Codependence, Anxiety and a Smack on the Head

Codependence, Anxiety…

When you have a loved one in long term recovery things begin to ease up. It’s a slow process, but if you work on letting go and understanding you have no control you inch closer and closer to being able to breathe. One day you realize you fell asleep and woke up without that band of anxiety gripping your chest. When your phone rings and it’s your loved one, panic is no longer your instinctive reaction. The fear stays with you, but you learn to keep it at bay. You remind yourself it’s their life, and that projecting will do you no good. Live for today, be joyful for everything that is good in your life. Amen.

That’s what I would have written a few months ago. But all it took was my mother’s intuition –honed to pinpoint precision through years of codependency – to sound a warning bell and I took ten giant steps backward. My son did not relapse, but he was having a difficult time. I could feel it coming, and the panic, helplessness, terror and anxiety stampeded back into my life and, like puzzle pieces, settled into the familiar spaces in my brain shaped just for them.

UNITE to Face Addiction article and accompanying photo

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kate Meyer of I Am Not Anonymous wrote a powerful blog post about the UNITE to Face Addiction rally in DC, The Day the Silence Ended . Don’t skip the link at the bottom of the article to the photo gallery. Amazing photos – she really captured the day!

We UNITED to Face Addiction. No More Silence.

On October 3rd and 4th I stood beside my son in Washington DC.  I stood with him at the Fed Up! rally on Saturday as Chief Campanello and John Rosenthal spoke to us about the Gloucester Initiative and PAARI (the Police Assisted Addiction and Recovery Initiative). We raised our voices and marched with thousands to the White House- then later stood in silence while hundreds of names of those lost to addiction were read.

We were together as Cheryl Crowe sang For What it’s Worth in the shadow of the Washington Monument during the UNITE to Face Addiction rally. I got goosebumps as she belted out “Everybody look what’s going down…”.

We stood as the Surgeon General announced that the first ever report commissioned on substance use, addiction, and health will be published in 2016.

” I’m here to say that we won’t hide from this issue because it’s hard for some to talk about. Because we know there was a time in this country when it was hard to talk about smoking, about AIDS, and about mental health. But we were fortunate enough to have leaders who stood up and said: It’s time for us to have a conversation in this country that’s based on facts; A conversation that’s based on medicine and science.” ~ Surgeon General Vivek Murthy

(full transcript of speech available here)