Tag Archives: sober

My Younger Self

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My thirty-year-old self would be horrified by my current mental state. She would have wondered about my parenting skills, and she would have totally judged me. Not out loud mind you, but with a look of compassion, pity and a little superiority.  My younger self thought she had the world figured out. She would never have believed she’d find herself in the position I am in today.

I am currently happily cleaning and prepping our vacation rental for a visit from my adult son. He will be bringing a girl, one he’s not married to. I can hear myself from twenty years ago – gasp – they aren’t married? What is wrong with you?

They will stay over the weekend and probably eat every bit of the junk food I am stocking the cabin with. Sugary cereal, cookies, sour candies, oatmeal cream pies. When my son was young his sweets were strictly limited, and I would never had imagined one day submitting to his cravings.

To further shock my younger self, I will be picking his girlfriend up to transport her for this weekend, because, well, of course he doesn’t have a license or a car. Oh, and by the way, I’m picking her up from jail. At this point my thirty-year-old mom-brain would have exploded.

But, you see, my son is ninety days sober, his girlfriend is at sixty days. They were cohorts when they were both abusing drugs, a relationship forged in hardship. They spiraled out of control together. He ended up in sober living. She ended up in jail, where she has been for the last two months. When he asked me to pick her up, I had a long internal dialogue about enabling and codependency. I have those conversations a lot these days.

However, the way he approached me was this. “Mom, I can find someone else to pick her up, but our mutual friends are not sober, and I don’t want to interact with them. Would you go with me to pick her up?” I told him I’d have to think about it and he agreed to wait for my answer. (A good sign. He was not demanding or pushing.)

After some discussion, my husband and I agreed that I should do it. When I told him, my son’s face lit up like a kid’s on Christmas morning, it told me how surprised he was that we said ‘yes’. We’ve been very insistent about boundaries during his sobriety, so I think he had been expecting a ‘no’.

He’s heard ‘no’ a lot from us lately, and he’s taken it well. So, it was nice to say ‘yes’, and it’s because he’s been doing his part. He’s working a program in sober living. He’s leading NA meetings and working a job. He’s also encouraged and supported his girlfriend in her sobriety.

It’s probably what helped their relationship go to a deeper level. During their daily phone calls, they began imagining a future where they were both sober. So, although my son knows I think it’s too soon in his recovery for a relationship, a month ago he informed me that he was in love.

 We have teased each other about our difference of opinion, me reminding him how often relationships have been his downfall. Him hassling me about ‘mothering’ him; a favorite family catch phrase that kindly reminds me to mind my own business. So, I have accepted his new love interest, after all he is an adult, and I will meet her when I pick her up from prison. (I’m working hard to shut-up the voice of my younger, judgmental self who would be mortified.)

Their plans once she is released are to spend the weekend together and then get her into a sober house. When my son told me the location of the prison, I realized that we would be close to our vacation rental when we picked her up. I asked if they would like to stay there instead of using his hard-earned money for a hotel. They both loved the idea, and I was pleased that they would be far from old friends and familiar triggers. (I know its ‘mothering,’ but no one called me on it this time.)

So here I am, smiling as I neaten the towels, stock the fridge, and arrange their favorite snacks on the counter. I could handle this so many other ways. Ways my younger self would have demanded. I could refuse to accept them as a couple, or I could agonize about where this will go, or if they are good for each other. But when has worry ever solved my problems? So, I’m going to put all my worries about the future aside for a weekend.

I will enjoy the simple pleasure of doing something nice for my son. I will give him and his girlfriend a special weekend to remember – a sober weekend. I won’t let worries about next week, or next month, or next year intrude on the joy. Even as I type this, I can feel the fears niggle at the base of my brain, but I cannot control him or his future. If nagging, lecturing, or giving advice would have solved his problems, we wouldn’t be here now. So I will push away those little jabs of worry and take pleasure in the moment.

I will delight in being a mom and getting to spoil my son. I will savor his smiles and laughter. Being able to do something kind for my sober son is an opportunity that I won’t pass up.

I’ve thought about it and I don’t believe I’m enabling. I’m loving. It can be hard to separate the two when you’ve loved an addict for years. But, this wasn’t something he demanded or manipulated me into. He’s not taking something from me. It’s a gift I freely offered.

Getting to prepare a welcoming environment for my son and his friend feels lovely. This weekend I’m celebrating. My son is coming to visit and I’m meeting his girlfriend. How normal it feels. I’ll take it, even though my thirty-year-old self would never understand.

And So It Continues….

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One month ago I wrote about how going “No Contact” with my addict son was helping me regain my sanity. I was finding normalacy again without the daily drama and crisis that were forced upon us by his life style. I foolishly thought that we hadn’t heard from our son because we were doing such a good job of holding our boundaries.

I was wrong.

It turns out, he had just found a way to survive without us. It was something illegal and I don’t know exactly what it was, but he was making a lot of money. It abruptly ended one week after I wrote that piece.

He got beaten up, had all his possessions and money stolen and landed on our doorstep. We cleaned him up, fed him a meal and deposited him on the street corner of his choice. We told him he could not move into our house and he would have to figure out what to do now that his gravey train had ended.

Our period of “No Contact” was over. After that day the phone calls started. Even though I have seventeen of his phone numbers blocked, he found new ones and called and texted multiple times a day with one crisis after another.

We refused to let him come home. He kept calling, kept telling us how we were letting him down and that it was our fault he was homeless and on the streets. He called us names, told us horrible stories of freezing, starving, hiding in garages… He kept saying we had completely screwed him over because we wouldn’t rescue him.

Every time he called we reminded him of the local Sober Living that he could go to. He told us at least 20 times that he would die first. I believe his exact words were, “I’d freeze to death under a bridge before I’ll go there.”

We said, “It’s your choice” and told him we were sorry that was the decision he was making and that we loved him. We only answered about one in three calls and texts. We never just told him no, we always offered him an alternative choice:

You can’t come here, but we can take you to the Sober House.

No, I can’t send you money for food, but I can send you the address of a food bank.

No, I won’t send you money for a room because your cold, but go to the nearest salvation army, pick out a coat and call me, I’ll pay them over the phone.

He turned down every offer. Our offers always required him to make some effort towards the solution. We knew we could not rescue him.

My husband and I cried, cussed and worked to support each other through this abrupt reversal of fortune. It threw us right back into the drama that we had been so thankful to leave behind. But we never gave in. We lovingly held on to our boundaries of no money, no rides, and no coming home – over and over and over again. He was incredibly persistent and manipulative and rude.

But, finally on Saturday he texted me:

“Mom, if you’ll let me come home and take a shower, wash my clothes and feed me a meal you can take me to the Sober House.”

I was shocked, after all the refusals. My husband and I talked and we agreed to this. I know my son is very concerned about appearing dirty and unkempt. I knew he would probably freeze before he’d show up in public dirty and dishelved. I knew why he needed to come home before he went to the Sober House. So we agreed. But told each other that we couldn’t let him manipulate us into anything else, if we allowed him to come home for this.  We promised to hold each other accountable.

While he was waiting for my husband to pick him up, he began to text me about not trusting us, because once we had tried to get him committed. I assured him that we weren’t going to try to do anything to trick him, that we were happy he was going to the Sober House. But I also told him that he couldn’t trick us either. I told him:

“No arguing in this house. No passive aggressive bending the rules. You must wear a mask the whole time you are home. You must wear it correctly, covering your nose and mouth, since you have not been social distancing. There will be no arguing in this house or you will leave. You also cannot begin to negotiate for a new plan once you get here. The deal is you clean up, get fed and then we take you to the Sober House.”

He agreed to everything and to our complete surprise he did exactly as we asked.

No matter how awful he had been, it felt good to get him cleaned up, well fed, dressed warmly and rested up. It did my mother’s heart good.

We found out that he couldn’t check in till the next day, so he got a good night’s sleep too and then the next day, we deposited him at the Sober House without a fight – no whining, arguing or begging. It was such a huge relief.

When I happily told a family member what had happened, she said, “Well, I hope he finally figures things out. He needs to get his life together.”

I was sad that was her response. Because I was very happy -you see, we’ve learned not to think that far ahead. One day at a time. It was the best possible outcome for our weekend. He took a positive step and he is safe and warm. That’s enough for me to be ecstatic.

So to any moms struggling out there, I say, “Stay strong. Hold your boundaries with love and celebrate every small step in the right direction.”