go. That too is another step I will need to cross in time.

This week I've been doing Nar-Anon Challenges with our group leaders, Tina and Lisa and didn't realize that the answer was right in front of me the whole time.

I have released the powers of anger, hurt, resentment and grudge. In doing this I had to change my prayers. Instead of praying for a change to come to the addict we love, I prayed for a change in my own life.

I cannot control yesterday. It is just a memory now. I cannot control tomorrow because tomorrow isn't even promised to me. I can only control today. I will make the best of everything I do today even if it is just for right now.

And as the saying goes...

Now that I am pushed to the edge I have to trust Him. Only two things can happen now. Either He will catch me when I fall, or He will teach me how to fly!

Heavenly Father,
I know in my heart that only you can restore me to sanity. I humbly ask that you remove all twisted thought and addictive behavior from me this day.

Heal my spirit & restore in me a clear mind. I pray for an open mind so I may come to believe in a Power greater than myself. I pray for humility & the continued opportunity to increase my faith and allow me just one day at a time.

The Insanity of Loving A Heroin Addict
© 2016 Gossip Girl

This Is For Kyle and Carrie

This is for Kyle and Carrie. This song is a big reminder. Our son Kyle had a very good woman who stood by his side for as long as she could. He had a nice life and he let it all go for his abusing drugs.


Kyle,

I just don't get it. I guess it isn't for me to understand. Whenever I hear this song it reminds me of  you and Carrie. Kyle, I told you several years ago when you first met Carrie after all of the bad years in a toxic marriage of using and abusing drugs with your ex. I told you that diamonds are rare and that when you find a diamond, it a treasure to find one. Keep that diamond close to you always because they sometimes only come once in your lifetime.

Carrie,

We wish for all the world when you first knew that he was having trouble maintaining sobriety and had started using and abusing again that you would have reached out to us instead of hiding behind it for a year and a half. We may or may not have been able to intercede at that time. We cannot look back on the shoulda done, the coulda done and the woulda done now.

Loving an addict is a lonely place to be. You continue to care about them while they continue to prove how little they care about themselves and care only for their addiction to the drug. Eventually you have to walk away just to save yourself. We understand why you couldn't hang on.

~His Parents~

For The Co-Dependant

The word co-dependency often doesn't mean that you use drugs together. A co-dependent can be anyone who loves the person with the addiction. Sometimes even when you know what is going on in the others life you remain in denial and believe you can fix it.

Often you just have no choice but to walk away....