Authorpreneur Dashboard – Cyndee Rae Lutz
When Your Heart Belongs to an Addict: A Healing Perspective
Self-Help
Worn out. Powerless. Heartbroken. Alone. Cyndee Rae Lutz has walked this path. In this book, she weaves the painful account of her son's drug addiction with the healing strategies and spiritual wisdom that transformed her life--and can transform others, whether they're facing a crisis or wanting to change direction. Her fusion of powerful ideas, concrete steps, and pertinent examples both liberates and empowers the often-distraught family member or friend to reclaim their life. And it just might be the best thing they can do for their loved one. Often when they get better, their loved one gets better too.
Book Bubbles from When Your Heart Belongs to an Addict: A Healing Perspective
Where is Your Power?
Feeling powerless is not failing, and it's not being weak. It is simply acknowledging that you do not have the ability to control everything. When you can observe, and then surrender the constant manipulation and rethinking/overthinking tactics you use to make sure everything turns out okay, you experience the real power of freedom. Your perceived control was just an illusion.
The Reality of a Love One's Addiction
I felt cheated. I did not want to be the mother of an addict. It took me an awfully long time to learn that I didn't have to be defined by the role I'd been thrust into--mother of an addict. All my best-laid plans and all the love in the world weren't helping to save my son. Something had to change. That something would be me.
Addiction: Letting Go
Learning to let go was very hard for me. I had to relinquish the illusion that I had any control over my son's behavior. I did not always need to figure out how to make everything turn out well and then feel like a failure when it didn't. As a parent, that's really hard to accept, but it's an important step in reclaiming your own wellbeing.
Your Life Matters, too.
You deserve to be well, even if your loved one isn't, and you deserve to be happy, even if they aren't. Your well-being does not mean that you don't love them. It means that you're doing exactly what you want them to do: making positive choices and living life to the fullest.
Protecting Yourself
Setting boundaries and enabling behavior are two sides of the same coin. If you're unable to set an appropriate boundary, you're enabling the other party to take advantage of you. It can seem overwhelming at first, but I learned that you can start with one simple thing, such as muting your cell phone at night or not answering their calls immediately. When you realize that you actually have a little more peace, as a result, it gives you confidence and courage to set the next boundary, and to reclaim another piece of your life.
Why Letting Go isn't Abandonment
It took me a while to realize that "letting go" didn't mean abandoning my child, instead it meant letting go of the controlling tendencies I had adopted to keep my world from falling apart. In reality, I had no control over his choices, but I could affect my present well being in much more productive ways.
Challenging Societal Expectations
The American dream didn't turn out like I thought. I played the game, followed the rules, thought everything would turn out well. That's not how it works. Your kid doesn't avoid addiction because you did everything right. I began to question the basis of everything that I had been conditioned to believe by my family, society, and even myself.
Addiction: Continual Fear
When a loved one suffers from addiction, you suffer right along with them. You are left to imagine and fear disastrous outcomes; most of which you have no control over. There are two things that helped me deal with the fear, especially during crisis situations. 1. Just because I couldn't imagine a good outcome, didn't mean it wasn't possible. 2. I had to believe I would be okay, no matter what happened. That was the hardest of all to do, but brought the most relief.
Loving an Addict: Isolation
Shame is a common feeling during addiction. I kept many things to myself. I couldn't risk others knowing how volatile my world was. I couldn't bear the thought that people might think poorly of me or my son. It also felt a bit like "tattling" when I did share the chaos, and I found that other people do judge, and they don't understand, unless they've lived it themselves.
Addiction and Self Worth
As a parent, this was the hardest part for me. I simply could not comprehend how little my son thought of himself - or why would he continue to harm himself? I wanted him to believe in his worth so badly, I kept trying to give it (his worth) to him, but it didn't work. I learned that you can't give someone their worth. You can guide them, teach them, love them, and believe in them, but you cannot give them their worth. They must find it for themselves.
Codependent and Miserable
It took an awfully long time for me to figure out that while I was focusing on saving my son, I forgot about my own wellbeing. I knew how much my son's addiction dominated my daily life, but I hadn't realized how much I had become a reflection of his addiction - and nothing else.
The Damn Sad Truth
This was one of the lowest points of my life. I hadn't realized the magnitude of my son's opiate addiction until this point. I could hardly breathe. Prior to this, I hadn't encountered a problem or situation that couldn't be fixed or made better. There was no escape hatch for this one, and I was devastated.
The Reality of Loving an Addict
When I started the book, I knew I had to address the raw truth about addiction upfront. Therefore, this excerpt is included in the preface. I also wanted to remind the reader of their worth. It's a message that every loved one needs to hear because their self-esteem and sense of purpose get shattered during the chaos that surrounds addiction.
