- Drugs
- Friends & Family
Submitted by: Susanne Johnson
Lily was 16 years old when she found out that her mom struggled with addiction. It was really hard for her at first. “I felt that I didn’t have a parent anymore,” she says in our interview. The family had underestimated the severity of Lily’s mother’s addiction and had little knowledge in how to deal with the problem.
Lily’s mother was addicted to crack and nobody knew what to do about it. The family believed that if her children knew about her drug use, it would be enough for her to stop the drugs. But of course that was not the case and it never happened.
Lily’s mother tried hard to stop the drugs as best as she could, but the addiction was stronger than her will to be a good mother. She had no chance to escape the addiction on her own and kept relapsing. A year after the family found out about her drug consumption, she relapsed again and was gone for a couple days and nobody knew where she was.
“It does not really matter how much she loved us,” Lily added, “the drugs are so much stronger than that.” Lily learned a lot in her young life about drugs while trying to understand her mother. She knows today that it is not about how much the person in addiction cares about his or her family– the disease is stronger than anything.
Today Lily is 17 and her mother just returned from treatment. She is doing very well, but the family is fully aware that the battle is not over and that the next several months are very important to how the future will turn out. Lily’s parents are divorced and she lives with her 15-year-old brother, alternating houses between her father and her mother. She knows today that during her parent’s marriage, they both had a drug problem, got clean ten years ago and that her mom relapsed when she got a new boyfriend four years ago.
Lily and her brother are staying away from alcohol and drugs so far. They know that, statistically, they are at a higher risk to begin a potential addiction as well. She hopes the best for her mother and hopes that her mother will find long-term recovery and wellness.