My mom was an addict as well as 90% of my family, so when i say I wish I had a mom that could see the writing on the wall and grab me by the scruff and make me read it too, well that is just a wish.
At the age of 26 years old i hit rock bottom. I guess a lot of my life circumstances had to do with it.
What I learned over the years though is rock bottom, can be a lot higher than we addicts may think, and sometimes it is the most unusual things that make us come to that turning point. However, the one thing we all usually have in common is that we come to a realization that we do not want to die.
I don't think my mom wanted to die a weeks after her fourtieth birthday, but she did, from a overdose.
For me, I also had the thought that I would quit when i turned 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, lol.
I actually did really try to quit on my own about three times, I think i made it a day, before the cravings, stress, depression, and just utter desolation, became more painful, than the black outs, the humiliation, the shame, the monsterous hang overs that laid me out for three days or more depending on how weak my body and immune system was. i will be celebrating my fourtieth Birthday this month Oct, 30, I rarley tell people how old I am you special lady you! lol =).
It is a bitter sweet celebration for me, it is the age my mother died, and when i look in the mirror, I think Good greif, she really was a young woman, I never realized how young she really was, untill now, that I am coming of age, the age she was when she died. You know when she died she looked very old, she was completley grey haired, I have a few strands of silver that I proudly look at when I look in the mirror,I always wanted silver not slate grey like my mom. So, i always thught the completly grey at fourty was a family trait, it is not, it was pills and alcohol that did that to my mom, I can count about ten strands of silver in my hair lol.
However, your daughter should not kid herself, when I was 18 i overdosed on my moms pills, that my mom gave to me and vodka, not one time, but three times in one month, it is way to easy to overdose, I know this as a fact, not some random tibit from research but from personal experience.
Your daughter really needs to know this, and if she could hear it from people that have lived through it all the better.
Depression, my mother in her day was a manic depressant, what they now call bi polar.
She had the same psychiatrist from the age of 15, who pescribed her medication, I met him when I was 12 at my moms insistance...she wanted him to fix me. I didn't like his puffed up attitude, and i certainly did not like what he was doing to my mom, and I let him know that, that pompus ass said I was beyond his help lol. It is funny said that all through my childhood years up to the age of fourteen, i fought against drugs, and alcohol, eventhough it was pushed at me from every side, when they locked me up when i was 12, because i was unfixable I was forced to take a lot of pills to keep me under control, subdued, managable, I lost the good fight, I became exactlly what I fought against from a very very young age, I was no dummy, you learn very quickly in the enviroment i grew up in.
I ran away at the age of fourteen, and stayed that way, but was a raging drug addict, and at the age of fifteen began drinking with a vengance. I was already predisposed to addiction, so putting a pill in my moth or a drink in my hand was giving me my death sentance.
Your daughter can come through this! She really can, it is not easy, and no it is not always fun, and there is days she is going to want to quit quiting. MY days like that were usually i would drop my head into my hands and say I don't want to be an alcoholic any more, lol.
those days are long past, I am as healthy as I can be, I am happy, and i have hope that she can be too.
I really hope she can see that she is wasting precious time, and it isnt something that one can get back, I hope she can take the bitter truth, and make it into something so much better.
She is not unfixable, if I could fix myself with the help of other addicts and alcoholics, no Docs, no counselors, nothing but one drunk to another, she sure as heck can do with with a loving family and the help of those willing to help. Take the help girl, pick up the tools that will help you build a fantastic life for yourself, do it because you deserve it, you really do!
Sigh, got on a roll there i am sorry, lol, can you imagine if we were face to face? I would talk your ear off, lol, you are such a special mom, and there is nothing you did or didnt do that made your daughter pick up the first pill or drink, she made a deadly choice, and for that I am so sorry for the hell that you and she are going through because of it. I pray for you and your daughter.
you both deserve the best life has to offer, and the best is really simple, God grant me the Serenity to accept the things I can not change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Serenity, courage, and wisdom, those are the best things in life hun and I feverently wish them for you and your daughter.What she needs to understand and accept is that she can't find those in a pill or a bottle. Fourtunalty for me I got an added bonus and got Love in my life, and boy oh boy, does that man love me, never knew Love felt so dang good! The hugs are the very best, i like it when he randomly gives me a big ole bear hug lol. Even if i only have two person's that loves me, my hubby and myself, for me that is enough =).
God bless you and keep you safe and strong.
Tammy
