#naranon

Grant me the serenity

To accept the things I cannot change

The courage to change the things I can

Your behavior is bordering on codependency.

Do you feel defeated? Frustrated?

I don’t believe a word that comes out of your mouth.

I feel like you’re my mom.

I feel like your mom.

That’s a problem.

If it walks like a duck, and talks like a duck…

You’re smothering me.

Are you using again?

I’m sorry.

I love you.

At least for the time being. M is on a downward spiral back into her addiction. She was supposed to leave at the beginning of the month for a 45 to 90 day family program with her baby. She kept slipping up and kept pushing out the check-in date until they wouldn't push it out anymore and put her back on the waiting list (up to 6 months). I totally knew this was going to happen.

So I told her she needs to go live at the condo that she inherited and the baby stays with me until she gets into rehab. She conceded that that was probably the best thing to do for him. She's trying to get back into the hippie-ish commune style place that changed her life last year, but they're literally not returning her calls. I told her she can come over and see the baby while I'm home all she wants as long as she's sober or - and I didn't say this part out loud but - as long as she's capable. This means no social life or down time for me, new babysitting expenses, among other things.

I got home from work a couple days ago and she was shit-faced. One of her eyes was pointing a different direction, she was nodding off, etc. All while taking care of the baby while I wasn't home. In my opinion she was too fucked up to drive, so I told her to stay in her room (I can't stand to be around her when she's high, it's disgusting) and I took care of the baby for the rest of the night. I'm currently really sick with a cold that I got from the baby, and definitely had not planned to take care of him that night. I had planned to stay in bed for the evening. She was of course mad and upset with herself and completely baffled why she can't fight her addict better. She had actually been clean for about a week and a half at this point, going to her meetings, etc. But the addict won the battle that day and I can't take the chance that it's going to keep winning when she has the baby with her and I'm not around.

So I am now the unofficial guardian of this baby. I'm already too much of a hermit, but I imagine that side of me is just going to get worse at this point. it's hard when you're 52 years old to take on such a big responsibility. But there are about a million grandparents out there taking care of their grandchildren because their kids are addicts, many of whom have died of their illness. I didn't really want to become part of that statistic, but that path is officially started. Also, most grandparents are married, so they are not the sole person responsible for their grandchildren. I will be though.

It's just such a hard pill to swallow. I love that child more than life itself, and I love every minute I get to spend with him. I'm pretty sure he has his mom's hilarious and spunky personality as well as her charm. But those qualities in M are getting squashed by the addict inside her.

I just want to live my own life. I've put together a pretty badass life for myself, I stumbled into a career that pays pretty damn well and have set up the perfect home for getting older and eventually retiring. I had come up with a plan to have my house paid off by the time I'm 60. I made a lot of plans for travel and leisure and they're all basically turning to shit. That's what I get for making plans I guess.

Detox on Monday. 45-90 day rehab after, with the baby. Lucky to find a rehab that will take both so she can learn to integrate motherhood with recovery. But I have little hope that we will ever get to relax & stop fighting.

“We can stop our negative thoughts. We can simply interrupt a train of thought in the same way we might interrupt a conversation and change the subject. Finally, we can take comfort in the faith that our Higher Power will provide what we need in the long run.” My thoughts are not just negative, sometimes I am just stuck. Stuck and thinking about the same things over and over again. I have heard it said in Naranon, that sometimes we are addicted to our addict. I believe that I am. Just for today, I will interrupt my thoughts and insert positive ones, I will change the subject in my mind. I need a mental rest.