Memoir

This is a memoir about our family finding a path through the maze of drug addiction – and mental illness. It began ten years ago when our son was 21.              

An ugly subject? Well, it’s usually wrapped in the barbed wire of Shame and Stigma, which is why people avoid it. I am telling our story because I want to bust that Stigma, by bringing the Shame into the light of day. I want to help others who walk this path.           

Don’t think it will all be doom and gloom and squalor.  I’ll take you on the path we’ve trodden, one step at a time, towards the light. I will talk of the chaos of living with florid addiction; of how we started by thinking that our addict son was the problem and wanted to find a counsellor or a re-hab that would take the ‘problem’ off our plate. And then – we found out that an addict’s chances of recovery increase exponentially when their family does their own work on themselves and their character flaws.

So, we worked hard – Al Anon meetings, sessions with our counsellor, meetings with health professionals. We became a lean, mean machine of a team.

Believe it or not, there has also been fun and laughter here and there too. I will tell you about ‘the Signposter’ (a psychic lady) and her spirit guides, Madame Mai and Arthur. They have comforted and steered me through the last ten years, like spiritual life coaches. And then there are the sessions with a shaman to shift the energies around our family.

And then the alchemy begins to happen. So slowly that I have often overlooked it. Our son’s emotions begin to re-surface. A conversation in the car here, a smile or shared joke there – we begin to find some healing. Our journey continues as he comes back into the world….