ROOM FOR A LITTLE ONE?

No amount of drugs could take away the fact that I was endangering my child by my using when I was pregnant, but I was in the grip of my using and I had no choice.  Every time I had a hit I knew that my baby was having one too.  I tried so hard to not use.  I learnt to not have feelings for my child, and I left him in the care of my parents most of the time.  I used more and more drugs to bury my feelings for my son and my guilt about not being there for him.  My son was five when I got clean and I had no relationship with him at all and no physical contact.  Things didn’t change much when I got clean because I still wasn’t there because I was always at meetings.  The one important thing that did change was that I stopped being violent and abusive to him as soon as I got clean.

I have learned in recovery how to love my son and how to hold him.  My first sponsor was a parent and she told me ‘fake it to make it’.  She took an interest in him too and it helped so much.  I had my first real spiritual awakening one night when I was 3 years clean.  I was going out to a meeting and my son said ‘do you have to go to a meeting tonight?’ and for the first time I chose to put him first and stay with him.

I was lucky that I had family support when I was getting clean, so I did not need to take my son to meetings most of the time, but I don’t know what I would have done without it.  I sponsor women with children, who don’t have the support I had and it is very difficult for them to get to meetings.

We all know how it feels to walk into a meeting when you are new, and to feel disapproval from people because you have a child with you makes it even harder.  It makes me very sad when I see parents with children in meetings being tutted at.  So many of us were unheard or dismissed ourselves as children and yet that is what a lot of us do to the children of this fellowship.  They are the next generation and they are our hope and we need to show them and their parents love and support.

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