I have learned that one problem with people who do drugs is that they are self-centered. Drug use is self-gratifying. A person does not get high so someone else will feel no pain, cope, or check out of reality; they do it for themselves.

By nature drug users and addicts don’t bother, or are perhaps unable, to realize that their using negatively affects everyone in their immediate circle. It affects their family – nuclear and extended, their friends (except maybe their circle of friends who also use), their employer/employees and co-workers, and the public (every time they get behind the wheel of a car).

I  (and my husband, as well) have a very hard time as a parent. I worry incessantly about the 3 of our 4 children who are involved in the drug culture, and the fall-out from their choices. I worry about our grandkids.

I have allowed it to consume not only my life, but “our” life. My husband and I have started going to Celebrate Recovery, a Christ-centered program, which in our case is similar to NarAnon. We do this to regain sanity and stability in our lives. We are learning to separate our kids from who they are on drugs. We are learning to detach ourselves from them in our lives to protect our hearts. We are learning not to judge them, but to love them; to love them but not enable them. We are leaning to do all of these things and it is working.

We are making a conscious decision to not have our kids active in our lives unless they are drug-free. It means that we are learning to cope with things that come up with our children and grandchildren in a healthy way. Emotionally it feels like their drug use, et al will kill us, but we are learning to function healthily through it one day at a time.

We are trying to change the way we approach and deal with many things in our lives. For example, I have decided not to go to court next week to defend myself against a request for a restraining order by one of our daughters. If it is issued against me that’s her business. She is seeking it in retaliation for something I spoke in anger. That’s about her…not about me. It is her decision. When a prospective employer pulls a background check on me and sees it and assumes I am violent and not to be hired, I will assume God doesn’t intend for me to have that job anyway. I will not resent her, but will respect her choice to do this……whether it was meant in retaliation to hurt me or not.

I have come to realize it is time to tend to me and my husband; to our household and our relationship. We will not ask, beg or try to guilt our way into our children’s chaotic lives. If our grandkids come to us before we die and seek a relationship with us that will be fine. If not, so be it.  We will still continue to love our kids and grandkids and pray for them daily. We will continue to heal, to grow, to be happy. We will grow closer to God in the process because only with Him can we make it.