Today is a new day......
God gives us what we need when we need it....this is what I read this morning in The Language of Letting Go; July 23.
Making it Happen
Stop trying so hard to make it happen.
Stop doing so much, if doing so much is wearing you out or not achieving the desired results. Stop thinking so much and so hard about it. Stop worrying so about it. Stop trying to force, to manipulate, to coerce, or to make it happen.
Making things happen is controlling. We can take positive action to help thing happen. We can do our part. But many of us do much more than our part. We overstep the boundaries from caring and doing our part into controlling, caretaking, and coercing.
Controlling is self defeating. It doesn't work. By over-extending ourselves to make something happen, we may actually be stopping it from happening.
Do your part in relaxed peaceful harmony. Then let it go. Just let it go. Force yourself to let it go, if necessary. "Act as if." Put as much energy into letting go as you have into trying to control. You'll get much better results.
It may not happen. It may not happen the way we wanted it to and hoped it would. But our controlling wouldn't have made it happen either.
Learn to let things happen because that's what they'll do anyway. And while we're waiting to see what happens, we'll be happier and so will those around us.
Today I will stop forcing things to happen. Instead I will allow things to happen naturally. If I catch myself trying to force events or control people, I will stop and figure out a way to detach.
She said she will go. There are several days between today and her intake so we will see. I am praying.
With that said, I want to thank everyone for the comments. Yesterday was a hard day. I felt a lot of deep sadness and grief. That happens sometimes. The reality is that recovery from heroin addiction is rare and not usually successful. The fact is that the odds are against her in some very significant ways. Some days I can manage that, I can accept that her life is what it is and may not change much. Or it might...I certainly don't know much of anything past the next couple of minutes. I certainly keep praying and hoping.
An Anonymous commenter brought up the idea of an ultimatum....go to treatment or leave. Of course that is always a possibility. I used to solely believe that. Like a pendulum I swung way to one extreme....now in my old age of doing this for so many years, I think I am coming back to a middle ground. I don't believe there are many black and white lines in all of this anymore. There are far too many variables. Any decisions we do make pertaining to our own individual situation are made with much thought and with all of the variable circumstances in mind. Believe it or not, I don't share every detail of our lives here on my blog. There are reasons we make some of the decisions we do....and they aren't all about us being enablers. With much prayer, and seeking input from my sponsor, and from friends who are walking similar journeys, we make our way through each day doing the best we can in some impossible circumstances. I think we all can agree that a young woman living in this world of addiction is at a lot more risk of awfulness than a young man. Don't get me wrong....it is unthinkably difficult and painful no matter the gender of the child, but young women are far more vulnerable to abuse and crushing mistreatment in the middle of all of this hell. Rest assured, every parent who finds themselves in this most unexpected of worlds, is doing the best they can at any given moment. What works for one may not work for another. If there was a one size fit all remedy, our kids would be fixed and we all would be able to blog about our hobbies or what good books we read.
Keep praying for us please....I am praying for all of you.
Annette
Making it Happen
Stop trying so hard to make it happen.
Stop doing so much, if doing so much is wearing you out or not achieving the desired results. Stop thinking so much and so hard about it. Stop worrying so about it. Stop trying to force, to manipulate, to coerce, or to make it happen.
Making things happen is controlling. We can take positive action to help thing happen. We can do our part. But many of us do much more than our part. We overstep the boundaries from caring and doing our part into controlling, caretaking, and coercing.
Controlling is self defeating. It doesn't work. By over-extending ourselves to make something happen, we may actually be stopping it from happening.
Do your part in relaxed peaceful harmony. Then let it go. Just let it go. Force yourself to let it go, if necessary. "Act as if." Put as much energy into letting go as you have into trying to control. You'll get much better results.
It may not happen. It may not happen the way we wanted it to and hoped it would. But our controlling wouldn't have made it happen either.
Learn to let things happen because that's what they'll do anyway. And while we're waiting to see what happens, we'll be happier and so will those around us.
Today I will stop forcing things to happen. Instead I will allow things to happen naturally. If I catch myself trying to force events or control people, I will stop and figure out a way to detach.
She said she will go. There are several days between today and her intake so we will see. I am praying.
With that said, I want to thank everyone for the comments. Yesterday was a hard day. I felt a lot of deep sadness and grief. That happens sometimes. The reality is that recovery from heroin addiction is rare and not usually successful. The fact is that the odds are against her in some very significant ways. Some days I can manage that, I can accept that her life is what it is and may not change much. Or it might...I certainly don't know much of anything past the next couple of minutes. I certainly keep praying and hoping.
An Anonymous commenter brought up the idea of an ultimatum....go to treatment or leave. Of course that is always a possibility. I used to solely believe that. Like a pendulum I swung way to one extreme....now in my old age of doing this for so many years, I think I am coming back to a middle ground. I don't believe there are many black and white lines in all of this anymore. There are far too many variables. Any decisions we do make pertaining to our own individual situation are made with much thought and with all of the variable circumstances in mind. Believe it or not, I don't share every detail of our lives here on my blog. There are reasons we make some of the decisions we do....and they aren't all about us being enablers. With much prayer, and seeking input from my sponsor, and from friends who are walking similar journeys, we make our way through each day doing the best we can in some impossible circumstances. I think we all can agree that a young woman living in this world of addiction is at a lot more risk of awfulness than a young man. Don't get me wrong....it is unthinkably difficult and painful no matter the gender of the child, but young women are far more vulnerable to abuse and crushing mistreatment in the middle of all of this hell. Rest assured, every parent who finds themselves in this most unexpected of worlds, is doing the best they can at any given moment. What works for one may not work for another. If there was a one size fit all remedy, our kids would be fixed and we all would be able to blog about our hobbies or what good books we read.
Keep praying for us please....I am praying for all of you.
Annette
Comments
Just remember that these are YOUR shades of gray and you get to color them any shade that suits you and your family.
Prayers for you and your family.
Sherry
She did decide to leave town because of the emotional triggers she experienced here and that her dealers and friends were easy to find.
Today she is five years sober and actually took her mother's Al-Anon friends out to dinner to thank us for being there when she wasn't.
Miracles are possible.
I wish those things for all of us.
God Bless.
Kathy
I never gave up on my daughter. Ever. But I did have some boundaries that were never crossed. Those came from my own soul. Not from a book or a therapist or a commenter on blogger.
This was the one and only area I didn't even listen to my sponsor. When my daughter was 17, she told me to walk away and not have contact with my girl. That's what she did with her girl. Her girl is now in prison for murder. I can see why she did what she did. But I had a different girl and a different answer. Thank God.
I am so sorry that you are going through this right now. I have been out of pocket trying to move. This part is the absolute worst part. The Dad and I know that Will is not sober but he hasn't hit a bottom to want to change directions yet. When it does get bad....and it always does, there is that time when you just have to accept and acceptance for me is so hard. I will pray for H and offer mass for her tomorrow. Hang in there!