Women Helping Women in Addictions
Abuse
Alcohol is Mother’s Little Helper
Jun 9th
On April 30th ABC co-anchor Elizabeth Vargas interviewed four women struggling with alcohol in a one hour report “Mother’s Little Helper”.
Remember the song “Mother’s Little Helper” written in 1966 by Mick Jagger and Keith Richard from the Rolling Stones? The message is about drugs, and the lyrics went like this: I hear every mother say
Mother needs something today to calm her down
She goes running for the shelter for her mother’s little helper. And it helps her on her way to get her through her busy day. You can tranquilise your mind. And to help you through the night to minimize your plight
The four women interviewed by Elizabeth Vargas made statements similar to the lyrics of “Mother’s Little Helper”. The only difference is that the song is referring to drugs and not alcohol which each women used to tranquilise their minds to minimize their plight.
The four women came from various parts of the United States; Stephanie a mother of three from California, Mary who is celebrating 20 years of recovery, Tina a mother of two, and Lynn a fifty year old mother from Mississippi. Each woman has her story and disclosed her everyday rituals from park social hours after school to drinking at 9:30 in the morning. They hid their bottles of alcohol, pouring it into coffee mugs while driving their children to school, play dates, parks, and other activities under the influence of alcohol.
Tina is a mother of two children from Washington, D.C. who transitioned from a political career to a stay at home mom. She did not realize how much self-esteem and self-worth came from her job. Tina has difficulty in admitting she put her daughter in danger when she was under the influence of alcohol while driving. It was not until friends of Tina addressed her alcoholism that she received help.
Tina’s friends said it became apparent that Tina needed help. Tina would show up to functions inebriated, and her behavior and mannerism changed. Tina’s friends organized an intervention telling her of their own experiences with Tina’s alcohol consumption. At the end of intervention friends sent her off, with her packed bags, to a detox and rehabilitation program in Florida.
Mary who is celebrating her 20 years of sobriety and was a teacher at Harvard when her life spiraled into alcoholism. She remembers one Christmas morning she was to bake pies with the family and she choose to take a drive and consume a six pack of beer alone. Mary wrote a book “Lit” describing her bout with alcoholism and how she hid her alcoholism so well for so long from her husband, family and friends.
Mary states to Elizabeth Vargas that, “I didn’t look like somebody sleeping under a bridge. But I had this black hole in the center of me that I was pouring alcohol into. There are a lot of women who think, ‘My drinking is just not that bad.’ Feeling like every day is a nightmare that you have to trudge through is a consequence enough. You don’t need a DWI, you don’t need to go to jail, you don’t need to loose your kids. It’s enough that the highlights of your day is sitting alone drinking.”
Stephanie is a mother from California, a comedian who joked about drinking at play dates with children and other mothers. Even her husband was in denial of her drinking and stated she didn’t fit the mold of what he thought an alcoholic was. Stephanie lied to herself for so long until one day she went on her computer and admitted to her fans she had a drinking problem. She was so scared she would be rejected by her fans, and the opposite happened with letters of support and thanking her for her honesty.
Lynn is a fifty year old mother and wife with over 20 years of alcoholism. She lives in Mississippi with her adolescent children and husband. Her children have pleaded with her to get some help and are at their last straw. Cameras followed Lynn into her first five days of detox and 30 days of alcohol rehabilitation. The cameras capture the intensity of Lynn’s intoxication before she is admitted to a Florida program.
“Mother’s Little Helper” interview reveals the women’s shameful experiences with their alcohol episodes, daily rituals, and how they endangered their children’s lives. One woman states while driving the streets she would be dumping her empty bottles along the side of the road. Another describes hiding bottles of alcohol in closets, cupboards, shoes, and trash cans. Their ritual for buying the alcohol would be to make trips to various liquor stores so as not to be found out. They did not want others to know or see them drinking so they would drive around with the children drinking alcohol in their coffee mugs.
The last lyric in the song “Mothers Little Helper” is -
No more running for the shelter of a mother’s little helper
They just helped you on your way through your busy dying day
As these four women struggled in their daily lifestyle of alcoholism they came to the decision to find their way to sobriety. They too were on their way through their busy dying day. It was not until after 6 tries in recovery that Mary reached her twenty years of sobriety. Tina went back to drinking after completing the thirty day rehabilitation program and now looking for an outpatient program. Lynn is doing well and just received her four month chip of sobriety. Stephanie is doing well in her recovery.
Elizabeth Vargas reported after the one hour show “Mother’s Little Helper”, there was an overwhelming response to the show. Many viewers contacted the rehabilitation programs in Florida for help and information for themselves or a loved one. If you or someone you know has a problem with alcohol, click on one of the drug and alcohol rehabilitation centers on this page. You don’t have to repeat the cycle of alcoholism.
Love Is Not Control
May 17th
I had gone jogging through the park earlier then usual on that faithful spring morning. He was there sitting on a bench by the bike path. He had been reading the paper as I jogged by. I had never seen him before, but I usually jogged later in the morning, so I wasn’t surprised at seeing some one new. I finished my jog and went about my day as usual. The next day I started my day off in the usual way. Except I did go jogging earlier then my regular time once again for some reason, I could not name, I wanted to know if the man would be there in the park again.
He was and this time I stopped at the bench to tie my shoe, giving us a chance to say hello. We did and introduced ourselves, is name was Cal and we hit it off, we like the same movies, the same music, and the same kind of food. So he asked me out that Friday night. For months we enjoyed each other’s company. Maybe that is why I never saw the control issue start. His control over me happened so gradually at first, it was just the tiniest things.
One night we were going out to dinner, he was there to pick me up. I was dressed in my midnight blue dress with my gold loop earrings finishing off, my assemble. I opened the door to his waiting arms. After a wonderful long hug and kiss he followed me on into the house we still had a few minutes before or dinner reservation.
“Sweetheart you look so beautiful, tonight.” He said with a smile, “there’s only one thing that looks off. How fond are you of those earrings, because I think these would go with that dress so much better.” He had reached in his pocket and pulled out a small jewelry box, inside were crystal blue diamond stud earrings.
He was right, and oh, how sweet it was for him to buy me a gift. That was when it all begun, in the following months came more jewelry that he liked, or would look better with some outfit or another. After the jewelry came friends, clothes, nail polish, shoes, all with the explanation of it looking better or I bought this for you, my pants went tighter, my dresses slinkier. My shirts were lower cut.
I was eye candy exhibited for others, to state I have what you all want, but will never have. At parties I had to be at his side at all times, other then going to the ladies room. I had to be back within a certain amount of time. If I took too long we would leave the party, and I would be questioned. What was I doing? Who I was with? After six months after the first gift the accusations started.
If I was late coming home from work, I was with someone, if I didn’t answer the phone when he called I was talking to another man, the list went on and on. I could no longer wear my old clothes, after all he wanted me to be seen in that clothes he bought me, that was why he bought them was for me to wear, then he would turn around and accuse me of wearing the clothes for some other guy, I was parading myself around for other men.
He kept me hurt and confused, and worried about everything I said and did. If I smiled at some man that entered a restaurant he took me took, I wanted to sleep with him. Within the year my friends were gone, my family was put at a distance, my world revolved around him and only him. I didn’t smile anymore, I didn’t joke around with anyone, I was totally different with everyone.
Now it was time for the physical abuse as well, but in a way I’m glad it started. The first time he hit me across the face I woke up. I realized what was truly happening to me and what he truly was all about.
I don’t know how I lost my self-esteem, I was old enough I should have seen the signs. I’d been in bad relationships before and had always seen the signs right off, and ended them. Why was this one so different? I still ask myself those same questions.
This is the only answer I came up with; I thought he was exactly what I had wanted in a man. I was in love and I was blind to everything, I had to get hit literally for me to wake up.
Thank God most men don’t have the finesse and the patience to go so slow. I now look at every guy I date, through wiser eyes. If I even see one sign of them wanting control of me they are history. I pay attention to what the man says and how he says it. I’ve ran into to a lot more men like Cal, but the minute they want to tell me how fast I can drive, I leave them in the dust. I no longer take out my earrings to replace them with their gift, I thank them for the gift and let them know I will wear them the next time we go out, then put it to the side and keep wearing what I have already chose to wear that night. Then I watch and see what his reaction to me not wearing it right away is.
Small signs and a man’s attitude can tell you a lot. Learn to look for the signs and his temper if you pull the unexpected.
By Janeal Mulaney
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Janeal_Mulaney
Mother’s Heroin Addiction!
Apr 20th
Lisa Ling, an ABC News Commentator, is sitting in a middle class suburban kitchen interviewing a woman heroin addict. Mary sits in the kitchen looking beyond the kitchen glass doors viewing her four year old daughter at play. Throughout the interview, Mary is trying to convey the difficulties she has embarked upon to quit her seven year heroin addiction.
Mary grew up in the small town of Plymouth, Ohio, a population of 1,800. When Lisa asked a community member how a small town can be having problems with heroin addiction, he replied, “There’s not one person, in the community, who has not be touched by this addiction”.
It is difficult to understand Mary’s addiction, especially being a twenty four year old mother and pregnant. Mary is five months pregnant and continues with her addiction because of her unborn child. A pregnant woman cannot stop heroin, cold-turkey, because the unborn child is addicted and will die. Mary was receiving methadone treatment but chose to stop and continue with her heroin addiction.
Lisa is interviewing Mary as the video shows her shooting up her veins with heroin in various parts of her body; thighs, fingers, chest and feet. Mary tells of her daily routine of waking up with sweats and sickness at 4:00 am, taking her heroin shot, returning to sleep for another four hours, taking her next fix, and eventually driving to Columbus to buy heroin.
Mary tells of numerous mothers strung out on heroin, mothers in their 20’s 30’s and 40’s. She knows her daughter and unborn child deserves better, and she wants better for them. Mary and her mother are optimistic and continue looking for a drug addiction program for herself.
There are no detox centers or any long term drug programs available in her county. Soon after the interview Mary and her mother appeared on Oprah, where she was offered treatment … she accepted.
Parenting and Addiction
Apr 15th
An article I wrote “Mother’s Heroin Addiction” about Lisa Ling’s interview “Heroin in the Heartland” depicted a young mother addicted to heroin. Mary is five months pregnant and a mother of a four year old daughter. Although Mary’s mother has custody of her daughter, addiction has been a culprit before Mary’s daughter’s birth. Mary used heroin the duration of her pregnancy with her daughter as she is now with her unborn child.
Many addicts will argue the fact that they are good mothers, love their children, and parent well. No matter what the drug of choice is, how much the addict uses, or if the children are or are not present during the mothers drug spree – children are definitely affected psychologically and physiologically with their mother’s addiction.
The Webster’s definition of parent is one that brings up offspring, and mother is female parent who cherish and protect. The definition of addict is one who is psychologically and physiologically dependent on a drug. Is this not ironic the mother who is psychologically and physiologically dependent on the drug is simultaneously giving the drug to her child weather it be directly through birth and/or psychologically. What part of this definition means an addicted parent cherishes and protects a child.
When parents, family, and friends respond, “The children were not affected by their parents addiction, their honor students, varsity football stars, cheerleaders, and high achievers” – they are very much in denial. The affects of addiction will surface among children in different stages and time lines far into the individuals adulthood. The future families of tomorrow will be affected by their parents and grandparents addiction.