REFLECTING ON HOW ADDICTION SHAPED MY LIFE

Growing up, my mom and I were never really able to
connect.

As I worked on the "Under the Influence" series about teen drug and
alcohol use in Maple Valley I spent quite a bit of time talking about
my mom, who has been in recovery my whole life, as well as reflecting
on my childhood.

It makes total sense that my mom and I struggled in our relationship
as she battled a number of addictions and worked the 12 steps of the
Alcoholics Anonymous program.

Only in the past 10 years or so have I really begun to understand why
my mother is this way. The series I just finished really underscored
my own understanding of her addiction. It brought a greater clarity to
it for me.

I want to clarify that the purpose of this is not to throw my mom
under the bus. My intent with the series -- which was not my idea, but
the brainchild Erin Weaver of Communities That Care, I just took it
and ran with it -- was to educate. I wanted to offer information to
parents and kids that live here about the reality of drug and alcohol
use as well as abuse among teens here.

But I also learned a lot about myself, about my mom, about our
relationship and how her addictions impact it as well as what that
means for a relationship between my daughter and my mother.

I will never, ever forget going to a New Year's Eve party when I was
14, a freshman at Interlake High School, and seeing someone pull out a
sheet of paper with tiny designs on it. This looked familiar. I asked
what it was and received the response, "LSD." Oh. I left
immediately.

That was the last time I went to a party while I was in high school. I
recognized LSD because I recall watching my mom do it when I was about
4 years old.

My mom quit drinking before I was born. She joined AA. And that's
where she met my father, who had 21 years of sobriety when he died in
1986, when I was 7 years old. I was in second grade.

She smoked pot, well I guess they call it weed these days, until I was
10 years old. I recall going with her a few times when we lived in a
low income apartment complex in Bellevue -- I know, mutually exclusive
terms, right? -- when she purchased pot from a dealer.

And I remember when she decided to stop. Just quit cold turkey. I was
relieved. I did not like my mom when she was stoned.

My mother also has a penchant for pain pills. If it hurts, medicate,
but not any old over the counter stuff will do.

The last time I spoke with Monica Robbins, a prevention and
intervention specialist who works with the Tahoma School District, she
talked about how much time she spends just working with teens on how
to get through the day and what they can do to cope with the stress in
their lives.

From that piece of our conversation I realized two things: my mom had
learned to cope by self-medicating with alcohol, food, weed, pain
pills, and so on. She was on her long journey to recovery by the time
she was 25. The other thing I learned was that I developed coping
skills that helped me get through the trauma of losing my dad at a
young age and deal with growing up with an addict. I became an
obsessive reader then an obsessive writer.

Honestly, I am concerned she may never develop healthy coping skills.
Old habits die hard, especially habits you've formed over more than
four decades, but in the past six months my mom has tried to cope
better more often than not.

Actually, it has even gotten better since she was diagnosed with
clinical depression in 2003. I was 25 years old and for the first time
I understood why my mother and I never got along. She never learned
how to cope with pain and she was hurting a lot.

Now I don't allow myself to excuse the things she did when I was a
kid. It made me angry. It hurt me. It frustrated me. She's never
allowed herself to live the life she deserves nor was she able to give
me the kind of childhood every kid deserves.

On the other hand, her bad choices influenced mine.

Rather than drop out of school -- my mom persuaded my older sister to
drop out of high school at the end of her junior year -- I decided as a
sophomore that even if she was too high or angry or hurt to care about
it, I would graduate from high school. Then I would go to college. It
was my only way out of that vicious cycle.

I chose not to drink. I chose not to try drugs. After going to
countless AA meetings growing up and watching my mom get high daily, I
knew I never wanted to be like that, I never wanted to end up in one
of those meetings telling my rock bottom story to a group of people I
may or may not know.

When I was a freshman at Gonzaga University, I had a roommate who
drank and made a variety of other choices I considered unwise, and I
do admit I drank at a party once while there but my boyfriend who I
later married convinced me it was a bad idea to start before I turned
21. He was right.

My roommate was shocked when I told her I'd never smoked pot or been
drunk.

In fact, people often say they're going to take me out and get me
drunk. I have a personal goal in life to never get drunk.

I have been high once, too, when I was on a morphine drip after back
surgery. Growing up the way I did made me a control freak and I can
tell you I did not enjoy it. There is nothing worse for me than
feeling out of control.

I mention this because when I interviewed a young man I've called
David about his addiction and the road to recovery, he asked me, "Have
you ever used?"

I was honest with him. I told him I drink on occasion. I think I
forgot to tell him about the morphine drip. I did tell him I expected
him to succeed in whatever he chose to do with his life because he
didn't want to end up like my mother. I believe he agreed.

For me, making the choices I have and essentially doing the opposite
of what my mom has done has led me to a beautiful, happy life. It's
not perfect, but, I wouldn't trade it for anything.

What I have now, what I have accomplished in spite of the environment
I grew up in, defies the odds. I would not be here were it not for a
handful of educators at the middle and high school level who tried to
guide me through my angry teen years where I shut most people out.

And I guess, in some ways, I would not have made these choices were it
not for my mother and her addictions. I would never choose this life
for myself or inflict it on my child but it has made me who I am for
better or worse.

What's amazing now is that though my mom and I may never connect in
the way other more functional parents do with their children, we have
found a way to have a relationship, and that's through my daughter.

These days my mom is sober and mostly clean. It's a requirement if she
wants to spend time with Lyla. She is motivated to do so because of my
daughter. I try to not let that bother me but if that is what it takes
then I will have to be happy with it as a moral victory.

My daughter and I share a deep bond which is all the more satisfying
for me because of my relationship with my mom growing up. I hope we
will always have the connection as she grows up because she deserves
everything I never had as a kid.

For now, I appreciate the greater understanding I have of the
relationship I have with my mom, even though it can't fix the past
perhaps in the future my mom will find at least some way to connect
even if it is through my daughter.