With all my heart, blessings to you. You are not alone. We, too, have an errant child, and are facing behavior from him we would never believe if we weren’t seeing it with our own eyes. What the hell happened? This can’t possibly be our life, our child. There is shame, guilt, embarrassment, feelings of failure….does the list ever end? And yes, a part of us dies every time we hear how fantastic others’ children are doing. Mostly in this situation we feel so completely helpless and useless. We’re doing our best, and our best seems woefully inadequate…but then in brief and fleeting moments I realize how incredibly strong I must be to have made it through the last 24 hours. You, too, have made it through the last 24 hours or days or weeks, against all odds. Breathe, baby, breathe!! Sometimes that is our best.

I went on twitter today & saw your post. Of course I clicked the link to read what you referring to. I sit here crying my eyes out for you & Sean, I say a prayer that a miracle awakening & healing of Sean’s emotions will occur. (as well as yours) I feel your anguish deep in my soul. For you have been such a friend to me & a major part of my own wellness journey. Oh how I would love to be able to return the blessings back to you. I understand what you are saying only in a different perspective. Living in an addicted household in one shape or form all of my life, I know, I know. I pray for my children, that they won’t get caught up in the terrible addiction trap. Some of them play with weed. I worry & let them know it’s not a good idea. But they don’t listen, they know so much more, so they think. I pray it never goes beyond that. I pray more they will wake up & leave it alone. The family genetics & history paint a grim picture. All we can do is love & pray while never giving up hope for another day with a new beginning.

I’m glad you realize you aren’t alone. In fact I think you have more company than you even know everyday on the shows… You touch lives & you know this. I salute your courage in bearing all this so the rest of those who enter our world may understand. Perhaps one who is suffering in their silence will come along & realize they aren’t alone, & it will give comfort on some level.

I love you my friend, & will keep you both in my prayers.

Namaste’

Valerie

I am sorry to hear that Sean has mde the choice to return to drugs. What is true of the jail is also true for the psychiatric hospitals. On any given day, at least 86-92% of the population are either dually diagnosed with mental illness and drug addiction, or are strictly in there after coming to the attention of the authorities for some impulsive or bizarre behavior, that is totaly the result of drugs. They say they hate the hospital, yet they continue to frequent the psych wards and the jails daily. It is not the answer, I know, but there isn’t much out there that will help. Also, it is up to them to want to quit. I keep hearing that, but the availability of substances is too great. The ones I know that have quit, literally had to change their whole group of buddies and move. I know that the darker side is always out there and apparently easy to find. It seems that in order to keep your own habit going, you have to sell something. Sometimes it seems like an endless loop.

I do think you need to recognize all the folks that you have helped and know that it will take someone else with their own set of special gifts to help Sean. I am sure that your nights are long and frought with fear for him. I do believe that there is a cure out there and that researchers are working on figuring out how to turn the addicted side of the brain off. It just can’t seem to come fast enough. My thoughts are with you and know that going public with this crisis is the right thing to do.

Love, patience, and peace,
~Lisa

I know this because my family has been through it. My nephew Daniel died from accidental overdose when he took a prescribed sleeping pill after an evening when he used heroin. The combined dose sent him to sleep forever. He had just turned 18.

He started using illegal drugs when he was 13, at least we think it was around then. Prior to that he was a problem child, diagnosed with ODD and treated with ADHD type prescription drugs to get him through school. He refused to go to school anymore when he was 14.

We tried to help him and he tried to beat his addiction. Now 2 years later, we are still raw with grief, we never really thought we’d lose him. Even knowing how young he was and how much he had to deal with, we thought we had time. We were told by so many people, it is his problem, you can do nothing, he has to do it himself.

In the last 2 years I have thought about that more and more. Did we do enough? Should we have had him locked up and bootcamp him to recovery? I read Kate Holden’s “In my skin” this helped me to see life from their point of view. I wish I had not shook my head and looked so sadly at him, I wish I had tried to make our time together extremely happy. They love us and their guilt and shame makes them avoid us because they know they will betray us. They know we love them but they too feel powerless.

But what I most wonder about is homeopathy. My sister is very conventional. I was the wild one, I explored alternative therapies such as self hypnosis and I was helped by homeopathy. Due to this, in the nicest of possible ways, my sister thinks I am a “flake”.

Knowing what she thought of “flaky” things, although I suggested homeopathy to her, I never pushed it or actually tried to take any control to make my nephew try a therapy like this. We hang back because there are other dynamics happening and I don’t know if this is the right or wrong thing to do.

I was hesitant to write this because its a terrible thing to say to someone worried about their son dealing with addiction, that your own problem child didn’t make it through. But if Daniels death has taught me anything it is to strive your hardest to avert tradgedy in any way possible.

So with respect and the deepest sympathy, I bring this to your attention. Homeopathy has a strange ability to change people’s outlooks. Look into it with an open mind and feel free to contact me if you want more info from me.

I urge you not to ignore your driving need to protect your son and to do whatever you feel you need to do to save him, because however hard life is with him, his loss would be far worse.

It may well be, as they say, that no one can do anything. That personal change has to come from the person. We can only try and help, that is all any of us can do. Your hypnosis has helped me immensely, thank you for being who you are. I sincerely apologise for I know this will cause you distress.

My thoughts are with you and I too wish you strength.
Julie

Wendi, you are an amazing woman and mother. Thank you for shining a light on this terrible problem and bringing it out into the open. I know you are a strong leader in this fight – you have my uptmost admiration.

I send you love and peace,
Sue