Some people say programs like AA and Al-Anon are a cult. If that’s so, may there be more cultists among us! Often in Al-Anon meetings – and AA too – you will hear someone say, “the program saved my life.” It is not an exaggeration. Shame, anxiety, fear, and depression overwhelmed me when Jacob was …
This fourth of July I am thinking about freedom. Not so much our nation’s or the freedoms we value every day. Rather, it is the freedom that comes from no longer living with active addiction. I see it in others, too. Like the relief a mother feels when her daughter agrees to inpatient treatment, and …
Through the years of my son’s active addiction, what I wanted most was a story of survival. How could someone overcome the lethal grip of alcohol or drugs and return to a “normal,” healthy life? Like many people who love someone with addiction, I needed hope. Well-known Annapolis author John W. Frece has just published …
When we drove onto the grounds of the treatment center, my first thought was, this is it. This is where my son gets well. The setting was picture-perfect. Pastoral. Any ache, mental or physical, would be healed here, swept away under ancient, leafy oaks, cleansed alongside a sweep of graceful weeping willows. Even the stream …
Ask anyone who knows something about addiction. Or read any article on the topic. Most will say addiction is a disease. When I first heard that, even long before addiction assaulted my family, I thought it was a kind way of labeling something people did to themselves. Abusing drugs or alcohol was a choice, wasn’t …
The mom’s face gives it away every time. Her son is using only a little, she tells me. He smokes weed sometimes. Well maybe more than just sometimes. Yes, he spends a lot of time in his room, and he doesn’t seem to care about school anymore. But no, he’s not an addict. For the …
At first, I didn’t get it. Maybe no one does at the beginning. When you’re new to addiction in a loved one or friend, you learn about the “Three Cs:” You didn’t cause it. You can’t control it and You can’t cure it. It took months, maybe years, to accept each of these. Like a …
“Mom, I lost my job. Dad wanted me to call and tell you.” Like so many other crises during the years of my son’s active addiction, this one arrived with terrible timing. Half-the country away, I was about to leave my hotel room to proctor a professional exam. A two-hour time difference meant it was …
Many people today know about “Twelve Step” programs that support men and women with addictions – of almost any kind. But for those who are new to addiction in a loved one or friend, they may not realize there are “steps” before the “Twelve. “ For me, the first step was denial. When a trusted …
What happens when a family keeps a secret about a tragedy buried for decades? That’s the premise of Dani Shapiro’s new novel Signal Fires. Reading it for a book club, I couldn’t help but overlay that question on my own family’s history. What if I had never disclosed – to anyone – that my son …