My Daughters' Addiction

My daughter, a beautiful thirty-five-year-old woman with a huge heart for everything alive on this earth. She has long, down to her lower back, beautiful golden blonde hair, big brown eyes, and a great teasing like smile, has had an addiction for 13 years. The first time she admitted to me she was addicted to Methadone, she had already given birth to two beautiful, like her, children, a boy, and a girl.

She wasn't living with me at that time and had extremely bad experiences within her relationships. She never told me that the men she was with beat and hurt her mentally until I saw it for myself. Normally she is a very quiet, helping, giving, and polite person unless someone tries to hurt her, then she can be the worst nightmare for anyone crossing her way, even me, her mother. That is the reason why she never stayed at home, or I had to kick her out a few times, even though I always tried to give her all my love and I never hurt her, but she thought I loved her brother more than her. Maybe that is why she ran away from home and went with all the boys she could get, and even got married at the age of seventeen because she got pregnant with sixteen and left the father of the child to come back home at age seventeen with the child. The father of the child was a Methamphetamine addict, which I had not known that until years later. Otherwise, I would have gotten her out of that trailer park where they were living.

The man she married at age seventeen, beat her almost to death, and I was always wondering why she never came home to see me and her brother. It was because of the bruises her husband had given her. He was very nice to me, her, and my husband when my daughter and he first met, and no one could ever tell he would do anything to hurt her. They lived with us for a few months until they found a home in a trailer park. My husband and I gave them furniture and all the necessities they needed to live there happily.

When I saw her bruises as I was there to visit one day, I asked her what happened, she did not want to tell me, because she knew, I would get so angry at that person whoever hurt her and maybe even shoot that person. A couple days later while her husband was at work, I went and picked my grandson and my daughter up and told her she never has to go back. After she had left him, she told me what he did to her. I saw him walking up my driveway a couple days after she had left him and I stood there ready to shoot with my gun and said, “Where do you want it, in your head or knee”? As he started running away, I shot in the air one time, and he ran faster. After that incident, we never saw him again. I do not know when after that time she got addicted, because she and the baby moved out and in with another man. He was not beating her, but he was also taking drugs, which I did not know at that time, and I believe that is how she got into the Methadone. I found out later that they left my grandson with a couple who raised the man she was with. I had no idea what was going on, but I knew that man because he had been in our house when my daughter still went to school.

 Time went by, and one day, after I had tried for years to get her into a rehabilitation facility, she told me she is willing to go into a program where she can get clean from the Methadone. She got clean through a cold withdrawal, which lasted a tough 7 days. I was so very proud of her, and still am, but she left the program after three months. She knew she couldn't come home, because I tried keeping her home for a while, but she just went out of control was very aggressive and mean towards me. So, she went to a person who got her on pain pills, maybe before she started the Methadone. I thought to myself, " Oh Lord, I hope she doesn't start getting on pain pills again".  

When I picked her up after she ran away from the program, she was sitting next to a dumpster. I told her that she is better than that, she does not need to sit at dumpsters. She replied,” Mama, where am I supposed to go? You don’t want me at home”. I said, “of course I want you at home, but you need to act normal and not like a psycho. Plus, you need to be in a program for at least a year before you can lose your addiction and be normal again”. It was a totally sad and depressing situation for me as well as for my daughter, but it seemed like she didn’t care where she was sitting. In a way as if she was giving up on life and didn’t care about anyone or anything anymore.

We were not allowed to communicate while she was in the program, and I was worried to death and called the supervisor almost every day to see if my daughter was ok or needed anything. I did not know how the program worked until my daughter had been in the program for two months, then they explained it to me. They had told me, above other things, that if she leaves, she can not come back, and I should not pick her up if she does leave. It broke my heart to hear that, and I picked her up anyways.

After being out of the program for three months, she might be addicted again, not to Methadone, but instead to pain pills. She is steadily trying to become a better person, but there are many mountains to climb before she can reach her goal. She told me she is living in a shelter now and is also working part time. She is very interested in getting her GED, since she has no Highschool Diploma. My daughter is a very strong minded, intelligent, and normally has a great personality person. She wants to do better in life, especially for her children, which she gave up for adoption after she got addicted, because she knew that she couldn’t take care of them the way she was living at that time, and I was an over the road truck driver, divorced, and could not take care of them either. Therefore, I do believe that one day she will succeed and become that better person she was before her addiction ever started. My love for my daughter will never end and I pray every day that she does finally become that better person and never look back.