Addiction and Parenting -- Guest Post

The moon is high. It’s time for the ritual to begin. First, I check to make sure the kids are asleep soundly in their beds, footsteps away from other adults. Adults that aren’t me, but are still responsible. They are.

I walk down the hallway, my hands already shaking, going over the routine in my head over and over and over before I actually sit down and start it.

When I do, it goes smoothly. I find my vein with no effort, and a small sigh escapes me, even before I depress the plunger.

With the bright red plume of blood in the syringe as I draw back into the clear, brownish liquid, my entire body relaxes. It’s trance-like, watching that swath of red in the water.

As soon as the needle is out and that warm feeling creeps through my body, slowly, deliciously, and my head begins to nod, I go about the rest of my routine. Meticulously cleaning, putting away, hiding. No trace of who I become and what I do when I become that person every few days must be left in sight.

Addiction is not new to me. I was an addict for years. But I had been clean for a decade. A decade without the itch, without the whisper, without the caress.

Then one day, feeling out of control, I decided once more wouldn’t hurt. It would get me through that tough time, and I’d be done again.

Wrong. Liar. I am a liar. I lied to myself, I lied to everyone else.

For months, I justified it. Never around the kids. Never with money that could be used to support the kids. I sold other, personal, prescription drugs that I rightly needed, in order to fund what I would privately and ironically refer to as “mommy’s time out.”

I tried to lay the blame solely on the environment I was in and the people I was with at the time. But that was incorrect. While those were two huge contributing factors, it boiled down to one thing: I’m selfish.

And how do you cope with that realization? How do you deal with the knowledge that you are a parent who loves your children beyond life, yet is so selfish you’d risk death every Monday and Tuesday, just for a little bit of a break. A time out.

When I met my fiance, he knew. He knew before I told him. He was no stranger to that life. He had walked away a long time ago and maintained the strength to stay away. We talked. Many times. Many nights. What it boiled down to was if I wanted him, I had to choose. But not choose him. I had to choose myself and my kids. I had to choose life. I had to understand it in those terms, and stop being selfish. To choose him would once again be placing my needs in the forefront. Something that I clearly needed to stop doing. So, he broke it down that way. Any more needles, and the fringe benefit to life right now, him, would be gone. But I would lose so, so much more. No, he would never betray me in calling me a danger to my children or anything like that, but I would be losing what I was trying to create with him for my childrens’ sake. Something much bigger than my own companionship.

Being a parent has never been easy in the history of parenting. Being a single parent, finally finding a partner, and building a family? Even harder. And I was in danger of losing it all.

So, I did the smart thing. I did what I would eventually come to realize was somewhat self-motivated after all.

I quit cold.

Do I still get that itch? Yes. Sometimes it’s so maddening I tear my hair out and cry and scream.

But I’ve remembered what’s more important. I’ve remembered that there are other ways to get by.

Fiance has helped. He distracts me when I crave. He scoops me up, away from the places of my rituals, makes me laugh, holds me while I cry, assures me I’m not the piece of shit I feel like I am. When the sun comes up, he gathers the children around us and shows me what it’s all about and why this alternative is so much better.

And now, at the end of the first bend in this part of my road, I find myself with even more motivation growing quietly inside of me. Depending on me to stay clean and stable.

I once said I didn’t believe the “once an addict, always an addict” adage. I do now. But what I still refuse to believe is that there’s no hope left. Especially for parent addicts. We get through so much and manage to stay strong. We can get through relapses and come out clean on the other side, too. If you’re reading this and these words ring true to you, know this: I am. I’m making it. So can you. And I believe in you even if you don’t believe in yourself right now.

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The poster wishes to remain anonymous.

Guest Post - People Change

Today I have a guest post from a friend of mine who blogs in her own right over at Accidentally Mommy. She tells a tale of highs and lows, addictions and game-changers, and I am honored to have her words here.

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Addict.  It’s an ugly word. It brings up visions of junkies in back alleys, nodding from their latest score.

It most definitely doesn’t conjure the image of a successful young business woman, with a steady job, a paid off car, and her entire future ahead of her.

I wasn’t that kid that got lured into drugs by pot and peer pressure.  I was that kid who, during DARE seminars, looked at the example drugs with awe and wonder. The descriptions of their actions fascinated me. I remember the exact moment I decided I wanted to try each and every one of those drugs.

Of course, as I got older, I became more discriminating. I’ve never done meth, I’ve never smoked crack. Speed was nice, but it didn’t last long enough. Acid was fun, but the bad trips outweighed the good. Ecstacy left me depressed for days. Heroin made me sick before it made me nod, and that just wasn’t worth it. Opium gave me nightmares. Cocaine, though... Cocaine was the love of my life.

I stoned my way through my teenage years and into adulthood. When I finally landed in my “dream” job, it helped that I worked in a company where the drugs flowed like honey.  Anything I wanted, any time of day, for any price I could come up with. Entire lunches consisted of lines of coke and a cup of coffee.

It was well established. I was an addict. I couldn’t wait for weekends to end, just so I could go back to work, do the job I loved, and exist on the substance that made me feel like I could fly.

I did so many things high.  I rode horses high. I jumped horses high. I attended family functions, counseled clients, went dancing and drinking.  And at the end of the day, I can honestly say I was happy and enjoying the fuck out of my life.

Then one day, and this is where the parable changes, my car broke down irrepairably.  It was a rainy summer day in Florida, and I sat in my car and sobbed. I had just put a down payment on the cottage that was on a friend’s land where my horse would be outside my window. My job was at it’s peak, and so were the drugs.  I railed, angry at the universe, angry that the last wall to my complete freedom had suddenly been ripped away from me, since my new house was a good 40 minute drive from work.

In that moment, I looked to the sky, as it thundered and lightening struck, and I pled.  “Dear God, please... help me find another car, and I’ll never touch another drug again.”

Dontcha know it, the next day, my big boss found me a well-running, if ugly, vehicle for the petty sum of $500.

I quit cold turkey.  No more cocaine and coffee for me. Not another bean, not another hit, nothing.
Now, after this lengthy diatribe about my illicit drug use, you’re probably wondering why the hell this is appearing as a guest post on a child-related blog.

The reason is simple.

Three days after I quit cold turkey, I found out I was pregnant.  Was it providence? Was it a coincidence?

It didn’t matter at the time. I was getting an abortion, and that was the end of that.  But I couldn’t. I didn’t.  40 weeks later, my beautiful daughter wailed her way into the world and I became the most adult I’d ever been in my life.

I have a son now, too.  I often contemplate what my life would be like right now without my kids.  I wonder if I’d even still have a life.

I’m not going to lie to you - some days are difficult.  Some days the coffee alone just doesn’t cut it, and I wish for that little bump to amp myself up.  But I resist.  I do it not just because of the deal I struck with the universe, but I do it because of them.

“Once an addict, always an addict.  Some of us are just in remission,” is the statement I’ve heard bandied about.  I don’t buy it, though. People change.  That’s all people ever do is change.
I have changed.  May marks my ninth year of being clean. I still enjoy a glass of wine, but that’s the strongest I go. And I’m raising my children to not follow in my footsteps. Instead of focusing on those mysterious, alluring substances that beg for experimentation, we instead focus on the potential for other opportunities. We talk about how pleasure can be sought in productive ways.  If I’m doing my job right, my equally as inquisitive daughter and son will never sit and say to themselves “I want to do that.”  Instead, they will say “I’d rather do this,” with “this” being anything other than the substances I chose to whittle my hours away with.