Member-only story
The Crash and Burn of the Addicted
And the lives of those who love them
I know more people who have family members with addictions than I ever wanted to. Intimate knowledge of the pain and suffering experienced by those who struggle and their family members.
Before the pandemic closed down in-person meetings, I attended a support group made up of family members, mostly mothers who gathered in a room at a local community hall. We all shared a common story: someone close to us was living with an addiction.
We spoke of our children, partners or siblings; their journeys and ours. All of our kids were adults, some as old as fifty. A few of these parents, mostly mothers, had been chasing a better outcome for their family members for decades.
For some that chase was literal. They climbed in their cars and looked for their adult child under bridges, outside shelters, and on corners where they knew they panhandled. They delivered food and tried to reach out. Never giving up.
One of them did this almost every day. Her marriage had died, and her husband was not able to cope with the loss of not just his son, but his wife. Her inability to go on with her life in the way he wanted her to; be someone there for him and not just a woman who woke up every day with a passion that he no longer was part of.
