Every so often a mother sends me something so good I have to share it. This letter is one of those somethings. It’s written three years ago from a mother to her drug addicted son. The mother told me she wrote it the day she chose to stop enabling. She told me how her heart broke the day she wrote it, but how she knew she had to give her son to God.  Recently she found the old letter and cried again, realizing that God had a plan all along. In her words, “although what is going on now is not the best situation, he is clean and more importantly he is alive!”
For you mothers, fathers and spouses out there wondering if today is the day you stop enabling, may this letter help you make your decision.
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Bubba,
I am so sad. I know you are on something. I’ve asked you before to not put me through this. My heart hurts. I pray for you every day, several times. You have to pray for yourself. God won’t change you until you ask him to. I love you and so does dad, we only want the very best for you. We have tried to help you, keep you out of trouble, anything we can. You don’t seem to care. We don’t want you to have to learn the hard way by going and staying in jail. We want you to open your eyes and see what you are doing to yourself and your family. When all this is done, your “friends” will not be there for you. We will, because we love you and more importantly, God is waiting for you to just say the word and mean it. He will help you, love you, and guide you better than you can or even us for that matter. You have more than most twenty year olds do and you are throwing it all away, for what? A drug? Do you want to be Sherri? None of this is our plan for you. You can be anything you want to be! But you are choosing to be an unemployed drug user. That makes no sense to me, because you have seen so much, why would you do that? I pray that you live through this and that you change your life around and do great things. (Like I always thought you would)
We will no longer be your enabler. (No more help) We can no longer endure the pain of your choices. I know you don’t understand why it hurts us so much. We watched you come into this life, we fed you, clothed you, took you to school, ball practice, motox – we raised you the best we could. We tried to give you everything. “Having a child is to decide to have your heart walking outside your body”. You may know this feeling someday, but until then, believe me. If and when you decide to put the drugs down, seek the Lord – seek Him anytime and all the time. He loves you and he will listen and change you if you want that. I just want my son back.
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