GETTING MY LIFE BACK

My daughter was an angel sent to save me from myself....  This is the thought I hold onto when things are hard!  I was in the middle of a horrific rock bottom when I fell pregnant.  My using was completely at an end and I couldn’t see a way out.  I was very suicidal.  Subsequently my daughter was born a heroin addict and I spent two months in hospital with her watching her withdraw while I did the same thing.  That was my first lesson in powerlessness.

I found NA when she was six months old.  It was hard work and extremely scary.  Not only did I have to cope with all of the issues surrounding addiction, I was also a first time single mother and it was tough.  It took a long time for me to understand what NA was about.  It was hard as it was all about 90 meetings in 90 days and that was completely impossible for me.  Luckily the area I was in there was one crèche meeting a week and this was my lifeline.  I kept on going and slowly started making connections with people and slowly started getting my life back.  I started taking my daughter to meetings without childcare, just took some toys and tried really hard not to stress about the noise.  Generally people were great about this.  Being a parent in recovery has its pros and cons, like anything really.  On the one hand it was great as I had a reason to get up and get going.  I didn’t have a lot of time to be too introspective or to give myself a hard time, and watching my daughter grow was a hugely satisfying experience and I gave myself less of a hard time about the start she had had inside of me.

In the last 2.5 years my life really has changed beyond my wildest dreams.  My daughter is a beautiful, healthy, happy and well–adjusted kid, our lives are so full now and I feel that anything is possible.  I took a chance and reached out for help, and we have both reaped the rewards.  It is not all plain sailing but then, nothing is, is it?

back to parents’ stories index