COPING WITH UNTREATED ADHD THROUGHOUT MY BROTHERS ADDICTION
Our minds have a way of forgetting so that our hearts can begin healing. We sometimes set adrift in our daily lives, going through the motions, smiling with insincerity behind it in place of happiness. The pain of witnessing the trials of someone you love, who is addicted to heroin, is almost unbearable because you know you cannot save him. You pray for him, counsel him, and cry for him but none of it changes his life…. or your home life.
When I look back over my life, I realize that one of the most important things I have done for myself was to forgive my brother for overdosing on drugs. He was charismatic, loving, intelligent, and was extremely handsome. If you judged this book by its cover, he looked like the least likely guy to die from a drug overdose. He was my hero as his younger sister. I idolized and adored him. Then he became someone I did not recognize, turning into someone who filled me with dread and disappointment. Ultimately, he became overwrought with shame in spite of doing so many good things with his life and helping so many people get off of drugs.
When you forgive, you open yourself up to endless possibilities, more vast than the ocean. Your mind becomes free to explore, to live, and to love. Love begins in the mind before it spreads to the heart. Addiction can numb your body to love. You have to survive addiction to find love again. Looking to God will bring you the solace you desire. His love for us is as vast as the sea!
SERENITY PRAYER
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change;
Courage to change the things I can;
And the wisdom to know the difference.
Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
Taking, as He did, the sinful world
As it is, not as I would have it;
Trusting that He will make things right
If I surrender to His Will;
So that I may be reasonably happy in this life
And supremely happy with Him
Forever and ever in the next.
Amen.
Written by Reinhold Niebuhr
