“Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: you don’t give up.” ~ Anne Lamott
Today I attended a meeting which gives me HOPE every single week. It is a 12-step program for family members affected by someone else’s addiction.
Every Monday our group meets to talk about recovery. Our recovery, not the addict’s.
I first went to this meeting to learn how to deal with my son’s drug use. Every week I heard stories of other families devastated by this disease of addiction. And I saw how they were able to live their lives in serenity, despite the devastation which addiction visits upon a family. It was and is inspiring.
At this meeting we talk about ourselves. How we are living our own lives. In this program we learn not how to rescue the addict, but how to rescue ourselves. We learn to live our own lives to the fullest, lives which do not depend on “whether the alcoholic is still drinking or not.”
We love our family members, but we cannot control them.
And that is the greatest HOPE of all: my happiness depends on me, not the addict, or anyone else, for that matter.
I am so grateful for the people in this group. Their stories and their lives have given me much HOPE in times of struggle. I hope I am doing the same for others.