The woman seemed haunted. When she talked about her son, a shadow fell across her eyes. I met Carol (not her real name) recently. She fell in step with me as we walked with a group of Americans on the tiled streets of Granada, part of a six-city tour of Spain. Her adult son had …
At a recent book talk a mother asked me, “How involved did you get in researching places for your son?” Her anxious face catapulted me back into the crazed, frenetic days of Jacob’s disease, when he was at his worst, and so was I. The memory brought back all the feelings of feeling out of …
You know it. You hear it incessantly. Exercise is one of the best relievers of stress. It’s something easy we can do for ourselves. But what if you’re suffering the worst kind of stress – an obsession with someone you love who’s slowly killing himself – and thereby you, too – through drug or alcohol …
In the church hall 200 people sit in rows of folding chairs awaiting the night’s main speaker. Eyes face forward. The leader opens with a wide-grinned apology. Tonight’s AA meeting may go longer than an hour. It’s “birthday” night. One evening each month the group recognizes members celebrating their annual sobriety dates during that month. …
It’s a four letter word. Nowhere could it be more palpable than in this South Florida church where we visit each January with our son. Practically a pilgrimage, this annual return to a place that attracts scores of mostly young people seeking sobriety draws us in. We are with Jacob, seated beside him. Around us …
Even as a child, I never liked New Year’s Eve. It always seemed forced to me – forced to feel jovial, forced to reflect, forced to look ahead and make promises I‘d never keep. But seven years ago was the worst. There is a saying in AA and Al-Anon: You can look back. Just don’t …
Families face it every year. When they love someone in active addiction, it’s the dilemma that begins haunting them as soon as the first tinsel appears in shop windows. How do I answer my son’s plea when he says, Mom, can I come home for Christmas? Or, what do I say to my daughter when she …
If you love someone with an addiction, anniversaries can be tough – especially anniversaries that mark the illness. The first warning sign. First arrest. Rehabs. Relapses. The first 30 days clean. Each December I celebrate my own anniversary. December 6, 2010 marks my first Al-Anon meeting. I can still see every face in that tiny, …
Before it slipped away to another town, my husband and I caught “Beautiful Boy” at our local movie theater. It was a weekday. Only two other couples occupied seats. Based on David Sheff’s wrenching memoir about his son’s drug use, the film is equally wrenching to watch. Anyone who has read the book knows the …
When a child falls prey to addiction, when does a parent stop asking, what did I do wrong? What did I do, or not do, to cause this? When does self-incrimination end and absolution begin? Maybe it takes years. Or maybe, never. Recently, Jacob was invited to address a large AA meeting in south Florida. …