Divorced Parents Navigating Addiction/Recovery with Teen Daughter

For six years, Phillis struggled with an autoimmune disease – a medical conundrum. Essentially, human tissue attacking itself. The experience of physical pain, bedridden for days, coupled with dark emotions spiraling into a fog resulted in depression. At the epicenter was loss of her role as mother to her daughter, 14 year old Ella. Because of the frequency and volume of arguments, Ella would spend nights with her 18 year old boyfriend, Buckle where she felt seen, recognized, and heard. Ella’s interest for connection with her mother was numbed by the drug induced ecstasy she shared with Buckle.

With everyone in the family doing their best to compensate for both an incapacitated family member unable to fulfill their role, and drug use of a teen, the invisible structure of the family incrementally increased in rigidity. Unable to provide an emotional connection with Ella, Phillis’ inner world was haunted with guilt, memories of her own childhood, and her mother’s struggle with Lyme’s disease.

Now, more then ever, she wanted to be a guiding presence in Ella’s life. But, her own illness prevented this ideal and she hated it. She tried setting boundaries with Ella, but anger and resentment would leak out. After the police arrested Ella for driving after drinking and found cocaine in the car, Art, Ella’s dad moved from out of state into Phillis’ house to help. Despite her parent’s suggestions, cajoling, pleading, demands, bribery, and threats, Ella spent nights at Buckle’s.

Art couldn’t bear to see Ella tormented and did everything he could to ease her pain. Never raising his voice, Art patiently listened to Ella’s anger and blame of her mother. Art naturally empathized with Ella. Phillis felt alienated. Underlying issues of their divorce was amplified. Ella’s absence in the evenings left space for Phillis and Art to scrape old wounds and ignite old arguments.

Only after Art’s business partner of 22 years expressed concern about him, did Art consider the impact of his family situation on the rest of his life. Art assumed intervention would initiate an outside process that he feared would further disrupt his family. He took action to research options online. The family recovery deep community was the only thing he found that allowed him to listen anonymously, ask questions when he was ready, and get feedback from like minded families in similar situations. To his surprise, the deep community also provided resources for him to assess himself, and his family’s situation. For the first time, he felt hope and started to understand a pathway of actions he could take toward change. The community provided options for Art to learn at his pace, while staying engaged with the family situation. He started to see a pathway to healing. Hope.

He brought information he was learning into conversations with Phillis. She was most struck with Art’s new ability to name when he was getting triggered, name that he needed space, and name that he would come back to the conversation when he was able. When Art asked her to join him in listening to a guest in the Community Show, she agreed. No fear of being seen by a neighbor or having to show her face at a meeting in a local church basement.

In the community, they read a transcript of a doctor being interviewed about multigenerational trauma, “The child is aware of its own body and can also feel the tension, rigidity, and pain in the body of the mother. If the mother is suffering, the baby suffers too. The pain never gets discharged.” Something rang true for Phillis, a curiosity about challenges of the past contributing to challenges today. She was struck with the concept of using strengths from the past to best manage a present situation, and how to transform one’s story about the present by better understanding the past.

Phillis looked at the videos in the community that led up to the family map process. What haunted her in the past, was now a source of curiosity. Curiosity building. Art noticed that the frequency and duration of their arguments had decreased. They both committed to the family map process.

On the day that Phillis and Art were going to be online for the morning with a facilitator taking them through the family map process, Ella stopped in. She couldn’t help but hear that her parents spoke to one another differently. She didn’t trust this new change, and left once she got her clean laundry.

For Art and Phillis the family map process that morning temporarily shifted their attention from the focus on their personal positions and feelings between them today, to expanding their understanding of the roots of those positions that automatically occurred between them.

Phillis was most struck with her insight between the lack of connection she has with her daughter and the lack of connection she had with her own mother. Incapacitating physical illness of her mother, and now her own illness was the common thread. She recalled that when her mother was bedridden, her grandmother moved into the role of taking care of her and her sister. Now it was different. Like an imbalanced hanging mobile seeking stability, Art had moved into the care taking role to help with tasks that were not getting done, an effort to stabilize the system. Phillis had resented Art for having a better relationship with their daughter. Now she saw that it was not his fault, and they both were seeing how his style of helping their daughter was also contributing to the problem.

This understanding, helped Phillis to dis-identify from personally holding Art responsible for “intentionally” pushing her out of a relationship with Ella. Something was different. In an argument, Phillis saw Art stop, look down, and take a breath before acknowledging he needed to take a break. Phillis named still being triggered by Art having a “better” relationship with Ella then herself. Small, incremental steps grew towards trust.

In the community, Phillis talked about their daughter’s situation with her boyfriend, the drugs, the police, their worry and not knowing what to do. To her surprise, several people responded with their own similar story and what they tried. One community member made herself available to answer any questions in the future. Instead of shame and embarrassment, Phillis felt supported and hopeful. In time, Phillis and Art aligned on a unified recovery message to their daughter.

Unlike the cultural norm that focuses solely on the addicted individual in the family, Art and Phillis felt fortunate they started their own work and acted when they did. They both set aside pain between them long enough to unify to help their daughter. Through a process of exploring resources in the community, researching options, and individual conversations with community members, Phillis and Art found criteria for treatment referrals and chose one with a strong family program. They were committed to continuing the work they had started; they were committed to continuing to be a part of the solution.