I am a mother of an addict.  I am a mother to a 24 year old gift from God.  I am a mother to a handsome, funny, intelligent, sensitive, respectful young man.  I am a mother to a person I love with all that is in me but is often a person I don’t know or even like at times.  I am a mother of an addict.

That’s not all I am but more times than not, I am consumed with this aspect of my life.

I am also a mother to two beautiful, smart, funny 30-something daughters with children, husbands, homes, careers.  Although we are all best friends and talk almost everyday, I know I have neglected them in the last 5 years since heroin first entered our lives.

I am also a wife, an employee, a manager, a friend and a world-class co-dependent.

Throughout this journey of my son’s addiction, I have pondered a way to express myself freely and openly. Yes I have family and friends and even groups of other mothers that I connect with on a sporadic basis, but this life doesn’t afford you constant shoulders to cry on or ears that will listen.  Others are there in the beginning but if you know anything about the roller coaster of addiction, others just don’t want to keep hearing about it.  Most don’t understand.  Most have opinions and emotions that can be hurtful or they just get tired of hearing the same stories of recovery and relapse or the next crisis that has been created surrounding your child.  So it leaves us Mothers very alone.  Even if we have the most fulfilling lives and loving families and great friends, being the mother of an addict is so very lonely.

So here I am.  My own place.  I can write what I feel as often as I want.  My hope is that others will feel free to do the same and somehow we find comfort in each other’s situations.  If nothing else, we somehow find comfort in knowing we are not alone.  There really won’t be any constant theme here.  I imagine I will write with fear, love, anger, stress, faith, hope, sadness.  Nothing here is meant to offend.  Everything here is purely opinion, feelings, experience and all done with respect.

As time goes on, this section may change as I learn more and more about myself and how this disease of addiction molds our lives.  In the meantime, I hope you come back.