Our son grew up in a loving supportive family and had what seems like a great childhood. We’ve been married for 30 years, he has an older and younger sister, we have a great golden retriever and live in an upper-middle class suburb of Chicago.

Steve was a reserved young boy who exceled at all sports and made friends with ease. He was always in the neighborhood playing with the other kids and we had to go track him down when it was time for meals or to come in for the night. He gravitated to golf in high school where he played on the varsity team in his sophomore year.

One challenge he faced was that he suffered from anxiety beginning at a very young age.  He was diagnosed with a slight learning disability and ADD.

Then he started smoking pot with a neighborhood friend in high school, which progressed to alcohol. It all happened so fast … six months after his exposure to alcohol and pot he was in his first treatment center.  That was 12 years ago and all the things that you never thought would happen to him – or to us as a family – occurred.  He has been in rehab 15 times, he was expelled from high school for using, he has been in jail twice, psychiatric hospitals four times. His last relapse nearly cost him his life.  After five weeks in the hospital, he is trying recovery again.

We have tried literally everything. We’ve placed him in the best treatment programs that money could buy. We have talked with him, pleaded with him, lectured him, encouraged him to make better decisions, put him in treatment, kicked him out of the house, and removed him from the state. He has lived with his aunt, and in sober houses and halfway houses.

That’s when we bought a copy of a special issue of TIME magazine, called The Science of Addiction, and we saw an article about Parents of Addicted Loved Ones.

We began attending meetings and learned how to treat our son like the 28-year-old man that he is and not our helpless boy. We learned about not offering help but having him ask for what he thinks he might need.

Steve is currently in a structured sober living facility that is a 16-hour drive from our home. We are doing much better than we have in the past and trying to shift the focus to us and away from our addicted son being the center of our world.  It has been a challenging struggle for our family – we hope that he continues to make good decisions and that he is able to live a healthy life in recovery.

We continue to do doing much better. We attend PAL meetings regularly. And most of all, we’ve learned how to find joy in our lives – regardless of the decisions our son is making.

A PAL mom and dad