Addicted Like Me (11 page)

I began to think in capital letters: WOW. I had actually received permission to be happy and let go of worrying and the fear of being angry. I decided it might not be such a bad idea to try that out, and I gave myself permission to let go. I made plans with Bob and other friends during this time. I went shopping, to the movies, and for hikes, and everything was wonderful. Updates came about Lauren's progress. “She is opening up a little, but she has a long way to go,” I heard. It wasn't quite the miracle turnaround I had hoped for, but it was only the first week. Two days later I got the news that we did have a long way to go, indeed. Her counselor confessed Lauren had run away. During group she was confronted on her sobriety date, because other kids in the group felt she was being dishonest. Lauren got angry and ran out the door and across the street to the convenience store, where she was making phone calls when the executive director of the residential house confronted her. I couldn't imagine this story was going to be the start of another failure for us. No. It would have been too painful. “She decided to come back, but she is really upset,” her counselor said. “Things are very shaky with her right now. We will keep you updated.”
So much for my fun and happy times,
I thought to myself.

Fear washed over me when this occurred with Lauren. I had been getting way too comfortable. I began to get anxious again about
what was going to happen next, yet there was nothing I could do about it. The day after Lauren ran away the first time, I received a second call from the residential facility. “I am sorry to tell you that Lauren ran away again today, and we just let her go this time. We'll be contacting you to let you know about your refund amount.” I hurried to say, “Wait! You mean you're not going to try to talk her into coming back?” The voice at the other end of the line said no. Where the bottom will be really is the addict's own choice. I was told that for Lauren to return again, it would have to be her decision. This devastated me. I feared she would never make the choice to return, and if I couldn't force her to go back, I didn't know what options were left for us. My heart raced, and I felt like I couldn't breathe. I closed the door to my office, and I got down on my knees to find my center, begging, “Please . . . Lauren needs the courage to go back, and if not, help me to accept this choice and give me strength.”

I made a call to my sponsor at that point, to get the support I needed over the phone. I spent the afternoon working, praying, and thinking. I could no longer support Lauren in her decisions if she stayed away from treatment, and I readied myself to tell her that she was no longer welcome in my home. I was really worried and very sad. All I did that day was get by. Just before I left work for the day, my phone rang. It was Lauren. “Hi, Mom, I'm at home,” she said. “I left the program today, but don't worry, I decided to go back.” My heart felt a surge of hope. I considered whether Lauren's choice to leave the residential house, as hard as it had been for me, actually might have been a good thing. Instead of being forced into treatment, Lauren had made the decision to choose recovery for herself.
I learned that she had called the counseling office, and they had asked her to phone me and tell me to bring Lauren to the coffee shop that night. “Okay,” I told her when I heard the plan. “I will be home in a while.”

No sooner had I hung up than the phone rang again. Her counselor had called me, to confirm that Lauren wanted to come back and that her group planned to meet Lauren at the coffee shop. However, the counselor added, “We are not just going to take her back. She is going to have to make some commitments to the group about sobriety and honesty. If she is not willing to do that, then she will not be welcome. This is not going to be an easy night for her.” I thanked her for this information and finalized the plan to bring Lauren to the twelve-step center at the agreed-upon time. Bob and I went together to drop her off. We waited at the coffee shop while the group took Lauren into the therapy room to talk. When she came out, she looked pale and shook-up. “I'm going back with them,” she said. I told her I loved her, and Bob and I left. A week later I received an update call, confirming that Lauren was doing incredibly well. I listened for a sign of trouble in her counselor's voice, but there wasn't that sound. “She has done a complete turnaround. She is telling her story and getting honest.”

I couldn't believe what I had heard. I started to cry at the news of each additional detail. “Not only has she decided to be sober, she has also decided to give up all of her drug friends and is writing a letter to her boyfriend to break up with him. This was her idea and decision. We didn't even bring it up. We are very excited for her.” So many emotions took me over as I listened. I felt gratitude, relief, joy,
and elation. I could barely speak. I thanked the counselor and got off the phone. I saw Lauren that night at the coffee shop, after our meetings, and I was amazed. I noticed she was smiling and hugging people. You couldn't miss her across the room. She looked happy, and her face was glowing. When she saw me she yelled, “Mom!” I knew I had my daughter back. It was time for us to start up from the bottom. When she reached me, Lauren hugged me, told me that she loved me, and said she wanted to introduce me to some of her new friends. We held each other that night and cried together. I told her I loved her. That night, I was very proud to be her mom.

AFTER LAUREN REENTERED the residential house, our lives did not immediately turn around. Addiction causes a ripple effect for everyone who is involved. Problems that Lauren created early on began to unfold on us before they vanished on our shore of recovery. The coast was clear at least for Ryan to come home. I was happy and relieved to be able to have him back. He stayed busy at the twelve-step center with meetings, hanging out at the coffee shop, and running around town having fun with kids from the teen group. I actually didn't see him very often, and for the first time that felt okay.

The twelve-step program provided a lot of structure for the kids. Sunday was the only day during the week when there wasn't something major going on with the group. The counselors encouraged me to use Sunday as our family day, and I did so by always making an effort to do something fun with Lauren and Ryan. Sometimes their new friends would come along. It seemed there was always someone coming to the house for something, to pick up one of the kids or drop one off. I even had a stocked shelf in the refrigerator and a cupboard in the kitchen with food and snacks because I would often come home from work and find a group of young people at our home watching television, playing cards, or just sitting around talking. They were all so enthusiastic. It was contagious, and I loved being around them. The teens called me Mom. These kids were respectful and considerate and treated all the parents in our group the same way they treated me. There was rarely an occasion when the kids from twelve-step weren't willing to help out or clean up after themselves.

Bob and I attended parent meetings together during this time, continuing to show up for coffee afterward. I loved being in the atmosphere of the twelve-step coffee shop, because of the positive way kids interacted with adults. That amazing experience I had encountered on the first night I was exposed to this group became my daily reality after Lauren went back to inpatient and Ryan was back with us. This was such a drastic contrast to the way our lives had been previous to this program. Life seemed almost surreal. I saw Lauren on the nights we went to the coffee shop. Every time I saw her, it seemed that she had become happier and more content
with the decision she had made to be sober. I still sometimes felt panicky, fearing that something bad was going to happen. It felt like I was a survivor of trauma. Everything was suddenly better by this point, but I still had subconscious feelings of panic that sobriety for my kids was all going to end up being just a dream. I didn't want to wake back up to the nightmare of our legacy of addiction.

My sponsor encouraged me to allow myself to experience the joy of this time in my life, and to connect with my sense of relief, but she also cautioned me that life was not going to become suddenly perfect. Early sobriety carries challenges, in large part due to unresolved issues about trust and self-confidence and the strings that an addict must cut from former relationships. I needed to start learning to trust Lauren and remember that things had happened with her exactly as they were supposed to. I didn't think she would go back to her old life at that point, but who knew? I also suspected that her old friends would come looking for her—our ripple effect. It was an easy decision to change our phone to an unlisted number, even though Lauren had broken her ties to these people. I put my feet on the ground with all this knowledge, just as my counselor suggested, and chose to live one day at a time.

We had to address Ryan's habit of stealing. I noticed something shiny under his bed one day when I walked by his room. I took a closer look, and I found a stash of very expensive power tools. I called my sponsor to tell her and to ask for guidance. She gave me some advice, telling me to go to Ryan directly and set a time line for the removal of the stolen things from my house. I followed through. When I saw Ryan at the coffee shop on the day I found the tools, I
pulled him aside for a chat. I informed him I found property in his bedroom that did not belong to us. I told Ryan I wanted it removed from our home within twenty-four hours. He looked at me wide-eyed, with the color draining from his face, and said okay. Bob and I spotted Ryan sitting outside with his sponsor when we left. They were having a private talk, and Ryan looked pretty shook-up. The following evening I arrived home to find Ryan and his sponsor pulling out of our driveway, with the car loaded up with the tools. I heard later through the grapevine that they had returned the equipment to a construction site, where it had originally been taken from.

It felt good to see we were finding new solutions as a family to former, destructive patterns. I had done the right thing by talking to Ryan to let him know I found the stolen property, and setting a time line for it to be removed had caused him to react. He had done the right thing by working through the issue with the help of his sponsor and returning the equipment. Neither of us resorted to panicking or yelling during the incident. It was one of the first times that I realized I could give a problem to my child to solve instead of taking that problem on as my own, which only forced a solution that never allowed a chance for Lauren or Ryan to play a successful role they could be proud about.

Encouraging things also happened in my dynamics with Lauren. About a month into her inpatient stay, I received a phone call from her counselor to tell me that a special time had been made for me to sit in on a counseling session with Lauren, at which she could make amends for her past behavior. This was a special session every kid in the program was able to have, when the time
was right. Because Lauren had made huge strides after her return to the residential house, she had been chosen to be the first person to have this type of meeting. I went alone, because I felt Lauren might be uncomfortable having Bob there. At that time he was sort of playing the role of dad to the kids, but to them he was still just my boyfriend. I didn't have a chance to ask Rick if he would have liked to go. In the time after Ryan had stopped living with his dad in Cottonwood, I hadn't heard much from Rick. He had been sent to prison for driving under the influence again.

When I arrived at the residential house for Lauren's session, I was taken into a room first, to meet privately with the founder of the program. He told me that he was excited about Lauren's progress. He explained the purpose of the meeting and told me to be open and to listen to what she had to say. He also asked after me. The founder was blunt and asked if I had a problem with alcohol or drugs. I told him no. I let him know that I was at the point with my drinking where I had only an occasional couple of glasses of wine. He seemed satisfied with this answer. Something in my head went off after I finished what I had to say, however. I felt an alert that I should reconsider my answer and say more, so I did. I told the founder about my past history, and his eyes got wide. I continued, “Well, there was that time that I almost died when I overdosed on crystal meth at the age of eighteen.” He slapped his open palm loudly on the table and said, “You need to be sober!” I was dumbfounded. I didn't think I was totally sober but I still hadn't been aware that I might be an addict, too. It stunned me to face the possibility and weight of this revelation.

I knew I had been a child of an addict, and that I had married one, but I never once considered that I might be one after all the changes I had made. I drank moderately, but I didn't binge like I had in the past. I didn't abuse alcohol and hadn't touched an illegal drug in years. This confusion was all over my face. The founder noticed it and said, “Let me give you an example. You are at a party and you have had your two or three glasses of wine. You go upstairs to use the bathroom and walk by a bedroom where they are cutting out lines of crystal meth. What are you going to do?” I didn't think that story was very likely to happen in my life any longer, but I really could not tell him I was sure that if it did I wouldn't be drawn back to my former habit. Relapse happens to addicts. I promised to quit on my own one time, and it was only one night out drinking with friends that had taken me back into doing drugs. I had to admit I had had major problems with drugs and alcohol in the past. I didn't have anything to lose by giving them up altogether.

It was the next step in my family's journey for all of us to be completely sober and clean. I said okay to the founder, and that day now marks my sobriety date. It was a surprise when it happened, that like Lauren did that night, I also made some intense confessions. I went to my session with her and was led into a room with the other kids in her inpatient group. Ten kids were there, and Lauren addressed us all. She told me how sorry she was for all that she had put me through. She said she had been hard at work on herself by staying sober and making sure her actions were clean. She communicated that she was willing to “stick with winners” now and was in the process of changing the people
she surrounded herself with. Lauren told me that night that she wanted our relationship to be better. She was working to earn back my trust. So much more had happened to us both than I was expecting when I arrived at the session.