Coping with our son’s addiction - one couple’s story
Date: Friday, April 13th 2012
Categories: All Leicestershire Activities & Events Groups & Forums
We recently reported on a support group in Leicestershire called Snowdrops, that helps people living with or affected by someone else's drug or alcohol use.
A couple who have had this experience very kindly shared it with us via this letter, in the hope that it may inspire other people in a similar situation.
We'd like to thank them for their openness, honesty and wisdom and we're sure anyone reading this will agree, it'll hopefully reach out to others who are trying to cope on their own.
Our son is an addict...
What have we done to cause this?
This question kept going over and over in our minds.
We were feeling guilt, shame and isolation.
We didn’t want anyone to know about our situation.
We tried to keep up the pretence that all was well.
We stopped inviting people to our home and lost touch with friends and family members.
Our whole lives revolved around trying to cope with the everyday chaos and keeping our emotions on an even level.
Trying to keep our daily routine of work and school as well as trying to keep the addict out of trouble, by paying off his debts so that he didn’t have to steal. Ferrying him around from one appointment to another to try and find help for him. All of this was wearing us down and having a devastating effect on our marriage and well being of our other children.
We saw Snowdrops advertised in the local paper but couldn’t bring ourselves to go to the group. We didn’t want to be judged, we might meet someone we knew. Looking back I wished we had plucked up the courage to go then, it could have saved us a lot of heartache. Two or three years down the line we met two members of the group who invited us to an open evening where we met lots of lovely people all experiencing similar problems.
At Snowdrops we found support, advice and most of all people who were willing to listen when we were ready to talk and nobody judged us.
We now understand we can’t change our son but we can change the way we react to him. We can still be there for him without enabling him and when he’s ready to change his life we will be ready to support him.
We want this letter to be anonymous because we still don’t feel comfortable with people knowing our situation.
At Snowdrops everyone is known only by their first names and what is said in the group stays in the group.
Click here to find out more about Snowdrops
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