- Alcohol
- Drugs
I was blessed with two beautiful daughters. I hadn’t had the best childhood, and I wanted things to be great for them. We worked hard to be good parents and provide a stable, happy home. My hope was to raise two smart, strong and self-sufficient women.
Both girls were a joy as children and never gave us much trouble at all. We had a beach home and spent many wonderful years there making lots of happy memories. We seemed to be the perfect family. My oldest daughter became a teacher, married a wonderful man and gifted us with a beautiful granddaughter. My youngest daughter was a great student and excelled in sports. She was team captain and someone her peers respected. Looking back it seemed she had the world in her hands. We didn’t know how low her self-esteem was.
She started to experiment with alcohol her senior year of high school, and although we suspected she drank once in a while, we had no idea she would binge to excess. She was sexually assaulted during her second week at college. For the next several years, she bounced in and out of school, got into a toxic relationship and became someone we didn’t know. She had developed an opiate addiction, and it was spiraling out of control.
She had counseling after her assault and again after an overdose. We were in the tornado of addiction. There were lies, chaos and fear. As a mother and a nurse, I tried hard to “fix” her. The day my daughter told us she was injecting heroin, I began to plan her funeral in my head. No one recovers from heroin addiction. All hope for her was gone. She disappeared for months at a time. I feared hearing the phone ring or a knock at my door. I struggled with deep depression. I lay on the sofa at night unable to move. I didn’t realize I was allowing her addiction to control me.
Tension developed with my oldest daughter who didn’t understand my desperation to save my child. She was furious with her sister and cut off contact with her. I tried to see her point. My brother was an addict as well, and I had to cut ties with him during periods of crazed behavior.
After several stints in various rehabs and several relapses, my daughter landed in a facility near the eastern shore. Hurricane Sandy was on her way, and the rehab facility was going to evacuate. They asked if my daughter could come home. We had said never again, not after all she had done to us, but where would she go in the storm? We agreed and took her in for three difficult days.
She had been clean only a little over a week. She still had ties to her toxic boyfriend, also an addict. I thought we watched her like a hawk, but she found a small partial bag of dope and snorted it. She was moody and just seemed ungrateful. The day my husband left to take her back to treatment, I really thought I’d never see my daughter alive again.
We drove to our beach property to check it out after the hurricane. Debris littered our yard. On the fence was a rose bush made haggard by the storm, but on it was one big beautiful yellow rose. I had been seeing a therapist for my depression and had started praying to St. Therese Little Flower. This lone single rose had survived the storm. I took a picture and texted my therapist. We talked at length about its meaning of hope at our next session. I could finally see it and feel it.
My daughter confessed her relapse when she returned to rehab. She was discharged and lived in a halfway house for a year before moving home for half a year. I said I would never allow her to live at home again, but I started to examine forgiveness and what it really meant. It isn’t about saying that all the bad stuff that happened was okay; it’s about moving forward. I couldn’t stay stuck in that tornado.
With forgiveness and hope in my heart, I began to move forward in my recovery. I educated myself on the disease of addiction, continued my counseling and joined a grassroots organization to provide education and help erase the stigma. Today my daughter has 22 months of sobriety and lives in a house with four others in recovery. She has mended her relationship with her sister. She works very hard to help others, especially women in recovery.
My oldest daughter’s husband is now battling melanoma, and they are facing a tough road ahead. It’s funny how God gives you what He wants and not what you want. I wanted two smart, strong and self-sufficient women. I didn’t want these hardships for them, but my daughters are my heroes. They are two of the strongest, smartest women I know. They face things every day that most of us will never experience.
My daughter’s addiction and recovery has taught me a lot about life and what’s really important. I will never give up hope for either one of my beautiful girls, and I hope this story gives you a ray of hope in your journey.