- Drugs
- Friends & Family
Submitted by: Marta Mrotek
When my daughter was about 14 we began to see some significant behavior changes. She was very active in sports and doing great in school but she was getting herself into weird situations with interesting characters. Everything started to fall off pretty quickly. We couldn’t even imagine that drugs were involved so we took her to see a counselor and the counselor is the one who gave us the heads up that there could be drugs involved. We did a drug test and it came out negative but things kept progressing.
Little things like money missing and changes in friends kept happening until finally I decided to take her for a hair follicle test. On the way there she told me that she had been using heroin. That was the beginning for me. By this time she was 15. Of course I went into panic mode and took her in for an evaluation where they told me that she didn’t really have a serious heroin problem. Had I known then what I know now I probably would have lost my mind but we did find a youth outpatient program and we learned a lot there. She did come out of that program with what we thought was a year of recovery but it was probably more like six months. We thought everything was great until she ended up getting arrested with her boyfriend. We went through the whole series of getting an attorney and trying to get it off of her record while we went through detox at home. She kept using though while we were going through the court procedures and when they put her on house arrest she cut off her ankle bracelet and went running out into the world. We of course went and got her and then went through another six months of crazy. We put her into intensive rehab where she was kicked out.
On January 27th of 2015 she had been on the streets by her own choice and called me and said she was done. So we sat in front of the detox facility for two days trying to get her in. At that time I didn’t know that she had been using IV but when we got tired of waiting and took her to another facility she told them that she had been using IV every day. They said that she could stay for 24 hours for evaluation and at that point I just said forget it. I had learned about a place in California that could help so I asked her if she was ready to go and she said yes. She did inpatient there and then went to sober living with only one quick relapse which she did self disclose.
Her sobriety date is April 1, 2015. She is very pleased that her sobriety date is April Fool’s Day. She’s 19 and working such a solid program now. She’s really involved with the giving back aspect. She works full time and solely supports herself financially. Now of course we still have a slumbering giant in our lives but we’ve picked up a lot of tools to work with that.
It took a while for me to realize I may need support as well. At first I thought we could handle it after she came out of the first outpatient successfully. I didn’t understand that we weren’t done. I hadn’t educated myself at all. I did come to realize after a while, especially after the criminal charges that I might be kind of losing my mind and that I should probably go to a Naranon meeting. I was hesitant. It didn’t really resonate with me in respect to the Higher Power aspect but I figured since I didn’t know anything I’d keep going. It was very helpful. For me the focus was a little bit too much about that this is not in my control.
I do understand that I have to give it up but my thing was that I felt like I needed to educate myself. I picked up every single book. From Naranon to Smart Recovery to medical maintainance and harm reduction. That was very helpful to understand and solidify that this is a disease versus a moral failing. That made a difference for me. I get my support from amazing friends, online groups and probably the biggest thing is through DrugFree.org and Center for Motivation and Change. I got trained to be a parent coach and I’ve been doing that since November of 2015. That is probably the biggest part of self help for me, to help others. Giving back and trying to pull together the resources and data helps me to offer ideas that help other people. I stay open to every opportunity available. I go to rallies when I can find them. We have some amazing moms and parents in this community that are super active. We really try to be active in contacting government in respect to making changes to the laws in regard to addiction and we have received some positive responses.
The advice I would give to other parents is, don’t isolate yourself. You’re not alone. Feeling isolated is the worst part. Get help. Reach out. You can do this. I didn’t necessarily apply all of those to me. We have to model taking those brave, uncomfortable steps for our kids. There is no one answer. It’s not one size fits all. Follow your heart, follow proven approaches and consider your own situation to choose your direction. Your journey and your child’s journey is totally unique so you have to hold true to what resonates for you.