Where did addiction take my beautiful son? Where did his addiction take me? Where did addiction take our family, who love Nathan so much?

Addiction eventually took him to the bowels of hell and we were along for the ride.

As I look back on what I have learned from many mistakes over many years, I realize we truly are the authors of our own lives. Each and every day, we start a new chapter. We can’t change our past, can’t change the decisions or the choices of yesterday. We have to acknowledge them, accept them as decisions we made with the information we had at that time.

Don’t beat yourself up. Whatever you did yesterday to handle your loved one’s addiction, whether you gave him or her money, paid the rent, made excuses, let it go. That was yesterday. Today you can make different choices. Today you can hold that person accountable. You are accountable only for the choices you make. You are the author of your own story.

When we allow ourselves to be manipulated out of feelings of guilt or pity, thinking this is what love is about, we allow someone else to be in control of that chapter in our story.

Hold on to your power.

June