Read Online Addicted Like Me by Karen Franklin - Free Book Online

played along and said that the pipe was hers. Then she begged me not to tell her mother and said that she knew she needed help. I was easily impressed by these kinds of seemingly honest, heartfelt reactions. Rather than look for the lie in Christy’s story, I was hopeful that maybe if my kids could become as honest as she was, there might be progress for us all. The kids strung me along with this hope for a long time. I had taken Christy back to our house on the day I found the pipe to sit her down with Lauren, Ryan, and her brother, Danny, to ask everyone to be honest. I gave Christy and Danny my word I would not tell their parents and shared stories about what happens to kids that get hooked on drugs. I revealed things about my own past drug use and told everyone about the accident that killed Jason. When I thought they were on board, I even said that I planned to use my time to find recovery meetings for them all. I found out much later on that none of them really wanted help. They just wanted to appease me. It amazes me that I was so blind to the lies and manipulation, because I had done some of the same types of things to my dad when I was a teen.
    The irony of family addiction is that when you are faced with a loved one’s addiction, you go through the typical denial, anxiety, enabling, and fierce need to control that anyone does who is facing the situation for the first time, or has not struggled with addiction personally. I was going to save them all! Not. I was recovered from drugs at the time, but even I was not sober yet from alcohol. I was coming from my level of understanding at the time, which had not progressed to the point where I was able to admit that all of us were addicts: Lauren, Ryan, and me. Lauren and I remained in therapy,
and after this pipe incident came out in one of our sessions, the counselor pulled me aside and recommended that I tell Christy and Danny’s mom. The counselor told me I really didn’t have the right to keep such important information from a parent, no matter what I had previously promised. So I followed through. Once I did, the kids were furious. Christy and Danny no longer trusted me, and Lauren and Ryan were especially angry, which only strengthened the addictive beast in them.
    I called my best friend, Shirley, who was back in Phoenix, when this happened, because I hoped she could give me some ideas on where I should go to get help. She told me about the Tough Love program. It helps parents deal with children that have behavior problems. Shirley had been using Tough Love techniques with her daughter, Lindsey, who had experienced similar problems to Lauren’s. I started attending weekly Tough Love meetings after I spoke to Shirley, and I learned I did not have to accept unacceptable behavior from my children. I learned techniques to draw boundaries between the kids and myself and how to run the house as a parent, not a friend. Of course, when one person in a family starts to change for the better, everyone else gets crazy. Lauren and Ryan started staying out later on school nights as a way to react to the fact that our system had begun to change, but because the town we lived in had a curfew set for adolescents, I could make calls to the police when they were out past curfew. This floored the kids. They could not believe I would do such an awful thing to them. I became the enemy, and our situation turned into a war.
    I had started to feel a little better as I gained the upper hand,
sure, but Lauren and Ryan seemed to be getting worse despite the Tough Love techniques. Both children were busted at their schools for drugs. They were failing classes still, ditching school, and often suspended. Neither could do anything without receiving a consequence from me, which gave me the sense I was taking some of my power back, and yet I believe the kids were actually happy each time they were suspended. It allowed them to stay home alone and do what they wanted. It