I have spent the majority of my career working in the field of mental health and chemical dependency.  My professional background has allowed me the tools and experience I need as a Life Coach, however a very personal journey is what brought me here.  June 18th 2017, my son turned 18.  Like most families, we celebrated with family, the evening was full of love , laughter and excitement for the next chapter of my now "grown" son's life.    What I didn't know was that the very next morning would be the start of what I consider the worst two years of my life. No education or life experience could have prepared me for what was coming. My son, who was a good kid, an athlete, well respected in our community got sick .  When I say sick I don’t mean the common cold, or even the once a season "flu", we all dread. I mean the kind of sick that changes someone, the kind of sick that many don’t survive.  There were no red flags or obvious signs like my education and society had so negligently promised me.  My son wasn’t walking a slippery slope, or struggling with mental health issues that we failed to understand.  We weren't disconnected or distracted parents.  My son went out to celebrate his new found adulthood, tried drugs and woke up ADDICTED, a slave to the high. The next two years consisted of 4  car accidents, five arrests, 21 hospital visits, drug induced seizure disorder, nine treatment centers (3 Inpatient, 6 outpatient), a voluntary stay in a Mental Institution and the birth of his first child. The pain my son and our family endured during his Addiction is in fucking indescribable, and something to this day that haunts me. It was like a nightmare that didn't even require or allow you to sleep. As a mother I could feel his pain, I remember thinking, if we are hurting this bad...Imagine how he must be feeling. The entire dynamic of our family shifted almost immediately, and everyone lived around my sons addiction.  With each failed attempt to stay clean, my son began the process of “disconnecting” from everything and everyone.   It was that moment that all my education and experience took a back seat and the mom in me was now in the driver's seat.  I nade an intentional decision to began loving him for who he was that day, not who I thought he should or could be, but for who he was right then. I began to tell myself and him, that I was going to LOVE him through this addiction. Maybe because I was out of other answers, maybe because it was the only one thing I knew to be true and real.  I reminded my son everyday, sometimes multiple times a day that he wasn't alone in this fight, that his efforts no matter how small were recognized.  That his pain was real and his struggle was genuine. I said those things to him because they were true. This is the point at which we have been taught to withhold empathy and love from people struggling with addiction.  As if "LOVE" has ever truly been the cause of someone's sickness worsening.  It was that moment that I  stopped giving a "FUCK" what anyone thought about my approach or my son. Rather then pushing him away, I pulled him closer. This type of unconditional love comes at a cost like anything else, so for any of you that may be thinking it is the lazy or enabling approach, you couldn't be more mistaken.  This type ofgenuine relationship isn't easy, it comes with a lot of raw and painful truths, truths most parents or partners don't really want to know about the lives their loved one is living.  Many times I had to deny my son bail from jail even though I had the means to help him.  Jeopardize relationships in order to protect him, risk my job and  put the needs of myself and other children aside.  You know why?  Because it was a Fucking EMERGENCY, what we were dealing with in that moment was life threatening, like cancer or anything else.  There was no prioritizing, it was a matter of saving his life at that point.  See to the rest of the world my son was just another statistic, but to us he is irreplaceable, without him there is no us and I knew that. Fast forward my son is alive and well. He is a beautiful father, partner, brother, son and friend.  I believe we made it through it first and foremost because my son got up everyday and tried again, and as his mother I did too. No matter how many tears had fallen the night before, I smiled at him every chance I got. We talked, we cried, we stayed CONNECTED.  There was no room for tough love in my home or my practice.  Addiction is Tough Enough, love shouldn't be.  We kept the conversations going no matter how hard they were for me to hear or him to share.  I believe this honesty saved our family.  Rather then wasting years of time in denial or energy covering the truth, we put all we had into healing.  As your Life Coach, I am going to help you do the same.  Lets have those conversations, stay connected to the ones we love and make the changes necessary to create the peaceful and happy life we all deserve.   Thank you  for reading my story and I look forward to hearing yours.​​​