Whose Voice Are You Listening To? is a powerful guide to recognizing and overcoming the spiritual attacks that threaten your peace, purpose, and faith. Drawing on the wisdom of the Church and her many years of experience in ministry, Colleen Orchanian teaches how to identify spiritual attacks and fight back with the help of God's grace.
Early Recovery: Why Is It So Hard?
In the movie 28 Days, Sandra Bullock plays a woman who goes into rehab for alcohol addiction. She asks her counselor when she can start dating again. He said in the first year, get a plant. If that survives, you can get a pet in the second year. If the pet survives, then you can consider dating.
The counselor is describing early recovery. The addict cannot be in a healthy relationship during this time because they are not yet healed. If you have lived with someone during early recovery, you know this to be true.
Death: Not What We Hoped For
We have been exploring the different times in our relationship with an addict. This post is about what is often the hardest place in the addiction journey. I have not had to bear this suffering, but I know many who have. Many who have lost a child to addiction through death. The addict can die from an overdose, suicide, violence, or accidents. The recovery you prayed for never came, or it came for a short time and then was gone. With death, it's over. In a way. But in another way, it is never over because when someone you love dies, you never fully recover from that. And our grief is more complex when the one who died was suffering from the disease of addiction.
Go to Jail; Go Directly to Jail
When I was in college (many years ago) I considered becoming a therapist. My career goal was to counsel women in prison. At the time, I had never met anyone who had been to prison. I did not know where the nearest prison was. I didn't know there was a difference between prison and jail. I had so little experience of the world that I would not have been much use to anyone in prison.
No Contact
Sometimes, in our relationship with an addict, we become estranged. We have no contact for months or even years. My sister, Mary, experienced this many times with her daughter, Jennifer. She would go months without hearing from her. When Mary and I talked about the different times in the addiction journey, she said, other than Jennifer's death, this was the most difficult time.
Stagnation
Stagnant water is ugly, smelly, putrid, clouded, lifeless. There is no activity except the insects that buzz around the surface. It's nasty, and it's hard to see beauty in a stagnant body of water.
Sometimes on the journey with an addict, we are in a time of stagnation.