My Journey With My Daughter

As a single parent 26 years ago, I adopted a baby girl from Allentown, PA. Today, she is a beautiful young lady, in a long-term stable relationship and a career as a dental assistant; she is the person I always knew she would be. However, it has been a long journey to get here.

My daughter was born addicted! The woman who gave birth to her had no prenatal care and did drugs and alcohol throughout her pregnancy. Knowing that nature and nurturing affects a child’s development, I brought her out to Arizona.

Growing up, she had swimming lessons, was involved in gymnastics, took dancing lessons, tried karate, and as she got older and into school, basketball and volleyball; she played club volleyball. All was as expected with raising a teenager until just before her freshman year in high school.

Until age 20, my daughter was out on the street and in and out of rehab programs with no success. When we found The Pathway Program, my daughter’s drugs of choice were heroin and meth. When we found The Pathway Program, my daughter found a program that would save her life and I found a parent group that saved mine.

Before going to my first meeting, I was a distraught, lost, anxious, afraid, guilty, embarrassed mess. Keeping my daughter’s addiction a secret was eating me inside. I said nothing to my family, friends and coworkers and they had no idea what was going on and couldn’t understand why I was always distant and sick.

Going to parent meetings week after week helped me to understand that I’m not alone; there ARE other families out there going through what I was going through. They understood my anger, my sense of guilt my sense of helplessness. I learned to shift my focus from my daughter to myself.  They helped me to learn that I didn’t cause my daughter’s addiction so there was no need for me to feel guilty. Any time I had a sense of fear or of being lost, I had the number of a fellow parent to call to vent and seek help. I learned to take care of myself because if I’m not well, I can’t take care of anybody including me. I learned how to set boundaries and how to stick to them. I learned tools to help me deal with daily issues like saying NO!

My daughter celebrated her 6^th year of sobriety this February and I found a life. Being part of an enthusiastic sobriety program continues to impact my daily life and I continue to be involved.

-Louise M.