After The Suffering There Is Joy (Part 1)

Up until five years ago I was a heart broken mother with no hope and a future filled with only darkness and despair, now, I am filled with a new and indescribable peace and have learned the true meaning of faith, which, will without doubt in the future sustain myself, and my family.

I have always enjoyed being a mother and I am very proud of my son and my daughter; Being a mother has always filled me with great pride and joy and I have always believed that children and family are one of the greatest gifts we can ever receive. However, sometimes our lives can be turned upside down and our joys turned into the worst kind of nightmare you can ever imagine.

My own personal nightmare began fourteen years ago when I learned that my daughter was suffering from drug addiction. I cannot describe the shock, the pain, the ignorance of not understanding what drug addiction was all about, even worse, “why should I?” this could not be happening to me, after all, I had the most well balanced honest loving children you could ever wish for. I had a son happily married, with a lovely wife and at that time with one child. He is self employed, owns his own home, doesn’t drink, smoke, or gamble, he just lives and breathes for his beautiful family. Then there is my beautiful, vivacious, daughter who has a good job in the bank, everything going for her and everything to live for, so what happened to my almost perfect little world,? DRUGS Happened!!

It is so easy for us to condemn those who are suffering from drug addiction or indeed any addiction, but drug addicts are the ones people fear the most and quite rightly so, who would want to have a son or daughter addicted to drugs, but it doesn’t really matter what type of addiction it is, an addiction is an addiction.

I am often asked how I felt when I discovered that my daughter was a drug addict, well, I have to be honest and say my reaction was of an indescribable feeling of Shock! Horror, total disbelief and, absolute denial. I mean, how dare anyone say or even think that my daughter took drugs, how could she be a drug addict, she had a good job in a bank a decent upbringing, and was well loved by everyone. Then reality set in and slowly it started to hit me, at first I thought it was just like a bad dose of flu or something, nothing a little bit of home nursing and love wouldn’t cure. Of course, it is much more serious than that, it is like a self destructive cancer not wanting a cure, it makes you feel like a helpless onlooker and probably having no or very little control over the problem.

In time you learn it is not something that will just go away, it is not like having a social drink were they can stop at anytime.

It is an addiction, and an addiction of the worst kind, an addiction that turns our beautiful children into the worst kind of monster, a person we don’t even recognize anymore, they are like the devils disciples, lying cheating, stealing and sometimes much more.