Their Addiction~My Journey-“The Reality of Living Grief”

I’ve lost in my lifetime. Whether it is a human or animal life, or a dream, I know the pain that overwhelms you in the moment and invades your joy periodically for months or years to come. It is the grief we all experience. There are internal emotions that arise due to loss. We manage it by remembering our cherished moments, allowing ourselves to experience the feelings and hold those memories a while longer.

I know anticipatory grief- the insight to understanding it is the beginning of the end. The suffering in silence and less vocal tension about what is to come. We are not grieving the loss and love that was, but the final stages that preempt the end. Comforted by holding a hand bedside or listening to stories of long ago, we feel an emotional loss before the physical.

Anticipatory grief has a process all its own. Like every other grief, it takes time. We think of death before it happens. Often, we regret those thoughts and feel shame. There is no need because it is a natural response to knowing what is to come. We cycle through denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance in grief. This can include anticipatory grief.

Then, we have living grief. It is between the awkward space of anticipatory grief (when you know the end is near) and longing for life over death. Here we meet our darkest thoughts and our deepest hope, and it is in the black undercurrent of grief they collide.

Living grief has no specific known outcome. We toggle between the truth that they may live or die. Running through your day like a bad soap opera are moments of shame and guilt. All while convincing yourself to not feel shame or guilt. You find yourself marking mental tombstones with words like- success, boundaries, joy, peace, calm, and care. Every decision you made was guided by fear and marked by disrespect, manipulation, deceit, and abandonment from a broken loved one.

Yet, you feel like the villain in the victimization of you.

Living grief cycles through anger, even moments of blind rage. You scream words of truth and feel the razor edge of pain deep in your heart. Your anguish opens the door to denial, a place many parents chain themselves to. The prison of denial may be of their active addiction or the possibility of self-induced death. Fear will carry you back and forth between these two realities. Make no mistake, living grief is a space between dimensions.

As we bargain with our loved ones to choose this and do that, we face the inevitable wall of addiction. You speak to deaf ears, no longer able to penetrate their heart. Every move their mind makes revolves around their substance of choice- not themselves, you, their husband, children, or other family members.

We watch everything they worked for fade into the dark abyss. We carry the sadness of loss addiction brings- family, homes, cars, and even the care that could help. As they let it all go, we know we are part of the floating debris pushed further away.

Grief’s presence is permanent.

The days are shadowed with inescapable thoughts. The nights keep us awake with terror. The trauma begins to maneuver itself into a place of stay. One blink and we are in despair. Falling into depression, it evaporates our motivation and drive.

While they are getting high, we descend lower into the pit Satan digs. Doubting every decision we make, fearing every word as ‘their’ trigger, our tongues silenced. Everything they say or do is a personal attack on us, who only try to help.

Differences with Living Grief

Most people grieving will begin to find a way forward at this point. You will seek counseling, medication, and support to slowly pick yourself up. You will never be the same, but, you process and heal, accepting a new life you build without your loved one. We do this in living grief, as well. However, reliving the loss, we cycle back through the stages for years. Why? Because addiction is active loss. It never ends until it does- grief sits prone in the center of our reality. You can’t effectively grieve loss as it lives.

The future may hold recovery, jail, prison, or death. You get to live on the edge of never knowing what’s next. The heart of a parent living in this grief survives in a state of constant upheaval. The rise and fall of hope eventually leads to numbness. Our addicted loved one knows numbness well; we will, too, through their lives.

Parenting through addiction is a rough road. Pressing into your faith through living grief is challenging. A quiet prayer may include three words, “I still believe.” We have support networks of strangers. Those who know our story tire of the reruns. Those living the same story can understand and empathize.

Parents of children in addiction are tough while feeling weak. They forge ahead while being held back by tragedy. Grieving their former life and their former child, they hide from people who knew both. There is mourning of happy holidays and family events. There is fear of these same special days in living grief because, too often, they are ruined or empty.

Living grief experiences cycles that never conclude. As long as addiction controls their loved ones, they will live in this tunnel of despair.

If you are hurting through family addiction, I encourage you to reach out. Follow our Facebook page, and check back often for updates.

~Lisa

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