Most of the shadows of life are caused by standing in our own sunshine.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
I sat down at my computer dreading this first assignment and not yet knowing it was a critical step in my recovery. “My recovery.” This was still a new concept to me with just over a week in treatment for drug and alcohol addiction. My assignment was to write a letter to someone important in my life about my addiction and to commit myself to recovery.
I knew instantly that I had to write the letter to my parents. For years I watched their confusion at the chaos in my life. Somehow I had been able to hide my drug habit so all they saw were the consequences. But now, the cat was out of the bag. They were at a loss to understand why, of their seven children, only I had invited drugs and alcohol into my life. The other members of my family led normal, happy, successful lives - lives I envied but could not seem to emulate. At the many family gatherings I felt like an outsider, living a lie, dreading the day anyone discovered my awful secret. I was the last to arrive and the first to leave, anxious to be alone with my pipe.
In this assignment I would meet my worst fear head-on. Finally my parents would know the awful truth about their worthless daughter. Before I could begin I actually prayed. For years I believed God would have nothing to do with me. Now in my deepest heartbreak I asked for his strength and love. Then I wrote the letter. Of course after writing it I had to give it to them.
Little did I know that on the day I chose to share my letter, my mother had prayed for me again. She gave me up to God, told God I was in his hands. Her concerns for me and for my little boy were killing her. She just could not worry about me another day.
I drove up to their lovely home. I walked in the front door and found my parents in the cozy family room with my sister Deidre. I asked them all to sit down. Then I took out my letter and read it to them.
June 1997
Dear Mom and Dad,
Hi, it’s me your long-lost daughter. God, I have missed you these past fifteen years - you and Wendy, Deidre, Shari, Dean, Randy and Daren.
I suppose the best way to break this to you would be to sit quietly while I let you read the contents of this first assignment and then watch your hearts break while mine disintegrates with more guilt and shame.
You did everything right. You have six wonderful kids to prove it and yet I am such a loser. I have often wished you would discover that I was not your child after all. That would at least explain my worthlessness.
It is 3:21 in the morning and I am sober - for eight days now. And I am determined to finish this letter as part of my first assignment and part of a series of steps toward my recovery. I dread telling you about me but I know it will answer so many questions for you. You always say how much you miss me. I could not figure out just what, exactly, you missed. Of your seven children, I let you down the most. “You have so much potential.” Mom, you have said that more times than I can remember. I hope you are right.
I am so tired of being alienated from you all. I miss you so-so-so much. I feel as though my happiness stopped in 1977 when Dad held me so tight in my little dormitory room at my university. I’ll never forget the look of love and regret in your eyes, Dad, the day you left me there. And I’ll never forget my own grief, how I cried at watching you leave.
I am sorry for the pain my choices have caused you. I am sorry for the agony my revelations will cause you now. You have always been there for me, when I asked and even when I couldn’t. You have loved me unconditionally and that is what makes hurting you now so hard. My only prayer is that in this hurt, true heal¬ing will finally begin.
I do so want to please you again. I so much want to be part of my family again. I do not want to be an addict - on drugs - anymore, ever again. But I am so afraid of failing. You know I never tried much anymore because that way I could not fail. But this is my greatest challenge. And if I fail the only answer for me is death. So I have to succeed. I will always be an addict in recovery and I wonder, can you live with that label? Is this just too much?
I need to know you still love me. But I am so afraid. I suppose I am afraid of losing you. But I lost you long ago in my addiction. So maybe, I really have nothing left to lose by shar¬ing this with you. I will do this, Mom and Dad, for my son. Yes, a drug addict has raised him - until now. And I will do this for you, and I will do this for me, in the hope that indeed I am worth it.
I love you more than life, far more than life. I even love you more than death. And, that is something because I have longed for death for so long. Yes. I love you more than death and I want “My Recovery” more than death. And it means I have a chance. If I can just know you are there my recovery is only a matter of time, work, God and me.
Pray for me. And pray for all that potential. I am gonna need it. I’ll keep you posted.
All my love,
Tracey
My parents moved closer and closer to me. Deidre got up and held me. At the end we were all holding each other, crying and hurting. But through the tears we all tasted hope and I knew without a doubt that I would have all the love and support from my parents and my brothers and sisters. I had been so afraid of their judgment and rejection.
Imagine my surprise the following Saturday when my entire family - my parents, brothers, sisters, their spouses and children and my son - showed up at my treatment center in a massive show of support and love.
That was nearly seven years ago. The love and encouragement has never wavered. Today I am fully enmeshed in my family. I belong. I have a wonderful job working for Health and Social Services. I am the Chair of RAFT (Recovering Advocates for Treatment), an organization that speaks out about the importance of treatment for drug and alcohol addiction. I am active in my church and community.
My relationship with my fourteen-year-old son is incredible. He is a 4.0 student, wise, centered and compassionate. I am there to guide him, to love him and to be a light in his world.
So, once again my mom was right... I do have potential. And every day in my recovery, I live with it.
Tracey W. Lee-Coen