I recently got to thinking deeply about how my children have survived the many adverse social situations that having an addicted parent brings. They have lived in chaos and violence, witnessed the divorce of their parents, and suffered financial hardship. Basically far too much for their tender years. My children are resilient to say the least and I’m beyond proud of how they managed to remain balanced through it all. However, I went from contemplating their miraculous achievements to wondering which one of my children is going to become the next active addict in the family. Can anyone relate? The struggles of parenting as an addict are real!
I realized that I watch for signs all the time.
As a mother in addiction recovery treatment, I find myself being hyper-vigilant regarding the behavior of my children. My son, for example, he’s 14 years old, and generally finds life a bit baffling. He is a great kid, full of compassion and care, funny, and polite but doesn’t understand things like competition and why people, including his peers, need to beat each other down. He is ambitious and intelligent and knows what he wants in life, but he sometimes feels he doesn’t fit in and can be self-conscious. My guts turn somersaults sometimes because I relate to all of this so much. We have long conversations about his feelings and he comes to me with his worries and thoughts and I reassure him it’s all part of being human. I tell him we all feel insecure about stuff at different times in our lives. He is hurting though, and I want to protect him and shield him from all the painful situations that infiltrate life!
Do I attribute his feelings about himself to the fact that he is navigating the teenage years of his life, or are they the first signs of an addictive personality? Maybe I’ve failed him as a mother. All the early trauma has led him to be insecure and unhappy. I want to fix it and I want to fix him.
Future relationships
Then there is my daughter. She is the barefoot feral child I was at her age. Unlike me, she can make friends at the drop of a hat and loves to be involved in everything that’s going on. She is full of determination and won’t back down from any challenge or fight. However, she is a huge people pleaser in some regards and I notice that she seeks approval and struggles with that. Like her brother she hates injustice and can’t understand why everyone just can’t get along. She hasn’t had the best example of how to have relationships with men, because her mother, is a complete disaster at that and is about as mature as a 16-year-old when it comes to affairs of the heart.
Sometimes, I feel like they should be parenting me.
I”m totally out of my depth on many occasions and the thought of them going through the hell of active addiction just makes me want to die. I understand and believe that addiction is not a choice and even though nothing could have stopped me from being an addict I want to prevent it for my kids so badly that sometimes it consumes me. I don’t want life to be difficult and heartbreaking like it was and still sometimes can be for me.
Leading by example
I know that all I can do is lead by example and be there for them at all times, and, of course, stay clean and sober. In my home, I promote being fully human, with all its good and bad bits. Therefore, having feelings and talking about them is not an alien concept to my children. They realized from very early on that there is no such thing as generic perfection and that being true to yourself and who you are is the most important tool for happiness. “Be true to who you are, never doubt your inner voice, never let anyone make you doubt yourself, I am always here for you and love you no matter what” are the affirmative messages they hear from me on an almost daily basis.
Regardless of all the positive stuff I try to plant in their impressionable minds and hearts, I still want to be better. I still feel I cannot do enough for them. I have huge regrets about my choices in the past that have affected them massively. They deserve a far better mother than I can ever be. But, I am their mother. I struggle with parenting in a massive way sometimes. Making choices for their well-being is such a huge responsibility. Sometimes I don’t know what the right thing to do is until it’s too late and I have already done the wrong thing.
They are doing better than I think
Of course the upside of parenting is that those moments of exquisite joy and pride in your offspring far outweigh the difficult times. For example when your son’s friend’s mother calls you just to tell you that your son is an absolute pleasure to have in her house. And when I see my daughter celebrate at her sports day, not because she won the race; she came last, but she was the only one that didn’t drop that egg off the spoon. In her mind she was a winner!
And maybe that’s what it’s all about! Making sure that in their own minds, they are always winners, despite outward situations. Encouraging the fact that their best is always enough just might deter them from diving head first into self-medicating like I did. The struggles of parenting as an addict are many and complex. I’m learning along the way.
