Addicted Mom finds life In recovery for herself and her Daughter

  When I look back on my life and the years I struggled with my disease, I will be forever grateful that my daughter was able to grow up in a clean and sober environment. In AA they teach you that a child who is raised with a parent or caregiver that is in some form of recovery from substance abuse has a much better chance of growing up "normal" and not becoming a substance abuser like their parent was.
  
  When I started on my journey of recovery 9 years ago I was pregnant with my daughter. I knew that her birth was imminent and that it would be an uphill battle, not just for me, but for us as a family. Being a single Mom with no help and starting our life in a halfway house for recovering women was not what I would call a "fairy tale" life by a long shot. Although it wasn't an ideal set up, it was a hell of a lot better than where I had been. I spent that first year in recovery with my daughter living in that house and raising her there until we moved to a homeless shelter to await housing.
  
  The whole time I  was attending AA meetings, step study classes and lectures on addiction and alcoholism. My daughter was a part of it all and she still is to this day. I have always raised her to be aware that her Mom is in recovery and that its OK for me to be honest with her about what drugs did to my life and the struggle that brought me to sobriety.

   My daughter went to her first AA meeting at 3 weeks old and has more or less grown up in the halls of AA. I love to hear my fellow group members greet us at meetings and reminisce about when my daughter was so small and just starting to toddle. I feel that I am one of the lucky ones, that I've been able to expose her to this positive environment of recovery and not the hell that I once lived through. She's my recovery kid and I'm so proud that I was able to maintain my sobriety for myself and for her. God willing I will continue on my journey of recovery and my daughter will grow up to understand that its a way of life second to none.

  
  It's a well-known fact that children who are raised by parents that find recovery have a much higher chance of not battling the same addictions their parents did.
  
  I have three children and two of those kids were exposed to my addiction and drug use in varying degrees. Thankfully, neither of them have problems with addiction so far. They were taken out of that environment at a very young age and were afforded a better life with people who were much more capable of raising them than I was at the time. It was a very difficult moment in my recovery when I had to accept responsibility for the mistakes I made not just with my life, but with my children. I wasn't able to be the Mother they needed even though I loved them dearly. Love was not enough to overcome my disease. It's taken a lot of therapy and acceptance to forgive myself for the terrible mistakes I made during my years of active addiction.

   I was so grateful to receive the gift of forgiveness from those same two children years later. It was then that I told myself, if they can forgive the Mother who wasn't there for them then I can forgive myself and move on. It wasn't easy but I had to get on with living, I had another child who needed her Mother to be all she could be. I wanted to stay sober for her and for my other children who were now adults. I wanted to show all of them that I was redeemable and that I could change and more than anything else that I was worthy of their forgiveness, respect, and love.
  
  Recovery has given me so many gifts that I'm grateful for. A  beautiful daughter who has shared my journey of sobriety from day one. As well as my two boys who joined me years later, but found a Mom who was not only clean and sober but worthy of their love and forgiveness. 
  
  If not for the program of AA and that halfway house that took me in I don't know where I may be today. There were so many people that were invested in my recovery, who put their trust and faith in me that I would better myself and my children's lives. That inevitably I would and could join this program of recovery and make a different life for all of us.