No Boundaries

When your 30 year old daughter comes through a full blown intravenous heroin addiction and wants to change not only her life, but the lives of others, you do all you can to help her.

My daughter Arielle, and myself have been to and through hell and back battling the tough beast of addiction. It is not an easy or pretty thing to deal with, and as her mother I have watched what the beast will do. He will destroy everything with life and keep moving.

Seeing my daughter fight the addiction has not been for the faint at heart. One of the first things that leaves an addict’s life is boundaries and entitlement moves in. My daughter and I decided to face the beast and for 2 weeks fought, cried and dealt with it head on with no medication. It was difficult and when I bathed her barely breathing, cold grey body, I new as well as she did what needed to be done.

Today, she is facing her life with boundaries and love for herself and 2 beautiful children ages 3 & 4. Her boundaries keep her sober and close to her family.

How did she achieve this? How did she defeat the Beast that took over her life for 10 years and still come out able to stand for the battle? It was tough every step of the way and it took unconditional love from a family who were at the end of their ropes and the decision she had to make to understand how important and detrimental her sobriety was.

The struggle she has dealt with has been one you would never wish on your worst enemy. To be sick to your stomach, throw up, not be able to concentrate and take a few steps just to feed yourself is big, but when you have your family besides you, you push forward. She was weak and fragile like a bird and when I helped her get into the tub, I literally felt her bones coming through her knees. Her skin had a gray deathly pallor and it took me off guard. This was my daughter. Here she was getting into the bathtub, skin and bones, weak because she can't hold down any food or liquid and all I can think is that this is my little girl, grown up with children of her own and she may not live to see either of them reach their next birthdays.

This is hard to say to yourself. This is hard to come to grips with. Bathing her frail body while she sat motionless. It seemed to take too much effort to move. I carefully bathed her and thought of the times I had bathed her as a little girl. How different this experience was. I was brokenhearted, my daughter was broken and all we could do was to try and get through the withdrawals and sickness.

We spent 11 days locked in our home as she detoxed. She cried loudly in her sleep, startling my husband who was sleeping on the couch. We decided to send her children to live with my oldest daughter through this process. She would not have been able to be there for them the way they needed and deserved, and I had to stay focused on what we were trying to do.

Teas and essential oils became just that essential. Green Tea with milk in the morning along with 2 slices of toast when she could hold food down. Rubbing her joints, which seemed to hurt her like a person older than my 60 years. Plain yogurt for lunch and broth. Warm Chamomile Tea with milk in the evening. Conversations in the back yard that dealt with truth and the decision to stay sober. Discussions about my part in her addiction that had never been discussed as well as what she would do to prevent it from happening again as it had so many times before we reached this point.

We emerged from our home after all was said and done, both different women. I had come to the realization that boundaries were set for reasons. When children are young they have boundaries set so they don't get into trouble and as adults we set boundaries for the same reason. When we don't set and have boundaries for ourselves, we put ourselves in the position to blame others and make excuses for when we cross those boundaries.

Addiction is a selfish Beast. It does not have any boundaries. It is a take and take relationship. It takes all that a person has to give and when it is done, it will take the dignity and leave the person left wondering when the Beast ever came in and set up residence. My daughter and I have felt the residuals of no boundaries, have faced the beast and have replaced those boundaries with accountability and a renewed vision of what those boundaries look like. They are as pleasing as a white picket fence and they keep people and situations in their place.

I submit this as a Mother who has crossed the boundaries of addiction to rescue my Daughter who crossed the boundaries and entered the Beast's lair. We both have come out.

Today, we live to tell about it.