Their Addiction~My Journey: Fighting the Giants

“I just want to come home.”

Addiction thrives off using manipulation, guilt, and blame to get what it wants. There is also playing on the parent’s sorrows and fears. If it sees an open to pull on those heartstrings, it will.

Recently, I’ve been desperate to confirm my loved one was alive. I am not unique. People everywhere are dizzy from the life choices following chronic substance use. Lost in our fear, we use any method to find answers. Once again, it led me to the same response, “She just wants to come home.”

Oh, of course, she does! The uncomfortable reality of homelessness is crushing. Home was comfortable without worries about the dark, evil, and unknown on the streets.

However, addiction brings dark and evil into the home. That’s a scenario that families everywhere must consider with a yes or a no. It’s a decision that cracks your heart and permeates your mind daily.

Can I live in the cycle of addiction ever again? No. Mentally and physically, I reached my limit. Anxiety paralyzed me to my couch in fear. Later, I found myself in an emergency room when my blood pressure reached new heights. The stress shuts my body down.

The devil interjects himself through my weakness. When I wrestle with faith, he finds a way to break me down more. For months, I allowed fear to live where faith belongs.

Picture a Goliath standing over me; muscles flexed, finger in my face, shrinking me word by word. That’s fear. I crouch in a fetal position, eyes clamped shut, barely breathing and losing another piece of myself; I break.

While I embrace my inner David most days, addiction has crumbled me time and again. I look at the stones in my hand and run. The battle is lost before it begins. My mind looks at the rocks instead of my God. Left scared and hopeless, I retreat.

Until today, the responses from strangers helped me stand back up. They were honest, even if it hurt to hear. These people don’t know me or owe me an answer. There’s nothing in it for them to give me feedback on the whereabouts of my loved one.

They are human and can feel the pain and desperation in my pleas. Good people want to help. Perfect strangers bless my life by feeding me the truth, if only through a text message that says, “Be comforted; your loved one is alive.”

They don’t sugarcoat the situation. Some are brutally honest in sharing the ugly truth. At the same time, others stop responding to me. I pray for them and hope they move on positively.

It’s a good day to hear from a former connection who says, “I’m not on the streets anymore. I’ve got a job and am working a program!”

I love to hear from those seeking recovery. I send them off with a word of encouragement and a reminder they are worthy and got this! We may never speak again. The number is in my phone from a brief contact with my loved one.

I woke up to a message today with those words, “She just wants to come home.”

Unlike the other messages, it was an attempt to guilt me rather than comfort and calm my worry. Manipulation screams at me through a screen.

Addiction will use whatever and whenever to get its way. There’s only one path to home- and it requires intensive help I cannot provide.

I can’t be the treatment program for the trauma of addiction. I’m not skilled in what it will take to heal these wounds. Coming home is not the solution to chronic substance use. That fact consumes me day and night. It is my burden to carry.

See, I tried to be the program and failed miserably. Parents believe they are equipped to fix their child. We’ve been doing it from day one. Addiction is not the flu or a scraped knee. It’s not the thought of a scary monster in the closet. It is the monster within.

Where addiction hides can only be reached by the person responding to it. They alone confront, fight, and overcome. The same place inside that controls them in addiction holds the key to their recovery.

Parents are the cheerleaders on the sideline. We encourage the offense and the defense. We stay vigilant and never stop waving our hands and shouting words of hope and fire into the hearts of our loved ones.

As parents, we never give up on our children. We give in to God and surrender. We release what we cannot control. Some days, we pick up the stones and listen to God. Other days, we fall on our knees in the garden. Either way, we sacrifice our selfish wants and humbly surrender. It couldn’t have been easy for David to show up with stones and a slingshot and face an army with the most prominent and formidable soldier.

Addiction is a Goliath. While we want to be the David, we are not. But we can face things like David did- in humble faith, unrelenting bravery, and courage to believe.

We wait for recovery on the sidelines. We are cheering and praying. Our loved ones may be miles away, but they remain locked in our hearts forever. That is loving them where they are until they return home.

You can only be the David of your own life. Satan is going to come at you through their addiction, but he’s coming at you for you. Don’t be so immersed in your desire to save your child that you forget yourself.

Jesus is the Savior, not you.

♥️ Lisa