The last six months of 2018, I believe the theme of my life was and in 2019 continues to be....acceptance. It is funny how such a common word has become another crucial verb in my life as I travel forward on this journey of my sons addiction and my own recovery.
In our new and improved politically correct society, acceptance is a word we hear a lot. We must accept this and we must accept that. People drone on about it doing very little to back up their words (in my humble opinion) and it just becomes blah blah, blah in our heads. Well, I'm here to tell you that without acceptance, you can't move forward and you will stay stuck.
My first true understanding of what acceptance really means was when I was not only confronted with but proven to, beyond a reasonable doubt that my son was a meth addict. Gone was any chance of me denying the situation. All that was left was acceptance. No....it did not mean that I was throwing in the towel and giving into the unacceptable. What it meant was that I was realizing the facts of the situation and accepting that while I was denying and fighting against the reality, my son was becoming and now was a full fledged addict. That is true acceptance when you understand and fully believe the facts laid before you.
The next step in acceptance hit me not long after the realization of his addiction. It came after I had run myself ragged for several weeks believing whole heartedly that somehow I could control the situation, his addiction and him. Suddenly, I was once again hit squarely in the face with the realization that I had zero control over any of it. Again with the facts.... my son was an addict and he didn't even have control over his addiction so how the hell could I possibly have any control over any of it? The situation was beyond anyone's control at this point and being that my son was legally an adult, he legally had the right to make bad choices and screw up his life and I had no control over any of it. Acceptance #2 had hit me full force. I had no control and I was totally powerless over any of it.
Acceptance really began to domino when I walked into Al-Anon. The facts started flying at me hard and fast with every meeting I attended. Little fun facts such as, I was not a victim, but that I was however an enabler started rearing their ugly heads. I needed to change myself because I was never going to change him and the biggest moment of acceptance thus far has been, I need to mind my own business and focus on me. For REAL??? How do you take a mom who has been focused on her kids their entire life and tell her to just knock it off? And further more....how do you tell her that any control she had "prided" herself on in the past had just been an illusion since her child turned about 12. I truly wasn't sure I was up for this whole acceptance thing.
The great thing about Al-Anon is that even though the information and the realizations come at you hard and fast, especially at first, no one forces them down your throat. In each meeting they tell you to take what you like from the meeting and leave the rest. In other words, if something helps you....run with it. On the other hand, if you don't like what you hear, that's fine too. So as I was getting these glimpses of the real facts and not just the facts according to me, I slowly realized that I had to accept them, both the good and the bad.
What I think I have learned the most about acceptance is that in life and especially in addiction, we run from facts a lot of the time. We hide in denial and live in a fake world of our own creation. Eventually though, the facade fails us and the truth and reality seep in. You can try and continue to run and deny and make your world a twisted and complex tale, or you can face fact, accept things as they truly are and deal with them from that point forward. Not only does this simplify the world immensely, but it also gives you freedom of choice.
I learned that when I was willing to accept the facts, then I was also free to make a choice as to how I wanted to deal with them. An example was when I finally and fully realized that my son had no desire at that point in his life to get off the streets and get clean. Up to that point I had been masterminding, manipulating and trying my hardest to control the entire situation. I was literally making myself sick and driving myself to the brink of insanity repeating the same things over and over again, expecting different results. When I finally accepted that my son currently was who he was and that this was the life he was choosing for himself and I had no control over it, then that acceptance freed me up to make a choice. I could either continue running myself ragged with no positive outcome OR I could let him make his own choices (which hard as it was for me to "accept" were his to make) and start focusing on myself and getting myself healthy and less insane. Thankfully for everyone involved, I chose the latter.
The bottom line is, acceptance is not easy because it makes a person look reality straight in the eye and sometimes, reality ain't pretty. Once I did this though, I found a peace in the respect that I was no longer wrapped up in denial or the lies and complexities that go with denial. I no longer felt trapped either as I now had the freedom to make my own choices and focus on what was best for me, which in turn turned out to be best for all in my hemisphere. I saw a difference in all my relationships, especially with my other kids, when I no longer felt the need to express my opinion on their lives and their choices. With my addict son, I also saw a change, because once I accepted who he is, I made the choice to draw my boundary lines and also to quit constantly reminding him how his addiction was ruining his life. He knew he was ruining his life and me constantly reminding him, helped no one.
So today, I am grateful for acceptance. It has changed the way I think, feel and act in just about every situation in my life. I feel free to choose what is best for me and I no longer spend sleepless nights worried about others choices and my opinions of them. The fact is, I am a handful all on my own and if I continue to put as much effort into my own life as I have tried to put into everyone elses, then 2019 could quite possibly be my best year to date....and I whole heartedly accept that!
Until next time......
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