Recovery: Letting Go and Giving Back | INTERVENE: A Community for Parents

Recovery: Letting Go and Giving Back

Tuesday, January 19th, 2010

The word recovery – synonymous with mending, healing and improvement – is not only a possibility for all of us, but a reality. Recovery for my stepdaughter Katherine will always be a work in progress, ever changing and full of possibilities. Our family works everyday to continue the healing and mending process. Letting go and allowing your loved one to take responsibility for themselves and to move onward with a sense of self-worth is one of the greatest gifts you can give or receive.

We now, with some trepidation, try not to watch Katherine too closely, overreact or analyze her every move. We are constantly aware of how easy it is to fall back into our old habits of trying to be the “fixers” when it’s Katherine who should be held accountable. Now, we work on letting her take control of her own life and rejoice in the world she has created for herself and for her children.

Because my family and I are grateful for our daughter’s life and how treatment helped heal our relationship with her, we’ve made it our mission to give back. It is for that very reason that my family and I formed the Run7on7.com campaign to raise awareness for recovery and much needed scholarship funds for families in need.

In 2008, I made it my mission to run a marathon on each of the seven continents in under a year. I began with the Boston Marathon in April 2008, then went on to run the Great Wall of China, Easter Island, Kenya (Safaricom), Reykjavik, Melbourne and last March I ran the last of seven worldwide marathons on the freezing glaciers of Antarctica. To date we’ve been able to raise more than $373,000, which in turn helps more than 25 families get the same innovative treatment at Caron that Katherine received.

While my “7on7” mission has been completed, I’m continuing my quest to raise a million dollars for Caron’s scholarship program by attempting to become the first woman to complete the 4 Deserts (a series of extreme marathons) in under a year in 2010. Visit www.run7on7.com to learn more about my mission and to see how my volunteer runners and I are conditioning our bodies and minds for what will one of the most challenging endeavors of our lives.

If you can see it, you can do it. If you believe it, it will happen…so DREAM BIG!

Posted by Linda Quirk | Filed under Recovery, Treatment

I came to this site from another site called Recovery Happens. So maybe that is why when I read the last line of your post, it popped into my head that maybe there is something wonderful that could happen for a young man named Anthony (Ant).

I’ve been following his story and that of an amazing woman named Barbara who has been giving him a lot of support and prayers as he stuggles with addiction (and she has a son who is struggling with addiction to offer her support and prayers for too!).

Recently, Ant relapsed while staying at a sober house and almost died of a drug overdose. I followed on Barbara’s blog as he remained in a coma and struggled for his life over a period of days.

He is out of the hospital now, but has been given a deadline of noon Friday to find residential treatment, or he will go to prison.

Affording treatment is a big problem for him. And he has no family to help him. Prison looks likely.

I know many people who read this blog also read Recovery Happens and know the story of Ant.

I doubt he even would even dare to dream big enough to imagine he might be able to go to a place like Caron.

I forgot to include a link to the blog Recovery Happens in my last post! Here it is…

Tom, thank you for your comment. Please have this gentleman or someone close to him reach out to Caron. Hopefully a dialogue can begin and, if the fit and conditions are right he can begin “his work towards recovery” with them. Their website is http://www.caronrenaissance.org or call 866-915-0290. I pray for the best!

I am all for Ant being able to get a fair chance at a good recovery program. He seems to think he needs to start over somewhere new. I think that could be a great help. He is so connected to the wrong kind of people that he would find it hard where he is now. I vote for a chance at the scholarship too.

After reading about Ant I couldn’t help but reflect on the 36 years I was addicted to heroin, and spending 20 of them in prison. I know exactly what he’s going through, and why. I also understand what his loved ones are experiencing. I’ve been clean now since 2004 after countless relapses, dying in the hospital once, (high speed police chase), and other nightmarish ordeals. And this even before and after I was a substance abuse counselor. Addiction is an awful master, but Ant can do this. He MUST reconcile his feelings about his parents, flat-out. He has probably heard this before, being in Tx. For Ant’s sake, I hope his life doesn’t follow the course mine took. It isn’t worth the anguish, misery, despair, and gloom that dogged me most of my life. I’m free of the pack of gorillas that pounded on my back for 36 years, and I am grateful for it, but Ant has to want to change, that is the bottom line. If he needs and ear, have him email me at crashtestaddict@gmail.com.

I, too, have a son who at this time, today, is in recovery. He was addicted to prescription pain pills and street drugs and wreaked havoc in our lives. I have other active addicts and alcoholics coming in and out of my life, also. During my son’s active addiction living with us, in order for me to survive, I felt I was losing my own life, I developed a plan for myself. It saved my life and has given me serenity and peace of mind amidst chaos. I’ve shared this plan with many others in our situation and will be releasing this plan as a book next week, so I could share it with more than just those who accidentally come into my life. The book is called “SWEAT: A Practical Plan for Keeping Your Heart Intact While Loving an Addict” I hope some of you get a chance to read it and can use some of the tools in it to make life, at least, a little better. Check it out on my website: http://www.denisekrochta.com

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