Adrift, I was just going to make a quick reply and then I read down all the responses. Everyone here has good, loving advice. And I really was going to add that going to Alanon is what saved my sister from going down the tubes with her daughter. I have never been, but probably should have gone years ago...and I cannot say enough good things about the work they do, from just watching my sister and her daughter get through the daughter's drug addiction. I think Kelly is right on the money.
Here's my take, for what it's worth, which basically is what everyone else says....again.
1. You are a good mother. That's why you hurt when your child hurts. So at least acknowledge that in yourself.
2. Everyone, including you, has to learn from pain. Let your child learn. Don't stop the learning.
3. (and my sister took this from alanon) Clean up your side of the street. That's all you can do. Save yourself. Find ways to drop what is essentially someone else's pain out of your space and focus on what you want, not what you don't want. My niece credits her mother's growth from her whole mess as actually, her inspiration to get better again. Strange how things can work.
4.Learn how to be in the moment...maybe Ekhart Tolle's book "the power of now" might make sense to you. That way, you can "stop borrowing trouble" (my mom used to say that, too) from past, or future and FIND what is right about things, and let that pull you up into a more positive vibration.
5. Try to see your daughter's pain as her own....and see it as a gift she is getting from the universe to learn...what? Who knows... but if you have some faith, and not so much fear, you can see this is her path. Sure you are her parent, but that's all you are. You are not one and the same person.
6. Once again, give yourself compassion: you are a loving human.. You feel other's pain because you know how to feel. But emotions do not have to control your life if you choose otherwise. Step back. Step out of the emotion. What would it feel like to have what you want (peace)? Give yourself a gift, even if a few seconds a day of imagining such a feeling....as if it were in the present. It's your mind, you can do what you like with it. Trust that your path, her path, are exactly what they should be. This is learning. This is waking up. Waking up is hard.
(((((((((((((((((((((((adrift))))))))))))))))))))))))))))
