My daughter is a drug addict. There, I’ve said it. My sweet child, my dear little one, is a drug addict. It’s heartbreaking, frustrating, embarrassing, confusing, and a host of other emotions.
At twenty-four, she’d been drinking for years, lost her job, her car, her apartment, her five-year-old son, started using drugs, and still told me, “It’s not as bad as you think, Mom.” Well, it sure as hell wasn’t good.
Getting treatment, even when she wanted it, was next to impossible since she had no insurance and had not gone to social services to apply for Medicaid. We found out later that there would be a forty-five-day waiting period anyway. God help those in crisis in the great state of New York. We finally got things started by having her admitted to a pysch ward on a seventy-two-hour mental health watch after bringing her to a local emergency room and saying she was going to hurt herself. From there, the Medicaid process was started and she had follow up visits for mental health depression and an outpatient drug rehab group. She is now in her second week of a two-week inpatient drug rehab program. Without the daily prodding of her counselors and myself, we would not even be this far. It takes tremendous effort and energy to grind these wheels. It takes a lot of love and even more toughness. And somehow, you have to have or be both of those at the same time.
But just how tough is tough love? Where’s the line between detachment and amputation? How much insanity do we expose ourselves and other members of the household to in the name of loving the addict?
I can live as a prisoner to this; locking up my valuables, going to another room to avoid the verbal spew, staying away from friends and family because I have to baby-sit my grown daughter. And I could do it for the rest of my life (In fact I have an aunt and uncle who have been supporting their junkie son for twenty-five years!), but is that what I’ve worked so hard to create my life for?
