I had to read this because for me, alcohol is my strongest weakness and I have been sober for more than a year. I had it pin pointed to the exact day at one point but it doesn't matter anymore. What does matter is that I stay away from it. My sobriety is important to me made more so by the story that I just read. There were things that I did in a drunken stupor that I'm not proud of but every day that I stay sober is a day that makes me proud to not only say that I'm sober but also to tell my kids that they'll never see me drunk again. There have been times of severe pain when all I've wanted to do is get wasted and drown out that pain. Getting through it is hard but somehow I always manage. Thank you for sharing this story. It just reconfirms that I need to keep my sobriety, a day at a time, for the rest of my life!

The headline on this is what caught my attention. I was expecting hard earned pearls of wisdom.

Alcoholics and drug addicts go through some amazing fleets of fantasy. The person in my life who abuses whatever she can get her hands on (cough syrup, relationships where someone adores her and soaks up every word she says, sex, and all of the other ways that can be used to numb the pain and get that "high") once told me, since I am very in to animals that I was St. Francis reincarnated. Of course she was a Goddess at the same time. So it is not surprising that your mom told you the two semi trucks boxed her in and then ran into her. It is never the alcoholics fault. It's always someone else's fault and they are an innocent victim.

But I do think there is a lesson to be learned in every situation. I always tell people I try to learn the lesson the first time. God gives make up tests, but they keep getting harder.

I am still figuring out what I learned from my recent experiences with my friend and her daughter. I guess my first lesson is not to trust blindly. My friend's daughter totally had me fooled. She is a master at manipulation and lies. And I fell for all of them. It wasn't until she actually moved in with me thatI started seeing the cracks in the facade. So I guess my first lesson is to not trust blindly.

My second lesson is to recognize that when someone is an enabler, they will go to any length to protect the addict. My friend, the mother, has gone to great lengths to enable her daughter, throwing many people under the bus, so to speak, including her husband who is currently fighting cancer. My friend can't be with him during the day because she has to babysit the addicts daughter. She goes up at night to be with him at the hospital, but she can't spend the night with him because she has to be there for her granddaughter in the morning.

Just because someone tells you that "you're family", doeasn't mean you should blindly trust them. They need to earn that trust. After all, some family you don't want.

It is important to maintain you're own boundaries and safety. It is easy to get sucked in to this ugly web of addiction. It is vital that you maintain your own safety and boundaries by constantly looking at "is this what I want and is it healthy for me?" For me, this has been a hard lesson. I love and care about these people a lot. But it is not good for me to be in the mix.

I am sure in the weeks and months ahead I will see and learn more. For now it's a start.

Good luck with your mother. Hugs.