The Power We Possess

The Power We Possess

By: Rose Barbour

You insidious beast,

I want to rip your heart out just like you did with mine but I can’t, and you know it. You reside inside my child who I love more than life itself. To physically destroy you is to physically destroy him. That keeps you safe.

When you first reared your ugly head, we didn’t know anything about opiate addiction. We believed you to be a choice that our son was making, and that when he grew out of the youthful phase of experimentation and risk taking, he would be done with you. We were wrong. We had no idea that you were altering his brain in such a significant way. We underestimated your power.

We tried to help our son who was losing everything to you. Nothing seemed to work. You were in complete control. You brought him to places that we never thought any of our children would go, and you brought us to our knees. We thought he was going to die. We had never endured so much pain. We had never felt so powerless.

You worked our son like a puppet on a string; turning him into a lost soul, barely existing in the world. You were certainly very powerful, and not like anything we’d ever faced before. Our love alone was not going to be enough. We needed to try something new or we were going to lose him. You had claimed so many lives already. We were scared and desperate.

The first thing we did was learn everything that we could about you, our greatest enemy. Like any good Generals going into battle, we needed to know exactly what we were up against. Make no mistake. It was a battle for our child’s life and we could not afford to lose it. In our search for information, we learned a lot.

We discovered that we were not as powerless as we thought we were. We had options that would be helpful and effective. They involved making changes in our lives, not our son’s, though he would eventually benefit. When we figured it all out, we became better at dealing with you.  

I’m sure that you hated the changes that we made, especially when you lost your power to wreak havoc on our emotions. Our decisions about our son became well thought out, not emotionally charged. This helped him, not you.

We learned other things, too, and each one helped to weaken your grip on our son. Eventually, he found recovery and is now enjoying life once again. Our family is one of the lucky ones.

Sadly, many people have lost their loved ones to you despite their best efforts, knowledge and love. I have no idea why some escape your grip while others don’t. I am thankful that our son is alive.  

Of course, we know that you are quietly waiting for the opportunity to resurface. We know how you work. You’ll show up at his weakest moments, trying to tempt him back into your world with all of your false promises. Unfortunately, we can’t stop you from doing that.

If you do happen to succeed in reclaiming our son, we will be there to fight the battle once again, this time knowing from the very beginning the power we possess. We won’t be wasting any energy in trying to control our son this time around. No, we will save all of our energy for you!

http://shadowsinpei.blogspot.ca/2014/08/the-power-we-possess.html