you can’t love your child out of addiction with Megan Megale of Americanboy.org
Honestly, I thought I could love Matthew through his addiction. I really did. I thought love would conquer the fact that my youngest has a terminal illness. And they were so close. I thought if he can't do it for Shea and for I, I couldn't come to terms with why. And I'd often ask him, why can't you do this? Why are you putting Shea through this? And I put more pressure on my son by saying words like that Brenda. Then I realized the consequence of what my words drove him to do.
mothering in the age of opioid addiction with Paula Becker, author of A House on Stilts
"We do not know when he will come and go. Stealthily he avoids us, coming after dark leaving before dawn. But I look out the kitchen window and when my son is present, the stained glass windows of the House on Stilts glow with the light of the small lamp within like a church on Christmas Eve. This is my only solace and it is fleeting and I cling to it as I once clung to him. Sweet smelling, freshly bathed.”
Beyond Addiction’s Carrie Wilkens: using science and kindness as motivation for change in your child's substance use
“If you expect your kid to come out of rehab and be sober for good, that's like asking your kid to play a Chopin etude and they've never played the piano. What's actually happening is your kid needs to take piano lessons with a beginning instructor. He's going to earn some learn some easy pieces and work really hard. He's probably going to learn some stuff wrong and he's kind of have to, like, relearn it. At some stage he might have to get a different teacher because that's, he outgrew that teacher. He's going to have to practice more things. He's going to have to find the music he likes to play, you know, where does he like to play it? Does he like to play by himself? Does it like to play? You know, like there's so much learning. We have so much compassion for the learning process in other areas, we don't have a ton of compassion for the learning process when it comes to behavior change around addiction and substance use problems.”