Excerpt
I'm As Sick As My Secret

Oh how emotionally sick I got while loving the addict in my family. I remember one day feeling that I should stand naked in front of my home to let everyone who knew me, know that my life is a lie. “Oh, but I can’t”, I thought to myself, and in that pivotal moment, I also realized that I have a secret and I felt in my gut that you don’t share these kinds of secrets with just anyone. I thought to myself, “Oh, my God! What the hell am I going to do now?” The tears began to flow; and the gut wrenching pain in my stomach was unbearable, I felt like I was going to die. Off I went into the fetal position, I felt depressed, defeated, and then there were days, I didn’t even know if I had a feeling inside of me, because I felt numb. There were days that I truly felt that if I didn’t die from a broken heart I was going to end up on some Psychiatric ward.

My thoughts became tormented, if I reach out for help, people would know my secret and if I continued to keep my secret, I risked staying stuck on my emotional roller coaster ride to hell.

For years, I only told two good friends and a few family members about my son’s drug addiction. I didn’t want anyone to know that my son was a so called drug addict. Why? Because I was ashamed and embarrassed that I had a drug addict in my family and more importantly and painfully, it was my son. When I first learned that my son was abusing drugs, all I did for hours, days and months was cry, and if I wasn’t crying I was researching drug addiction, I was constantly looking for answers. I wanted answers that would explain my son’s behavior or how I could save him from drugs. I was so pre-occupied with saving my son, that I was slowly losing myself.

When the depression set in, I would go from my bed to the living room couch to the family room couch. I went round and round for hours, days and months. I couldn’t control my pain, I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t sleep and I couldn’t concentrate on anything but my child. In other words, I became addicted to saving my son; and he became my drug of choice.

When I finally got off the couch and out of my bed, I figured I’d research his behavior. My computer became my new best friend. I would be on it for hours upon hours researching drugs and addiction.

Did you know that you can buy clean urine on-line? Wow! That was amazing to me not only was I educating myself, I could not believe the drug paraphernalia that is sold legally in stores or on-line. There are items designed specifically to look like every day ordinary items. I found high-lighters that hide a small pipe, a lipstick tube, where the ends come off and it becomes a pipe and a fake cigarette that hides a pipe. Who the heck thinks of these things?

I was hoping that my new best friend (my computer) would help me find information that would explain my son’s behavior. It began to dawn on me that the child I thought I knew wasn’t who I thought he was. I was so obsessed with saving my son from drugs that he became my drug of choice, in other words I became addicted to saving him.

I learned the Serenity Prayer:

“God, grant me the serenity

to accept the things I cannot change;

courage to change the things I can;

and wisdom to know the difference."


Reinhold Niebuhr