"Set me free from my prison, that I may praise Your name."

-Psalm 142:7

Addiction is one of the most heartbreaking and destructive diseases that exist, because it not only devastates the person with the substance abuse issues but his or her entire family and social network.  If you’re experiencing this pain firsthand, whether struggling with alcohol or drugs yourself, or witnessing the effect Mom’s or Dad’s, or your brother or sister’s use has on the rest of the family, my heart goes out to you.  Perhaps it’s your spouse, or one of your children. It’s difficult to measure such heartache in mere words, and anyone who doesn’t believe that it’s possible for a heart to actually “break” hasn’t experienced the day in which they came to realize that the contents of a bottle, or a particular type of prescription drug, has become their life partner’s first love and they, themselves, have become superfluous, perhaps even an impedance to that new “love.”  They haven’t stood by and witnessed their child rush headlong down the path toward slavery of spirit and realize that they’ve not only developed a taste for the whip and chains but have come to protect and cherish their captor.

If you recognize yourself in one or more of these scenarios, you already know that while a “broken” heart may not be a recognized physiological condition, you can describe exactly what it feels like to have one.  Unlike recognizable symptoms of a heart attack, we probably won’t endorse pain in the jaw or down the left arm with the “broken” heart, but we know all about the pain of the spirit that leads to depression and hopelessness and the many manifestations of these in our own lives.

Please, please seek help, today.  Don’t wait until tomorrow.  Don’t wait to see if things ‘get better’ or ‘settle down on their own.’  They won’t.  It is said that addiction is the only disease process in which the patient is in such denial of its existence in their lives that they can’t admit that there’s a problem.  The family can’t cope with all of the emotional and psychological issues that surround their loved one’s disease alone.  Those closest to the person caught up in his/her “habit” have their own “disease process” to deal with; codependency.  If you’re feeling as though you’re losing control, that no matter how intently you struggle to keep all the balls in the air, they’re all at risk of crashing down around you, then you may well be struggling with your own disease, which travels hand-in-hand with addiction and can be every bit as destructive.  Quite simply, addiction in one person creates codependency in the other.  Cause and effect at its finest.

I know.  I’ve been there.  Our family has struggled with alcohol and drug addiction for the past 15 years, and I had my codependency behaviors honed to a T (which is short for T-R-O-U-B-L-E, by the way).  There were times when I felt that I wouldn’t survive, that I didn’t want to survive.  It was only when I found myself backed into the deepest, darkest corner, emotionally, with no strength remaining to ‘keep the family going’ and ‘keep up appearances’ that I faced the reality that I simply could not do this on my own any longer.  I have a fondness for analogies, so if it isn’t too trite, I’ll lay one out for you; I couldn’t keep my boat of denial and insistence on dealing with the situation myself afloat, nor did I have enough hands or buckets to bail all the water that was constantly springing through new leaks in my boat.  I had to be willing to let the boat go down, and allow the bailing buckets and oars to go down right along with it.  I was so busy bailing that I certainly wasn’t spending any time rowing or making headway in my own life.  My boat wasn’t saving myself, or my kids, or my husband, and it certainly wasn’t saving my marriage.  It simply represented my own attempts to control the circumstances that surrounded me, to keep our family from sinking completely.  This boat represented no genuine security, certainly had no ability to save any of us and, I discovered, had come to be nearly as important to me as those whom I struggled to “protect” within its confines.  As long as I hung out in the boat, bailing water like crazy and struggling to keep everyone’s feet dry, I could fool myself into believing that I was actually accomplishing something positive in our lives. 

What would my family do without me to hide/enable/cover up…..?

I had to let it go down, boat, buckets, oars, everything, in order to begin my own journey into recovery.  And it was only by surrendering the whole thing to the Lord, backed into the deepest, darkest corner in which I’d ever discovered myself, that I was able to let it all go.  It was only by releasing my husband, my kids, my marriage, into His hands and putting my energy into my own recovery that any of us could begin to heal.  The “chief enablers” among us are our substance-abusing loved ones’ worst enemies, and this is a very difficult concept to accept.  We’ve built a substantial arsenal of denial and enabling around ourselves, and it can be so confining that we feel as though we’re suffocating, but can’t imagine stepping away from its ‘protection.’ 

Everyone will think I’m a bad mother, that my child would make these choices, be so “out of control.”  

Why can’t my family be like everyone else’s?  All I ever wanted was to raise my children to love the Lord….what went wrong? Whatever happened to “Raise up a child in the way he should go…..?” 

My child needs to experience consequences for his choices, but I can’t bear to think of him locked up in juvie again.  I’ll plead his case with the judge and promise this’ll be the last time he shoplifts/assaults someone/gets caught holding drugs.  I’m his mom; I have to protect and shelter him.  I’ll take personal responsibility for his actions.  He really is a good boy, he won’t let me down again….

I have no emotional energy for my other child, or for my marriage.  One of these days things will be better and I’ll make it up to them then.

I’ve been here, had all of these same conversations with myself, and met my Savior directly in my dark corner one day when all the balls I’d been juggling lay scattered at my feet and I couldn’t imagine where I’d begin to find the strength, or even the desire, to pick them all up again.  Like Samuel, I cried out to the Lord, and as in 2 Samuel 22:17.

“He reached down from on high and took hold of me.  He drew me out of deep waters.  He rescued me from my powerful enemy.”

One of our enemies is self-pride and self-reliance, believing we can heal ourselves, ‘cure’ our family, and do it all under our own power.  The fact is that I can’t, nor can you.  There are limitations on what we can accomplish simply through the force of will, and ‘willing’ someone clean and sober just isn’t going to happen. 

Let go.  Now, today.  Seek counseling through your pastor, through a local addiction treatment program, attend Al-Anon/Ala-Teen groups.  A support system exists.  You aren’t alone in your struggles.  

Recognize that addiction is spiritual warfare waged at its most elemental level and that the Enemy will use any and all resources at his disposal to separate us from Christ.  Indeed, I believe that addiction is one of his absolute favorites, because it’s so effective.  As such, it is a battle that must be waged on a spiritual level; all of the treatment, 12-step programs and good intentions in the world will prove ineffective without the Lord’s direct intervention. 

Ask the Lord for His help, for insight and for strength.  He waits for you to turn to Him in everything that weighs you down, in everything that is bringing you, and your family, pain.  Call to Him, and experience His promise today.

May the Lord bless you as you seek His grace, and bring you victorious before the Throne.

Julie