Child Of An Addict
Drug addiction is no stranger to me. Growing up, I watched my older brother struggle with it and he still does to this day. I’ve seen what it did to his family and what it continues to do to his son.
Today, I watch what it’s doing to our middle child. No, I did not physically give birth to him but I accepted him along with his two brothers when I chose to say yes to Brodie in being his girlfriend and later, his wife.
Most of his life, he’s watched both of his parents be consumed by addiction. He and his older brother had to fend for themselves at a very young age with the oldest, only 4 years older than him, basically taking care of him. Eventually, the state stepped in and they were removed from the home and placed with other family members.
In 2014, the youngest was born and was immediately placed with family members. Since then, they were in the custody of family members. Unfortunately, the only steady they had in their lives were the family members and their Dad, Brodie, who was still in an active addiction at that time and would remain until the beginning of 2017 when he entered rehab for the very last time and has been sober for four years now.
I entered their lives in 2019 and could see the hunger for acceptance in the middle one right away. The need to be loved and the starvation of attention that he desired from a motherly figure. Throughout the next year, we would watch the ups and downs in his behavior. You knew when he had either spoken to his birth mom or saw her because he would be on a high for a couple of days and then he would spiral and go into an angry state. He would fight more than normal with his younger brother. He would say mean things to him and state how he hated both his younger and older brothers. He would feel rejected even though he doesn’t quit understand that emotion. After a couple of days, he was back to being himself. Then the rollercoaster would take off again the next time he talked to or saw her. When school started, and he would enter into the rejection stage, he started giving trouble on the bus and at school. Then he would return back to not being so angry and behaved at school and at home.
In the later months of 2020, Brodie sat him down and explained that until his Mom went to rehab like he did to get help, remained sober for some time and proved herself, he would no longer allow them to have contact because of what it was doing to him. It wasn’t healthy and it was toxic to his wellbeing. It was not an easy decision for his dad to make and it broke my heart watching him have to make it and having to have the honest discussion with him on the truth of the matter. He didn’t hide anything from him, as he shouldn’t.
A lot of times we feel like we’re doing our kids a favor and protecting them by not being as honest with them as we should. It’s our job as parents to protect them, but also be very real with them. They deserve to know the why on some of the decisions that we make for them and not “just because we said so”.
He now understands what his Mom’s lifestyle consist of but it doesn’t change the fact that he loves her very much and wants her in his life. He is encouraged to pray for her and he does. He prays for God to protect both his mom and his little sister and that they both come to Christ. He is never discouraged from praying for them, as no one should ever do that. A couple of months ago, he asked me if God was real because he hadn’t answered his prayer yet. I explained that yes, God was very real…look at how far his Dad has come and he couldn’t have done that and still do so without God. I tried my best to explain that sometimes God does answer our prayers and present opportunities to people but at the end of the day, its up to that person to make the decision for themselves because we all have a self-will and God will never go against that. I also reminded him that his Grannie prayed for his Dad for 25 years before her prayers were answered. He faced his rock bottom and he only had God left to look up to for help. Sometimes it takes extreme things for God to get our attention.
He still struggles with rejection. He still struggles with needing constant reassurance, attention, and acceptance. His love language right now is definitely quality time, one on one. It’s something we need to make it more of a point to do with him. Of all three boys, he shows the most tendency to follow the same path as his parents. We talked to him about that and the reason why we discipline them and why we try our best to guide them away from that path. I pray for them daily that the generational curses be broken and familiar spirits leave them as they will not be addicts of any kind.
The addict doesn’t see anything but the next high. They will do anything for it and chase it at any cost. Unfortunately, it’s their kids and family that suffer from it, as well as, themselves. We can not save them. We can not make them go to rehab. They have to make that decision on their own. Cutting ties with an addict is not an easy thing to do. Most are master manipulators and know exactly how to make you believe they’re clean or get you to continue enabling them. There are some very high functioning addicts in this society but that doesn’t make them any less than an addict who can’t function. They are still an addict, until they’re not.
If you pray, please keep our boys in your prayers as they go through this life. That they find peace and confidence to be the men of God that they were born to be. That they will not follow the path of addiction.
They are enough. They are loved.
