The disease of addiction is very personal for me. I unknowingly grew up with an addict parent, surrounded by lies and feelings of unworthiness. F, which I carried far into my adulthood. For the last 15 years, I have been surrounded by the devastating impact of drug addiction on my immediate family and our community. I have a child who suffers from depression, anxiety and the effects of drug addiction. He has been in and out of hospitals and rehabs and has remarkably survived multiple overdoses. The deals I made with the universe… Wow. In my communities we have lost many loved ones, and the impact to our health, relationships, finances and souls can seem insurmountable.

How about you? Are you exhausted by the subterfuge? Not knowing what is true, wanting to believe what you are being told, giving your addict loved one another chance, again? How does the mother of an addict cope? How do we juggle the incomprehensible challenges between supporting a loved one and not enabling their habits? How do we deal with the stigma? Our other children?

For some of you this might be the first time. The pain and fear can be unbearable. You are constantly asking what went wrong, what you missed, how you can fix this? (YOU can’t.)

Yet life can and will go on. One of the amazing things about being human is that we are able to hold on to joy and sadness simultaneously.

You can regain your freedom and still give love and empathy to your family member. You are not defined by the pain, you are defined by what you turn that pain into. Let’s focus on what can be gained by the pain. Let’s get you reconnected with yourself by becoming the most resilient YOU.

Put yourself first. Let’s fill up that glass, you deserve it!

“You’re braver than you believe, stronger than you seem and smarter than you think” – Christopher Robin