When I came up with the title
Walking Through Addiction, I chose it for several reasons.
The first is that addiction is a journey. There is no neat beginning and end. Addiction is a disease, but it is not like most illnesses where you go to the doctor, receive treatment, and eventually become cured.
In the early days of my son’s addiction, I honestly believed that was how it would work. I thought that once we finally accepted that we could not “fix” him ourselves and became willing to turn him over to the professionals, he would go to rehab for thirty days, come home healed, and we could all move on with our lives.
Today, after nearly ten years of watching my son get sober long enough to collect six-month and nine-month chips several times — only to later find himself with a needle in his arm again — I understand something very different.
There is no cure.
There is no finish line.
There is no crowd standing on the sidelines cheering him on.
The second reason I chose the title is because living with addiction often feels like trudging through thick mud. Everything becomes heavy. Messy. Exhausting.
Sometimes your feet feel so weighed down by fear, heartbreak, and disappointment that you honestly do not think you can take another step.
As you watch someone you love sink deeper into addiction, you begin to feel defeated yourself. Your legs grow tired. Your spirit grows weary. Part of you wants to simply give up.
In my early days of recovery, I learned that I could keep moving forward one step at a time, one day at a time — and sometimes one minute at a time.
No matter how heavy the burden felt, if I just kept taking small steps, I would survive.
In the beginning, that sometimes meant forcing myself to get out of bed. Some days it meant taking a short walk or calling a friend. Other days my only goal was getting myself to a meeting.
Gradually, I began learning how to LIVE again.
It was slow, but over time I realized something important: I could get THROUGH this.
A few weeks ago, my son picked up another nine-month chip.
Some days I catch myself thinking, I’m so glad all of this is finally behind us.
In AA they describe addiction as “cunning and baffling.” Sometimes I realize my own thinking can be cunning and baffling too.
I slip back into the same old mindset I had after my son came home from his very first rehab:
Great. Now we can finally get on with our lives.
I start reassuring myself:
He completed rehab.
He lived in sober living.
He has a roommate working a strong AA program.
He attends meetings.
He has a sponsor and a home group.
He even works at a rehab.
But the truth is, I know none of those things guarantee he will still be sober tomorrow.
Other days, fear creeps back in.
The “what ifs” begin circling in my mind:
What if he stops going to meetings? What if he stops calling his sponsor? What if he loses his job?
And if I am not careful, those thoughts take me right back to my worst fear of all:
What if he goes back out there and dies this time?
Those thoughts can pull me right back into the emotional paralysis I lived in during my early days of recovery.
The truth is, this disease will never fully be “behind us.”
We will all be walking THROUGH addiction for the rest of our lives.
Recovery is built one day at a time — slowly piecing together a life of sobriety, healing, and hope.
And I will continually need to practice letting go of expectations, accepting the things I cannot change, and giving my son the dignity to live his own life.
Today I understand that my son has his own path to walk.
And our family has a path to walk too.
Each day, in our own ways, we are all trying to find our way through addiction.
