Please submit your message of courage, strength, and hope to wmanaorg@gmail.com for this feature of our website. Share your inspiration and messages of support with others in our community. You may share your story of how N.A. helped you get your life back, the struggles you experienced and overcame, poems, or anything inspirational you would like to share with others.

Those of us who have found the program of Narcotics Anonymous, and work a good program find that we have a chance to reclaim our lives, and not cheat our loved ones of our life that really in a sense belongs to them also. When we allow someone to become a loved one we give them a piece of ourselves. By doing this, the things we do, and the choices we make have a direct effect on them, even when we tell them to stop loving us. Recently I was contacted by Stephanie, who is trying to heal from the pain and suffering she incurred while loving her mother who was an addict that did not have the chance those of us who have found the program of Narcotics Anonymous have. I was unable to help her, but was able to suggest a place for her to go, to try to understand why. And try to heal from the pain caused by addiction in someone she loved. I offered to share her story with those of you who care to read it. So many of those we know lose the battle with addiction in this same way, and those of us lucky enough to find this program are indeed lucky. Here is her story in its submitted, unchanged version she sent to me trying to heal her pain, and hoping I could help. This is the only way I can help her, and this is by sharing her story for those of you who care to read.
KippD

Kipp,

I unfortunately didn't get the chance to have NA help my mom. She passed away right after she made the decision to to think about getting help. For a long time I wasn't aware she had a problem with prescription drugs. She hid it very well. It wasn't until her mother died that I started noticing her addiction. When my step dad filed for divorce and she came to live with me on my couch, I really noticed the addiction was in total control over her. I would come home from work and find her passed out lying over the coffee table with her face flat on the coffee table.

Sometimes with a lit cigarette in her hand. She had even caught her hair on fire once. I can't count how many bedspreads she burned cigarette holes in. I lived in constant fear that she would get too high and pass out and her cigarette would light my apt on fire and possibly kill her and others. It was a constant battle with her, getting her to realize she had a problem. Her theory was that the Dr was prescribing her the meds and she was only taking what she was prescribed. The problem was, was that she was Dr hopping and getting pain killers and muscle relaxers from several different doctors. During the last few months, it was hard to even look at my mom because the person I saw when I looked at her was not my mom.

It felt like a stranger. She would get so high that I couldn't even carry on a conversation with her because she couldn't distinguish between reality and her dreams. Just when I thought my brothers and I finally got through to her, it was three days after thanksgiving in 2008 when I went to talk to her after I had woken up from sleep. When I went to wake her, she was face down in the bed and cold to the touch. I tried waking her and rolled her over to find her face blue. Paramedics were not able to revive her as she had been dead for several hours. To this day, I still see the way she looked when she had died. I don't have the memories of how beautiful she used to be...before the addiction took over. All I see and replay in my head is that last night. I never even got to say goodbye or I love you to her. She will never see me get married, never get to hold my first born child, never get to spoil grand kids.

My future children will never get to see that wonderful person she used to be. All because of a prescription drug addiction. She didn't get the chance to experience sober living and get the help NA provides. I want people suffering from this type of addiction to see what kind of damage it does to the people that love them. The damage is irreparable. She was irreplaceable. To anyone that can benefit from my story, please, please realize there are people that love you and want you to be healthy and happy so you can share in the memories that I won't get to have because a prescription drug addiction took my mom away from me.

Stephanie.


I was given this by Paula, and I think it gives some insight to the tools of this program, and how it gives her courage, strength, and hope to keep battling this disease, and asking for help from a source outside ourselves.

  Third Step – Surrendering to a Power greater than ourselves is how we become empowered. Using what I have been given is an important lesson.  I have found that life lessons can come from unusual places when my mind is open and my heart is willing.  If I know how to walk yet choose to still crawl, who am I cheating?  And how does that affect everyone around me?  In recovery I have had to learn very basic principles, laws and values.  Some call this growing up in public.  By wanting to learn how to be a better person and by walking when I wanted to crawl, I have been around long enough to have the gift of watching others go thru this process.  Some really struggle until they surrender to the disease or to their Higher Power; all of us surrender.

PaulaS.

Please submit your tale of courage strength. and hope to help others remain strong in their battle of recovery.

KippD