let me introduce myself for those not close to me: i’m josh, a university freshman from a middle-class family. a middle-class home in a middle-class neighborhood. i’m a white jewish cis male so, you know, the world is pretty much set for me to succeed - i’d like to start this by explicitly making note of that. i live on treaty 1 land, the land of the dene, anishinaabe, oji-cree, metis, ojibwe, cree and dakota nations (although the dakota never signed treaty 1). no matter my problems, there are many that inherently have had it much tougher simply because of their skin colour, religion or sexual orientation.
all that aside, i write this with hopes that i can reach 1 person who is going through something similar to my life. i’ve been reading a lot of articles and stories from people that are experiencing the same adversities, and i’ve found a lot of comfort in seeing that i’m not alone.
i wont beat around the bush. lets get right to it.
my mother has struggled with a crack/cocaine addiction for approximately 12 years. it has been generally swept under the rug, as most families with addict-parents and small children do. until last year. after spending a lot of time at my girlfriends house and seeing how other people live, i convinced my mom to join narcotics anonymous. this was one of the hardest conversations i’ve ever had to have.
although she struggled to stay sober for months after her first NA meeting, the dialogue opened and i have been able to start my healing process. i’ve realized my deeply-rooted anxiety problems and just being able to be open about this has been such a free-ing experience.
i know there are many questions. how did our household function? what was it like?
right off the bat i’d like to mention my mother never used in front of me until this last year, which was another huge step towards pushing me to get her help. for over a decade she was able to keep me pretty sheltered. in 10+ years i only spotted strange men leaving my garage maybe 4 or 5 times. i only saw the lingering, distinctly thick smoke a handful of times. i rarely came face to face with a pipe and never the actual substance itself. my mother really did make a conscious effort to make sure my sister and i were never completely traumatized. for me personally, the events i look back on as traumatizing (seeing the smoke, dealers, my mother high) only have emerged as traumatizing this year, when i actually realized they were traumatizing. many childhood memories are tainted with the idea that my mom was likely either high, about to use, or in the process of using, just across the hall from my bedroom.
to give some more context, i’ll go a little further back.
my mother’s sister committed suicide on halloween in 2006. i was 7 and my sister was 9. this sent my mother spiraling into a deep depression and so her use increased. by the time i was 9 and my sister was 11, we were used to my mom being locked in her room for hours each night. because we grew up with friends who lived across the street and loved playing outside for as long as we could, we definitely used this to our advantage and got to stretch our curfews more than a few times. -
- this is an incredibly common thing among children of addict-parents. because an addict’s behavior is so dramatically different depending on what amount of substance is in their blood, the rules of the house get bent or changed basically at complete random. this plants a seed of mistrust in the child; a lack of trust between the child and their parent, and generally all figures of authority.
in november of 2008, i was in the 5th grade. i remember waking up one day and instantly knowing i was late for class - this was a frequent occurence in our house, another product of our complete lack of real structure. sometimes when i noticed i was late, i would just lie in bed and wait for my mom to wake up and yell at me and then go to school for the afternoon or whatever. this was one of those times.
the hours went by. it was almost lunch time and my mom hadn’t come to yell at me, so something felt strange. i left my bed to go see if she was still sleeping. her bed was empty. i looked out the kitchen window to see if she had left but the car was in the garage. i checked the living room, nothing. and then i checked the basement. the light was on, which my mom always got on us about turning off. when i go down the stairs i see my mom asleep on the couch. a little unusual perhaps, but nothing that extreme. i walked over and began to lightly shake her to wake her up. nothing. no response at all. i shook her harder. still nothing. it was at this point that i went upstairs, got dressed, woke my sister up and filled her in with what was happening. we both went back down and shook her at the same time. my moms eyes briefly opened and she made out a few unintelligible sounds. after maybe 10 more minutes of this my mom finally gained enough consciousness to assure us she was fine and sit herself up. within 10 seconds she was completely slouched into her own lap. we shook her again. she fell to the floor and went completely limp. i ran to the phone and dialed my baba. my grandfather picked up and i did my best to explain what was happening. although clearly confused and unclear about what was happening, he came over within about 10 minutes. it was when we lead him down the stairs to her that i actually noticed something weird. there were pills scattered everywhere (my mom was on a plethora of anti-depressants, pain-killers, etc.). my grandfather dialed 911 and luckily she made it and spent the next 2 weeks in the ER and psych ward at the hospital.
it wasn’t the hospital visits that were the most difficult. after the ambulance came to get my mom, i was dropped off at school and all my friends rushed to me to ask why i was late. i had no idea what to tell them. i had no idea what the fuck just happened. the first responders explained to me that my mom must have accidentally taken too many sleeping pills. even though i always considered myself the smartest person in my class, i completely believed thats what happened. but i was too ashamed to even tell my friends that; i just walked away holding back tears until i could get to the washroom and let it out. the rest of the day i avoided the question and all the kids, as kids do, got something else to be excited about. -
- a few follow ups to this story: i didnt understand my mother attempted suicide until years later. looking back i have absolutely 0 idea how it took me so long to realize this, but what i’m finding is that it’s extremely common among children of addict-parents to have distorted ideas of reality. because children are often given a sugar-coated version of stories, children of addict-parents are at an exponentially higher risk to confuse what they see with what their told and so they have trouble wondering what’s real and what isn’t. their external and internal realities often exist separately. are they crazy? is it their judgement that’s flawed? obviously it’s easy to see that the child is rarely delusional, but for the child that may be difficult to see, especially if they have nobody to talk to about this problem, which nicely ties in the 2nd follow up to this story: living with an enormous family secret is one of the toughest things a child can experience. mainly, the shame is unimaginably overwhelming. a child of an addict may avoid friendships with other children and may feel they cannot invite their friends to their house, because their parent might be at home high, coming down from the substance, in the process of getting high or drunk, and the parent will embarrass them. another result of a major family secret is fear and/or paranoia. a child of an addict lives in constant fear of having their truth revealed to someone outside the house. the child is constantly worried they might be taken away from home and put into the foster system, and that their parent could go to jail for their addiction.
after reading x many articles theres definitely a lot of the same things i’m noticing between the stories and experiences of children of addicts. heres a small guide that can help u understand ur trauma if u are a child of an addict, or a guide that will help u offer better support for those u know who had a strange childhood:
lets talk about “normal”. i briefly eluded to this before but i want to be more clear. children of addicts have no idea what the fuck normal is. let me tell u. generally speaking, normal shouldn’t include instability, fear, or any form of abuse. for children of addicts, this is literally new information. normal for us is taking care of your household, your siblings, your parent(s), and very rarely yourself. this is a major reason that many children of addicts are seen as pushovers or unable to stand up for themselves. we’ve learned forever to put other people before ourselves, because nobody has put us first. ever. an addict parent, to be very blunt, puts their addiction before their children all the time, whether they mean to or not.
fear. fear is an instinctive feeling that everyone experiences at some point or another. everyone is afraid of something. but it’s very different for children of addicts. we live in fear most of the time. and the fear is hidden — sometimes very deeply. we’re afraid of the future, specifically the unknown. the unknown has been our reality for many years. we may not have known where our parents were, or when they’d return. we might not have known if there would be a pleasant family dinner or awkward silence through the whole house. while we may know now that we no longer have to worry about our households because we’ve moved out or some other reason, life can still be terrifying. coming home and not knowing what to expect (at all), all through your childhood, is a major factor in making us incredibly anxious people. this fear or anxiety may express itself in a number of ways, everything from anger to tears. we probably won’t recognize it as fear or anxiety without professional help or doing our own research. so read as much as u can!
we feel guilty. about everything. we don’t understand self-care. we don’t have clear-cut boundaries. if we stand up for ourselves, we feel guilty. if we take care of ourselves, we feel guilty. our life is built on a foundation of i give to you and receive nothing. we don’t know how to receive. this is a super tough thing to learn for us and can take a really long time to understand. it was very difficult for me to move out for this reason. how could i not be there to help my mom? shes kinda fucking crazy and doesn’t have many friends. what is she gonna do without me? eventually you have to hold your addict parent accountable, solely for your own mental health. you didn’t make them an addict. get yourself some space and distance. you can tell them to join AA or NA (which aren’t that helpful for a large % of people, sadly) or some other rehab program, but at the end of the day the addict has to want to get better. and that is only on them. nothing to do with u. at all. trying to empathize and work with an addict will drive u insane cause their brain doesn’t work properly anymore.
obviously, we had no peace in our childhood. we don’t know peace. chaos, stress, unrest: these are comfortable for us. we feel at home in these circumstances, not because they are healthy, but because they feel normal. we develop different survival tactics that people shouldn’t need until much later in life. we have trouble planning things and managing our time. many of us would rather live without a schedule. nothing in our households have ever been consistent. and so we learn to deal with random fucking shitstorms all the time.
after a month and a half of detox and rehab programs, my mom is now a few months clean and i am living at home. things can always get better. that being said, getting here has been the toughest thing i’ve ever had to do in my life, and by no means is it over. addiction is a struggle my mom will have to deal with daily. i have panic attacks. but reaching out to others for support has been instrumental in getting my life in order.
i know i talked about this already but having to keep a secret like this from your friends and other family members is mentally and emotionally exhausting, and after over a decade this manifested in me into anxiety, depression and paranoia. because i couldn’t explain this problem to anyone without explaining the root of it, nobody knew what i was going thru for over 5 years. opening up to my closest friends, some of over 15 years, has been the toughest but best thing ive ever done (they have been wonderful so i’d like to thank them here for that). i’ve cried more in the last year of my life than the other 17 combined. it has been sooooo worth it and i can’t stress that enough. i was never able to have any sort of real relationship before i sorted my brain out, and this is often the case for those struggling with mental illnesses and/or trauma. there is nothing more important than than your own mental health. put yourself first for just a bit. sharing your experiences opens the doors for yourself and others who are struggling to come forward.
this is also (maybe obviously) why i’m so hellbent on doing away with the war on drugs - and capitalism as a whole but i’ll leave that for another day - because i’ve literally been on the dark side of it. the war on drugs, though ADMITTEDLY a war on poor (black) people, has failed massively as a detterent away from drugs. treating addicts like criminals is the worst and most damaging thing we can possibly do. my mom was scared of getting help for all of those years, and partially, rightfully so. coming forward with two young kids could’ve sent me and my sister away from her, could’ve put her in jail, not to mention the massive public shame she would feel from the jewish community, and our local community. keep in mind were just a middle class family in winnipeg manitoba. the damage the war on drugs has taken onto marginalized communities across the USA (especially) and the world is beyond measure. what we know concretely, is that this system of prohibition doesnt work. it never has over the course of modern history. what does work is decriminalizing, best showcased in Portugal where money once spent on harrassing and imprisoning addicts has been redirected into rehab programs and subsidies for companies willing to hire addicts. this is what progress looks like!!! their overdose and addiction rates generally have plummeted since decrimnalization. the choice here is simple.
anyway thanks for reading my rambled story. thank you to everyone voicing their issues today. dialogue is our best medicine. be kind to each other and think about where people may be coming from before you jump to conclusions about them.
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