Dear San
I haven’t heard from you in a while and I am sorry that I didn’t reply to you as I should have done.
Forgiving yourself was long overdue and I hope that now you have done so, you are more relaxed with ‘you’ and therefore more able to keep your son’s addiction separate from you. I would argue that your enabling was never a form of conditional love to cover your feelings of guilt – I believe that it was in line with you being a mum and wanting the best for a child who obviously struggled more than his siblings.
I am sure that you are right that many CGs gamble to compensate childhood wounds, real or imagined but a mother can only do her best and I know you did this. When you son changes his life he will know this too but I’m afraid that knowledge is still eluding him.
It seems to me that your son wavers between ‘I know what I’m doing but I don’t know why I’m doing it’ and ‘I don’t know what I’m doing and I don’t know why I’m doing it’. I am hoping that maybe he is getting closer to acceptance that he has an addiction but that he really can do something about it.
I hope that you are your partner are experiencing better health and that 2016 will be a good year for you both.
I would love an update
V
