Quick Answer
Tara Norbeck, a registered nurse and mom who lived through her son’s addiction and mental health struggles, shares how she learned that some things are beyond a parent’s ability to fix or control. She describes how placing hope in something beyond her son’s choices, releasing the belief that she could cure or cause his addiction, and finding community helped her begin to heal. Her central message is that parents can hold hope and heartbreak at the same time, and that addiction does not have to take two lives.
Key Takeaways
- Tara describes learning that some things are beyond a parent’s ability to fix or control — and that reconciling this truth was a long and painful process.
- She says parents can hold hope and heartbreak at the same time, and that finding hope in the healer rather than in a child’s healing helped her begin to recover herself.
- A therapist told Tara that showing up to visits visibly devastated placed an unfair burden on her son, because it made him feel responsible not only for his own happiness but for hers too.
- Tara draws a distinction between anonymity and secrecy, saying that secrecy breeds shame, while sharing with trusted people helped her feel less alone and begin to find peace.
- She learned the three Cs at Al-Anon — that she didn’t cause it, can’t control it, and can’t cure it — and says releasing those beliefs was where her own healing began.
- Tara says the whole family is affected by a child’s addiction, and that getting support for siblings and other family members, not just the struggling child, is essential.
In this article
Episode Resources
- Dear Mom of an Addict by Tara Norbeck
- The Stream — Free Two-Week Trial for Moms
- Worried Sick Free E-Book by Brenda Zane
- Hopestream Community Podcast Library
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About the guest: Tara Norbeck
Author, speaker, and registered nurse (formerly a level one trauma ICU nurse)
Tara Norbeck is an author, speaker, and registered nurse who formerly worked as a level one trauma ICU nurse. She is the author of Dear Mom of an Addict: 10 Truths You Need to Know to Parent Your Addicted Child and Reclaim Hope, as well as a children’s book titled God Loves You Most. Tara is deeply rooted in faith and draws on both her personal experience with her son’s addiction and her years as a nurse to offer guidance to parents navigating their hardest seasons.
When a Nurse Couldn’t Fix Her Own Son
Tara Norbeck spent her career as a level one trauma ICU nurse — someone trained to evaluate a problem, figure out what intervention was needed, and fix it. Then the script flipped. Her son began struggling with drug addiction and mental health issues, and she found herself on the other side of the hospital bedside, holding his hand, with nothing she could do.
‘I learned the hard way that there were just some things that were beyond my ability to fix or control, and that was with my son. Faced with his drug addiction and mental health struggles, I couldn’t fix it, and that took me a long time to reconcile.’ — Tara Norbeck
She describes believing, as many parents do, that if she researched enough, prayed enough, or loved hard enough, she could solve it. Coming to terms with the fact that she couldn’t was, she says, one of the hardest things she has ever had to do.
Holding Hope and Heartbreak at the Same Time
One of the most striking things Tara shares is what she calls placing hope in the healer rather than in her son’s healing. After going through a period of deep anger — including, she says, shaking her fists at God — she arrived at a shift. When she began to do that, she says, she began to heal herself.
‘You can hold hope and heartbreak at the same time. It doesn’t mean that you don’t care about your child, and it doesn’t mean that you are grieving deeply for what they’re going through.’ — Tara Norbeck
She is also direct about something many parents carry silently: the belief that they can only be as happy as their unhappiest child. Tara says she understood why parents say that — she used to say it herself — but she came to see it differently.
The Burden We Place Without Knowing It
A therapist at the rehab facility Tara’s son attended told her something that changed how she showed up. When she arrived at visits crying, her son would tell her to leave. The therapist explained that when a parent shows up visibly devastated, it places an unfair burden on the child — communicating that they are responsible not only for their own happiness but for their parent’s too.
‘Addiction doesn’t get to take two lives. It’s not gonna take them and me. I had a husband I needed to show up for who deserved to have a wife that was present. I had other children that deserved to have their mother present.’ — Tara Norbeck
Tara says she also recognizes what she describes as enmeshment — becoming so tangled up in trying to fix her son that everyone and everything else was ignored. She draws a pointed comparison: her preoccupation with fixing him was, she says, its own kind of addiction.
Finding Peace Through Community and Faith
Tara describes several things that helped her begin to heal: therapy, Al-Anon, sharing with trusted friends and a pastor, and connecting with other moms who understood without judgment. At Al-Anon she encountered what she calls the three Cs — that she didn’t cause it, can’t control it, and can’t cure it. She says that when she began to release those things, she began to experience the first bit of healing.
She also talks about the difference between happiness and joy, describing joy as something quieter — a sense of peace and contentment she could find in ordinary moments, like sunlight or a child’s laugh. She was clear that finding those moments didn’t mean she stopped caring about her son. It meant, she says, that she wasn’t going to let addiction steal her joy too.
How Addiction Affects the Whole Family
Tara shares that years after the hardest period, her younger daughter came home from a sleepaway camp and told her: ‘Mom, you’re not gonna believe it, but guess what I found out at camp? I found out that my brother’s addiction is not my fault.’ Her daughter had silently carried that belief for years, thinking she had somehow caused it.
Tara says this was shattering to hear, and that it illustrated how thoroughly addiction creates a ripple effect through the whole family — including the children parents believe they are protecting. Her advice: have open, honest, age-appropriate conversations with siblings. Ask them what they are feeling and what they need. Get them into counseling or age-appropriate support groups. Don’t assume they don’t know what’s happening, because they almost certainly do.
About Tara’s Book, Dear Mom of an Addict
Tara wrote Dear Mom of an Addict: 10 Truths You Need to Know to Parent Your Addicted Child and Reclaim Hope because it was the book she desperately needed at 2:00 AM when she was lying awake searching for answers. She started with a blog in 2013 — mostly to process her own experience — and began hearing from people around the world saying ‘me too.’ Over time, she felt what she describes as a calling to share her hope with other moms, in the same way the 12th step calls those who have found healing to share it with others.
‘I wrote the book that I needed at 2:00 AM when I was searching for answers. I wrote it for that mom that’s up in the middle of the night waiting for the phone to ring, but dreading what’s gonna be on the other end if it does ring.’ — Tara Norbeck
The book is structured around truths rather than chapters. The first truth, she says, is: you are not alone.
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Frequently Asked Questions
What does it mean to hold hope and heartbreak at the same time?
Tara uses this phrase to describe the idea that a parent can grieve deeply for what their child is going through while still finding moments of peace and joy. She says it doesn’t mean you don’t care — it means you are refusing to let addiction take your life along with your child’s.
How do I stop feeling responsible for my child’s addiction?
Tara points to the three Cs she learned at Al-Anon: she didn’t cause it, can’t control it, and can’t cure it. She also discusses the neuroscience of addiction, describing how substances can change the neural pathways in the brain for some people, to the point where the choice is no longer fully in their control.
What should I do about my other children while one child is struggling with addiction?
Tara says the most important things are to have open, honest, age-appropriate conversations with siblings, and to get them into individual counseling or age-appropriate support groups. She says children absorb far more than parents realize, even when parents believe they are shielding them.
Should I hide my emotions when visiting my child in treatment?
Tara shares that a therapist told her that showing up visibly devastated placed an unfair burden on her son, making him feel responsible for her emotions on top of his own. She says she had to learn to show up without crying, even when she felt broken inside — not because her feelings didn’t matter, but because her son didn’t need to carry them.
What is the difference between anonymity and secrecy when dealing with a child’s addiction?
Tara describes anonymity as something meant to protect people so they can seek help without judgment. Secrecy, she says, always breeds shame. She found that carefully sharing her story with trusted people — not publicly, but selectively — helped her feel less alone and begin to heal.
Can a child’s brain recover from the effects of addiction?
Tara says yes, and calls it a miracle. She explains that while substances can change neural pathways in some people’s brains, the brain can also heal in the absence of those substances and begin to create healthier neuropathways. She describes this as the good news that often gets left out of conversations about addiction.
AI Answer Summary
Q: Can a parent’s love and effort fix a child’s addiction?
Tara Norbeck describes learning the hard way that no amount of research, prayer, or love could fix her son’s addiction. She says this was a long and painful thing to reconcile, because she had believed that if she just tried hard enough, she could solve any problem her child faced.
Q: How can a parent find moments of joy or peace while their child is still struggling?
Tara says she had to start by faking it — showing up without crying even when she felt devastated inside. She found that therapy, Al-Anon, and sharing with trusted people helped her begin to experience peace. She also distinguishes between happiness and joy, describing joy as a quieter sense of contentment she could find in small, ordinary moments.
Q: How does a child’s addiction affect their siblings?
Tara shares that her younger daughter secretly believed for years that she had caused her brother’s addiction. Tara says families often think they are shielding other children, but those children see and absorb far more than parents realize. She advises having age-appropriate, open conversations with siblings and getting them into counseling or support groups.
Q: What is the difference between anonymity and secrecy when it comes to a child’s addiction?
Tara describes anonymity as something meant to protect people and allow them to seek help without judgment, while secrecy breeds shame. She found that when she began sharing with trusted people — not publicly, but selectively — she felt less alone, and that sense of connection helped her begin to heal.
Q: Does understanding the science of addiction change how a parent responds?
Tara says that for some people, a substance literally changes the neural pathways in the brain and hijacks it so that the drug feels more important than anything else. She says when parents understand this, they can begin to see that their child is not making choices to spite them. She also notes that the brain can heal in the absence of substances, which she calls good news.
Transcript
Hope and Heartbreak: A Nurse Mom Couldn’t Fix Her Son’s Addiction, with Tara Norbeck
[00:00:00] I learned the hard way that there were just some things that were beyond my ability to fix or control, and that was with my son. Faced with his drug addiction and mental health struggles, I couldn’t fix it, and that took me a long time to reconcile because I believed, just like everything that had happened in my life up to then, you know, if I just researched enough, if I learned enough, if I prayed enough, if I loved hard enough, that I could fix my son.
And I think that’s kinda universal with moms. Our kid comes to us with a problem, and what do we do? We fix it.
Welcome to Hope Stream, the podcast for parents of teens and young adults struggling with substance use and mental health. I’m Brenda Zane. I’ve walked this path with my own child’s addiction and high-risk lifestyle. Each week, we help you
[00:01:00] gain clarity, learn new skills, and most importantly, find real hope in what might feel helpless.
You are not helpless, and you’re not alone anymore. Find more resources at hopestreamcommunity.org.
Hey, friend. It’s great to be back with you this week. Before we dive in, I just wanna say something. I was thinking this morning how honored I am that you trust me on this incredibly challenging journey that you’re on. It’s truly sacred work, I believe, that we’re doing here to help our families, which of course expands out to our towns, our cities, and communities, and the world.
And the fact that you’re here and you keep showing up and listening and trying and experimenting with things that my guests and Cathy and I share, it’s truly an honor, and I don’t take it lightly. So use this next couple of
[00:02:00] minutes as I share about my guest today to get in your two or three very deep breaths. I am always surprised at how much I need this, and so I can imagine you do as well. I don’t know why it is so hard to just remember to breathe, but it is. So as I remind you, I am actually just reminding myself. I got to sit down today with another battle-tested mom, Tara Norbeck, who, like you and me, lived through an enormous amount of struggle when her son went through an addictive cycle.
Tara is an author, speaker, and registered nurse, and specifically an ICU nurse, so you know she has seen some things. Tara is deeply rooted in faith and offers steady guidance to those navigating life’s hardest seasons. Her perspective has been shaped by both personal suffering and years of work as a registered nurse. She’s the author of Dear Mom of an Addict:
[00:03:00] 10 Truths You Need to Know to Parent Your Addicted Child and Reclaim Hope, and she also is a children’s author with a book titled God Loves You Most. Tara wrote Dear Mom of an Addict because it was the book she desperately needed at 2:00 AM when she was lying awake and doing nothing but worry about her son.
We had a wide-ranging conversation, as moms do, about all the things we experience when our kids struggle, including one that I held onto fiercely, which you might also, and that is, “I can only be as happy as my unhappiest child.” Boy, did I hold that one tightly. Tara shares why she would like to retire that phase and how even when our kids are struggling, it’s important to, and we can, find bits of joy and peace. We talk about the importance of grieving the things that we have projected for our families,
[00:04:00] and she shares a brilliant line that will stick with me forever about finding hope when there is not a lot around you that looks hopeful. I know this is gonna resonate. Tara’s one of us, a wife, a grandma, and most of all, a Seal team mom. Take a listen now to my conversation with Tara, author of Dear Mom of an Addict. Enjoy.
Hey, Tara. So good to have you here today on Hope Stream. I appreciate you taking some time out of your schedule to be with us. Battle-tested mom talks to battle-tested mom. Love it. Thanks and welcome. Thank you so much. I appreciate you having me on your show today. This will be a fabulous conversation.
They always are when it’s two mamas who’ve been through the wringer, as we say, and come out the other
[00:05:00] side with a lot of scar tissue, but also a lot of blessings, I think, and learnings. So tell us a little bit, however much you’re comfortable, like a little bit about your family, how things went for you guys, and we’ll talk more about what you’re doing now, and your book, and all of that.
Yeah. So we are a typical American family in the suburbs, and my husband and I have four children, and now we have two grand babies as well. So- Oh, I’m jealous. Lucky. I know. It’s the best. It’s the best job ever. And I am also a registered nurse. I’m not currently working as a nurse, but I was a level one trauma ICU.
So- You’ve seen some things … I’ve seen a lot of things, yes. Yes. Oh, my goodness. I thought about that when my son was in the ICU with a fentanyl overdose, and I
[00:06:00] just- Mm-hmm … remember seeing the nurses and the doctors, and the way they operated. And my mom is a retired nurse, RN, and- Mm-hmm … just the level of professionalism and care and concern, but also very business-like.
I don’t know. It was such a fascinating relationship to watch. I had a lot of time just to sit, ’cause he was on life support. Tell me a little bit about what that was like to be in that position, and then also to see at the same time having a child struggle in your own home. So it’s a unique situation that I’m in.
As a registered nurse, I was trained to evaluate the problem, to assess it, to figure out what intervention needed to happen, and to fix it. Of course. Which I love. I love being able to fix things. So coming at it for, and walking alongside families
[00:07:00] who were in there, because I was also an, I was an ICU nurse. Yeah. So walking with families through these dark, difficult periods, and I knew what to do. I knew how to walk alongside them, and I knew how to fix what was going on. But coming at it from the other side, when the script flipped and now I’m the one sitting by the bedside holding, in the ICU, holding my son’s hand, and it was completely overwhelming.
I have never felt so hopeless and helpless in my life. I didn’t know what to do, and I couldn’t, there was nothing I could do to fix him. So that was, it was just a unique situation that I was in. Yeah, so I think I had a similar situation where I wasn’t a nurse. I’m not a nurse, but I was a business professional who you could throw any business problem at me,
[00:08:00] I got you, right? I can solve that. And so I think a lot of us moms are in those positions where we are used to being able to solve the problem, because that’s just what we do. And so as you’re sitting there with him, and I know there’s a lot, right, that goes along with having a kiddo struggle, how did you come to a place where you could kind of reconcile, “Wow, I am so capable in so many areas, and in this area, I just can’t fix it”?
Like, what was that like for you? Well, as a nurse, a trauma ICU nurse, I was used to evaluating, assessing, doing an intervention and helping my patients get better, and walking alongside with the parents or the family members and helping them through some of the darkest seasons of their lives. But then the
[00:09:00] script flipped, and here I am on the other side of the bedside as the family member and holding my child’s hand and not being able to fix him.
So I’m very used to, like you said, you throw a problem at me and I’m gonna figure out a way to fix it. But I learned the hard way that there were just some things that were beyond my ability to fix or control, and that was with my son. Faced with his drug addiction and mental health struggles, I couldn’t fix it, and that took me a long time to reconcile because I believed, just like everything that had happened in my life up to then, you know, if I just researched enough, if I learned enough, if I prayed enough, if I loved hard enough, that I could fix my son, and I think that’s kinda universal with moms. You know, our kid comes to us with a
[00:10:00] problem, and what do we do? We fix it. We go to- Make it all better. Yes, of course. It’s really true. I couldn’t do that. Yeah. When he first started to struggle, maybe we can rewind a little bit. You’re watching your family and things are kind of going according to plan. I think a lot of us come into the parenting experience with some pretty solid ideas of how we want this to go, right?
Like, it’s gonna be this many kids and there’s gonna be these things that unfold during the course of our life together. And how was that for you to start to watch some of those things unravel as your son started to struggle? So yeah, when they hand you that baby in the delivery room and you hold them for the first time, and you see your future and their future, and you have dreams for your child, and no mother’s dream is ever for my child to, “Oh, my child’s gonna be a drug addict. My
[00:11:00] child is gonna struggle with mental health issues.” None of us ever think that. So I mean, we had other dreams for our children, and I think it’s okay to grieve those dreams because life didn’t turn out the way that we thought it would, the way that we hoped it would, the way that we dreamed it would.
And it’s okay to grieve that. And that doesn’t mean that we don’t still hold dreams for our children. It doesn’t mean that we’ve given up on our children. It just means that your perspective has to shift, and you have to put your hope in something other than your child’s choices. And for me, that was my faith.
Yes. I think for a lot of us it is. And I think for a lot of folks, too, who maybe had a f- faith practice earlier in life and sort of wandered away from that or it sort of lost its priority, there is nothing like having a kid at risk
[00:12:00] to make you go, “Oh, wait a minute. There has to be something bigger than what I am seeing in front of me and around me,” because it’s hard to find any hope in any of that or any rest.
I remember being so exhausted and then trying to get some sleep, like this is a very practical application of faith that it’s like, “I gotta hand this off to somebody. I have got to get some rest.” So I think that is really true that some of us either come back to or sort of re-strengthen and revisit our faith when you have something like this happen.
What did that look like for you? In the beginning, I was very angry. I was very angry with God. Why my child? We went to church every Sunday. We raised up our child in the way he should go from Proverbs, so that when they got old, they would not depart from it. So I was very angry with
[00:13:00] God in the beginning, and I shook my fists at him.
It got kind of ugly, but I finally got to the point where, just as you say, things weren’t getting any better. Being angry wasn’t helping, and I finally realized that my hope had to be not necessarily in the healing of my son on this side of heaven, but it had to be in the healer. My hope, I had to place my hope in the healer.
Mm. And that caused a shift in me. When I began to do that, I began to heal myself. And not to say that you don’t hurt for your child, and you don’t still grieve for your child, but you can hold hope and heartbreak at the same time. Mm. That’s so beautiful. I’ve never really heard it phrased that way, finding hope in the healer, because you’re right. When our kids are in this cycle, this… I was gonna call it a
[00:14:00] predicament, but that doesn’t really capture it. There’s so much- Mm … going on around them, right? It’s not just the substances. It’s the mental health. It’s the, quote-unquote, “friends.” It’s the danger and the risk, and when you look around what’s circling them and kind of what they’re marinating in every day, it is not looking very hopeful.
And unless you find a really great group or a coach or a book or something like that, and you can really surround yourself with resources, it’s like, where are you going to find any hope or joy? And I wanna talk a little bit about joy with you, too, because I know that’s something that is really important.
But the finding hope in the healer, that makes so much sense to me, because that we can kind of anchor to, so thank you for that little gem. I was telling you before we recorded that my mantra, not that it was a good one, when my son was
[00:15:00] struggling, was “I can only be as happy as my unhappiest kid,” and I truly believed that, because my emotions, my mood, my ability to function, all of that was directly tied to him.
I’m sure you have some version of this. Talk a little bit about how that went for you. I do, and I mean, I understand why people say that. I mean, I used to say it myself, and my unhappiest child was very unhappy and didn’t wanna live anymore. And so that’s a hard spot to be in. But for one thing, I would show up
One particular instance, I think when it began to shift for me, I showed up to the rehab facility crying. All the ti- I’d take one look at my son and just see his face, and I would just
[00:16:00] involuntarily burst into tears. And he would look at me, look at my husband, and tell me to leave. Oh. You know, he was like, “Get out. Get out.” And the therapist told me, “You know, when you show up crying and your son sees how devastated you are because of his circumstances, you’re placing an unfair burden on that child. You’re basically telling them that they’re not only responsible for their own happiness, but now they’re responsible for yours, too,” and that’s a heavy burden to place.
No mother ever wants to put that kind of burden on their child, and I certainly didn’t. I just never thought of it that way. So like I said, you can hold hope and heartbreak in the same time. It doesn’t mean that you don’t
[00:17:00] care about your child, and it doesn’t mean that you are grieving deeply for what they’re going through and that you’re praying for them to come out on the other side and recover.
But it does mean that addiction doesn’t get to take two lives. It’s not gonna take them and me. I had a husband I needed to show up for who deserved to have a wife that was present. I had other children that deserved to have their mother present. And I had a job, and my coworkers depended on me. My patients depended on me to be focused and helping them.
Yeah. And it just wasn’t fair to anyone. So I had to learn the hard way that I can be happy Or at least be okay Right, right … even when my unhappiest child is struggling. I can be okay. Yeah. It’s okay to be okay even when your child isn’t.
[00:18:00] It’s a really hard thing to learn. And for me, and I’m curious how this was for you, I had to almost fake it at first, because I was told the same thing, like, and my son made it very clear to me that my crying and wailing and moaning and starving and all of that felt very heavy to him.
But I didn’t know how to feel any other way, because I genuinely was so distraught. And so I started by faking it in front of him. Like, “Oh, hey, buddy, I’m gonna go have coffee with my friend,” and inside all I wanted to do was cry on the closet floor. But I had to get myself up, put a, not really a real smile on my face, but at least I was not crying.
Do you have any tips for our parents who are listening, who are like, “Wait a minute, what is she talking about? How would I ever find
[00:19:00] at least a moment of joy or happiness or peace?” Or like, how do you do that? What are some ideas you have on that?
Hey, can I tell you about something that might be perfect for where you are right now? If you have ever felt like there’s just nothing left to try or like you just don’t have the energy to keep going one more day, I want you to know that there is a place specifically for that. It’s called The Stream Community.
It’s a private online community for moms who are walking the same path you are with a child who’s facing substance use and mental health challenges. Inside, you’ll find other moms who don’t need the backstory explained. They just get it. You’ll also start learning practical skills that can shift the dynamic between you and your child because I know you really want to see change.
You can try The Stream free for two weeks, and if you sign up now, you could be on a live
[00:20:00] support chat or a coaching call within 24 hours. You do not have to do this alone anymore, my friend. Head to hopestreamcommunity.org/try. We’ll get you set up on your free two-week trial, and I’ll see you there. Okay, let’s get back to the show
It is hard, and I was one of those that slapped the fake smile on my face and showed up places and pretended like everything was okay. And part of that was we hid it for a long time. Mm. And I found that there’s a difference between anonymity and secrecy. Anonymity is meant to protect and allow people to seek help without judgment, but secrecy always breeds shame. So I found that when I began to open up
[00:21:00] to, not everyone, not blasting it on social media, but when I began to share with others, trusted people, a trusted friend, a trusted pastor, what we were going through, I found that I wasn’t alone. And when you know that you’re not alone in this struggle, that, that does something to you and it helps you find a little bit of peace.
Yeah. I also found going to Al-Anon was very helpful. That’s where we learned the three Cs. Mm-hmm. That I didn’t cause it, I can’t control it, which was a big one for me because I like to control things. Yeah. And … Yeah. Yeah. And I couldn’t control it. And the last C is that you can’t cure it. So when I began to release some of those things- I began to experience some peace, and I began to experience the first bit of
[00:22:00] healing. So I’m a big proponent of it’s not just the addict or the person struggling in the family with a mental health condition, it’s the entire family. There’s a ripple effect. It affects everyone that’s in their orbit, and especially the family. I truly believe that everyone in the family needs to get help.
So going to therapy was a big one for me. Seeking out support groups like your Hope Stream community is big. When you surround yourself with other people that understand and that they’re not judging you, and who tell you you’re not alone in this- Yeah … you can start to experience some joy even in the midst of the pain.
It is so difficult to do, and so important, because I imagine maybe like me, once I started taking those little teeny steps, faking it at first, then like you said,
[00:23:00] understanding, “Okay, this actually is feeling better. Even though I’m sort of faking my way through it, it lifts some of the weight.” And I started thinking about if I feel lighter, my son must definitely feel lighter, if I’m not placing my happiness on his shoulders, because that’s hard.
The other thing that I think was important for me to understand was the difference between joy and happiness. And to me, joy was a little deeper and more along the lines of, like, contentment and peace, versus happiness, which is- Yes … what I think people really want to see, which is bubbly, smiley, whatever. And I couldn’t get there. I just couldn’t get there. But I could get to a place of more peace, of a joy that I could be
[00:24:00] joyful about the tiniest, dumbest little thing, you know? “Oh my gosh, my package came a day early. Wow, that’s amazing.” Did you have kind of a shift in your expectations or your barometer for what was joyful versus what wasn’t, kind of in the before and after of this?
Yeah, absolutely, and I’m glad you made that distinction. There is a difference between happiness and joy. And yeah, I mean, just looking in my other children, and even my child that was struggling, looking in their face and just, that gave me a sense of joy. And I also just wanna make the distinction that for me, since experiencing some peace and some joy didn’t mean I didn’t care, I didn’t care about my son and his struggles. It didn’t mean that at all, because I did.
[00:25:00] I cared deeply, but I still could care deeply and grieve deeply for what my son was struggling with, and find joy in ordinary moments. The sun is shining. A child’s laugh. I wasn’t gonna let addiction steal my joy, too. Mm. And I think that’s a healthy role model for a child that is struggling, too.
To see that- Yeah … we can still go through hard things and not be in that deep pit of despair. We can start to heal and find some peace and some joy. It’s so important to do that. I’m always curious about, like, the change process in the parent, because we talk so much about the stages of change and all these things with our kids and, right, they have to go through all these different phases, and there’s gonna be
[00:26:00] relapse and blah blah blah. But rarely do we talk about what causes change in the parent. So I’m curious about your experience. You start seeing your child struggle. I’m sure you have all kinds of stories, we could now maybe laugh about, maybe not. But what was it that started to shift in you personally to where you could get past some of that, like the anger, the frustration with your son?
Talk a little bit about what your change process looked like. Well, for me, my faith played a huge role. I also went to therapy, and I went to Al-Anon and other support groups, and I talked to other moms who were struggling. And so for me, sharing my story and my struggles with other people who could understand and who weren’t gonna judge
[00:27:00] me, and perhaps were even in the same situation either right now in the thick of it or they were on the other side of it, I think that’s what that change looked like for me.
When I began to, instead of wallowing in the self-pity, which is real, and it’s okay. It’s okay to be there for a little while. Yeah. And I still go through that, but I don’t allow myself to stay there anymore. Yeah. I may meditate. I may pray. I may get up and go for a walk. I may take a hot bath. I may phone a friend.
And a big one for me is doing things for other people gets my mind off of what I’m dealing with. When you start to serve, when I’m serving someone else, it gets me out of my own head and in a better mindset It’s so interesting because we talk a lot about the parallel process of addiction, right? And I think a lot of
[00:28:00] the things that map to that are, as our kids get sicker and sicker, we get sicker and sicker. Like, there’s a downward spiral. But then, I think there’s also a parallel process of recovery where we need to do it in community just like they do. We need to have people around us who know a little bit more than we do. Like, they’re maybe a few months, six months, a year ahead of us, and we can learn from them just like our kids do.
We have to be in service of others. That’s one of the best, best, best ways to really feed our own recovery, just like our kids do. I mean, it’s incredible. It just always blows my mind when I think about, because I talk to people like you all the time, and I ask these questions, and it’s always the same answers.
You gotta be in community and find people who understand and won’t judge. You have to do some sort of service, whether that’s the
[00:29:00] tiniest little thing, ’cause I know there’s moments where none of us have the capacity to, like, go to Africa and build a well. But you can do a tiny little- Yeah … thing, right? So I just think that’s so fascinating, because I think it can be really overwhelming to be in this situation with a child, and we think, “Oh, how will I ever get out of this?”
And if we’re willing to listen to people who’ve been there before, and we give some of those ideas and steps, it works. It truly works. It does work. It does work. My son tells me that in the rooms, in the AA and the NA rooms, they say something like, “The program works if you work it.” So and it’s the same for us.
I love how you brought that in, that it’s, I consider myself in recovery. Not in recovery as an addict, but in the recovery of what I struggled when my son was going through- Yeah … all of this. And still, and
[00:30:00] it continues, and you can’t just stop when you’ve, when they’re in recovery. Just like they have to continue working their program, you have to continue working your program.
And even if it’s just texting a friend. Like, you’re having a bad day, and just text a friend and say, “You’re on my heart and my mind, and I’m just thinking about you, and is there anything I can pray for you?” Even that is- Yeah … a service. Yeah. So like you said, when you don’t have the capacity to go to do a lot, and you don’t have the energy to spend, just try one thing.
And go outside. Go for a walk. And the other thing is, I learned in my own recovery process that the 12th step in recovery is once you’ve experienced some healing, you know, we’re all continuing to heal. It’s a process, right? So, and it continues. But when you begin to heal, then you need to
[00:31:00] share that hope with others. And so that’s what we’re doing right here. Yeah. Is we are working our 12th step and sharing the hope that we have found with others, and that’s so important. It’s so important. I don’t know what years you were going through this. I was going through the worst part with my son from, like, 2013 to ’18. I honestly don’t know if podcasts existed at the time.
I did not know that if they did or not, because I was oblivious. But I think now there are so many access points to find that help. Your book is one. I would love to talk about it. But I want to go back to one thing that you said that I see a lot with the moms we work with is, I consider myself in recovery, too, not as an addict to a substance. My addiction was my son’s addiction. I was so addicted to trying to fix him and help
[00:32:00] him, and it really was like an addiction. Like nothing else, my husband, my other kids, my job. Like you said, everything else suffered. The substance could have been cocaine. It was that distracting. So I just think it’s an interesting point that might be helpful for a listener to consider, like, how much of your child’s struggle, how much of your life is that consuming?
And really inventory that, and if it’s consuming 75, 80% of your day, your mind, your heart, your soul, that’s something to look at, right? It truly is. I mean, that’s called enmeshment, which is a very unhealthy way where you get tangled up in someone else’s issues. Yeah. So, and I consider myself the same. I mean, I was so consumed
[00:33:00] with fixing my child that everyone and everything else was ignored, and I love that analogy. That truly is an addiction, because just like if I was using a substance, I wasn’t there for anyone. I wasn’t there for myself. I wasn’t there for anyone else, my family, and honestly, I wasn’t doing my addicted child any favors either by being so consumed with trying to fix him when I couldn’t. Yeah. It’s an unsolvable puzzle.
Just FYI for anybody listening, maybe you’re newer in the process, this is one of those things where, like, you’re looking at the puzzle box and you’re like, “Gosh, it’s not going together,” and it’s because you don’t have the pieces. You do not have the pieces. You cannot fix it. You can influence it. You can support it, you know, in the right way, but you do not have the puzzle piece. So just a spoiler alert for anyone who might be listening and
[00:34:00] looking for that missing puzzle piece. Yeah. Let’s talk about your book a little bit, because I think there’s such value in hearing from somebody who’s been through it. When did you write it? What was the impetus? Obviously, your child’s use, but a lot of us have kids that have used, and we haven’t written a book, so talk a little bit about that.
So when we first began to share our story back in 2013, when it kinda all started, I started a blog. Mm. To just for myself mostly, just to begin to process things. Much like someone might journal, I just started a blog, and it wasn’t even public. But then people started asking more and more about it, so I made it public and people started sharing it.
And I began to hear from people all over the world. Back in 2013, like you said, I don’t even know if there were podcasts back then. I really don’t think there was. I don’t think so. And there were a ton of books out there, like
[00:35:00] for everything else, like what to expect when you’re expecting, how to build a good marriage, all these kinds of self-help books, but there wasn’t much out there for moms of addicts. Yeah. And for children who were struggling with mental health conditions as well. So I started this blog and began to hear from people, like, “Me too. Me too. Nobody knows. I haven’t told… You’re the first person I’ve told.” And so I began to see a need there, but it wasn’t until years later when I really felt the nudge, I felt a calling from God really, to share, like that 12th step, to share my hope with other moms going through this horrible thing that nobody…
It’s a club no parent ever wants to join. Nope. So I began to think about how sharing my story would look like, and I’ve always enjoyed writing. So I sat down and I
[00:36:00] hired a book coach because I was a nursing major of science. I’d never taken a writing class in my life. So I wanted it to not just be a cathartic book for me. I really wanted it to be the best book that it could be to help other moms going through this, and maybe to skip some of those hard steps that we had to go through because there wasn’t anyone there guiding us and holding our hand and telling us what we could do and what we couldn’t do. So that’s why I wrote the book.
I wrote the book that I needed at 2:00 AM when I was searching for answers. I wrote it for that mom that’s up in the middle of the night waiting for the phone to ring, but dreading what’s gonna be on the other end if it does ring. I wrote that book for her. Mm-hmm It’s so impactful when you can find something that connects where you’re like, “Oh, she gets it. Like,
[00:37:00] she totally gets it.” And it’s like, I think of all the things that I learned along the way, and that’s exactly why I started my podcast for the same reason. And don’t you sometimes just wish that when you meet, like, a new mom who’s in it earlier on maybe, or maybe she’s like three or four years into it, don’t you wish that you could just…
There was like a fast-forward button that you could just say, “Oh, sister, let me just download a few things to you and we can shorten the cycle for you”? I would have given my left arm for that to have. So is there a favorite maybe chapter or part of your book that you wanna share a little bit about? Or something that’s most- You know, I really- Like you hear from readers that they love the most?
Yeah, so I really th- you’re not alone is the biggest thing- Mm … for me. You know, when you begin to understand that you’re not the only
[00:38:00] one going through this, that people have gone through it before. So that’s the first. My book is, it’s laid out in truths, not chapter. So truth number one is you’re not alone. And I think that’s so important for people to know. There’s also practical wisdom and guidance in there. The three Cs is huge, that you didn’t cause it. There’s nothing… As moms, I think we replay those things over and over in our mind, like, “What did I miss? What did I not see? How could I have stopped this from happening?”
And the reality is that moms need to know that there’s nothing that you could have done differently or said that caused your child to become addicted. Are there things that we can do? Of course there are. Are there signs to look out for? Yes, and that’s in the book, too. There are some warning signs to look for.
[00:39:00] But those aren’t the only things to look for. In my case, he wasn’t exhibiting some of the typical signs. So I go through that as well. Like, listen to your child, kind of in between the lines. Mm-hmm. Because there may not be those blaring warning signs. There may be. There very well may be. So you need to look for the blaring warning signs and some of the more subtle things.
If they begin to talk about being sad or, just be aware of those things. And I think it’s so important, too, to just listen. Listen to your child, and be slow to react. Listen- Which is so hard to do, right … without judgment and hear what they’re saying. It is, because sometimes they say things and you’re like, “Wait, what? What did you just… No. No, no, no. We’re not…” Yeah. And if they feel dismissed, then you’re missing an
[00:40:00] opportunity to walk alongside them and steer them in the right direction. And just don’t be afraid to reach out for help. Yeah. I’m wondering how much, as a nurse, I think of medical people as, like, all-knowing.
So I’m just wondering, because for me, without any medical knowledge of anything, I really looked at my son’s struggles early on as he was being very defiant. He was throwing this in my face. He was, just had a total lack of willpower. Like, he couldn’t say no to his friends. I was treating it really as, like, a moral character thing.
Did you understand addiction? Like, how did you go into this? Was it more like me where you’re like, “Wait a minute, we didn’t raise you like this. What are you doing?” Or were you a little bit more understanding and compassionate because you had some medical
[00:41:00] training? I was not understanding or compassionate in the beginning. I was like, “Yeah, we did not raise you this way. What is going on?” Yeah. Like, “This is not who you are.” But as, probably because of my medical background, and I like to research things because I like to figure out how to fix things, so I researched like I was the FBI. And just the education we got at some of the, at, like, family days at some of the rehab facilities or through our own therapy with our own therapist and with the family therapist, there is a chapter in the book where I discuss the neuroscience of addiction, and there really is science behind the fact that obviously addiction always starts with a choice.
It’s a choice to take that drug. It’s a choice to go to that party. It’s a choice to listen to that friend. Or even if you’re prescribed, like my son was
[00:42:00] after a sports injury and a surgery, opioids, there’s a choice to continue to take them beyond when you probably could switch to some other over-the-counter pain reliever. So it always starts with a choice, but for some people, the substance literally changes the neural pathways in the brain. Yeah. And it messes with the dopamine receptors. And some people, it no longer is a choice. Yeah. And when you begin to understand that, then you can understand better why they’re making these choices.
It literally becomes, their brain is hijacked, and their brain tells them that this drug, this substance, this high, is more important than eating, sleeping, anything else. It takes over. And there have been studies with rats even,
[00:43:00] where rats, rats aren’t made in the image of God. They don’t have a soul. They don’t have morality. They don’t have good character or bad character. They don’t have it. But rats, some rats, they will continue to choose cocaine. They’ve done studies with cocaine and heroin. They’ll choose that substance over and over and over, over eating, sleeping, procreating, helping a fellow rat out, which they do.
Healthy rats will help. If they get stuck, they’ll help the other rat. And they don’t have a soul. But the addicted rats stop helping other rats. So in the same way that- is how some people’s brains are affected by addiction, and they believe that getting that high is more important than anything else. It is survival
[00:44:00] to them. Yeah. And when you begin to understand that, then you can understand that they’re not making choices to spite you. They’re not making choices because they want to. It’s because their brain has been hijacked by that drug. Now, the good news is that the neuroscience also works the other way. The brain can heal in the absence of those substances.
The brain begins to create healthier neuropathways, and the brain can heal. It’s such a miracle. So that’s the good news. It is. It’s such good news, and I’m glad you said that because I think a lot of people leave that last part off about the good news, is that it can heal, and it can change. And I think, and you probably experienced this as well, like, even though I started to understand about the substances and the physiological impact on the body and the brain, because the symptoms of addiction look
[00:45:00] like a behavior, like a moral behavior, right? Whether they’re stealing from you as the parent, lying, putting themselves in insanely dangerous situations, making terrible choices with, about their body and their lives. Like, those are the symptoms that you have to remind yourself over and over, “Okay, this is a symptom of this addiction. It is not that my kiddo’s just being defiant, being willful.”
And because of the age that, if you have a teenager or young adult in their early 20s, that’s kind of the time when kids are a little more ornery anyway, so then you think, “Oh my gosh,” like, “did I just raise this really defiant, like, terrible kid?” It is hard on the mom and the dad brain and heart because it, from all appearances, looks like you did not do your
[00:46:00] job, right? Like, that’s how I felt. I don’t know if you felt that, but that’s how I felt. Like, I clearly did something wrong. Yeah, absolutely. We felt like it was our fault, that we could have done something differently, and the reality is that it’s not our fault. And I think, too, as the mom, like, we not only blame ourselves, but our kids blame us, too, and society blames the mom.
It’s always the mom’s fault, and we take that burden on, and you know what? It’s a lie. We can’t take that kind of shame on ourselves. We didn’t cause our child’s addiction. We didn’t raise our child to be defiant, immoral, of bad character. That’s what happens to the brain, some brains, when you throw substances on top of it. And we know that the frontal lobe of our brains doesn’t fully develop,
[00:47:00] especially in males, it takes even longer, but until the age of 25. So their frontal lobe, which controls understanding long-term consequences, isn’t fully developed yet. Nope. And so then you throw substances on top of that, and of course they’re making terrible decisions and choices.
Yes. It is such a perfect storm of their adolescent brain, the impact of substances, the impact of peer pressure and all that they go through there. It is literally just, it’s a storm. We always would say, and somebody told me when my son was in treatment, “Keep him alive till he’s 25.” Not that that’s gonna, like, magically fix everything, but at least at that point, he’s gonna have a brain to work with that’s fully cooked, you know?
Mm-hmm. So what about- Exactly … I’m curious about your other kids. What was the impact of this on your other children as they’re watching their brother go through this?
[00:48:00] So like I said, addiction causes ripple effects, and everyone in the family is affected. We had one child that was already away at college, and our youngest child was seven years younger than our addicted child.
Okay. And here’s just a prime example of what we just have no idea what they’re going through. You think you’re shielding your other children to some degree, but they see and absorb so much more than you even could imagine. So years later, my daughter came to me after being away at a camp, a sleepaway camp, and she came home bursting through the door, and the first thing she says was, “Mom, you’re not gonna believe it, but guess what I found out at camp? I found out that my brother’s addiction is not my fault.” Okay, that
[00:49:00] is, that shook me- Oh … and broke me to the core. For all of those years, this was years and years later, she thought that she caused her brother’s addiction. Baby. That somehow she wasn’t a g- as good enough. I know. It’s so horrible to think about.
And then I felt, again, as I felt like a failure as a mom, that I thought I was protecting her. I thought I was doing right by her. But clearly, I had no idea. Yeah. So that’s just a prime example of how it affects everyone in the family. Yeah. Is there any- And it’s so important to get help for everyone. Yeah.
I was gonna ask, what do you think, like if you could rewind, is there anything that you know now that you would do differently with your siblings? I ask because I get asked this all the time,
[00:50:00] “What about my other kids? What should I be doing?” And so I would just love to hear any thoughts that you have on what that could look like for someone.
It’s so important, and I so wish I could go back in time and tell myself this. I can’t, but I can tell other moms that are going through, I would have open conversations, age appropriate conversations with the other kids. What we did was we just tried to shield them from it, and they know even if- Yeah they’re little bitty or they’re older and like our older son was away at college, they still know. I mean, they hear it on, in your voice. They see it on your face and in your actions. Yeah. And so I think it’s really important to have age appropriate conversations with them, and ask them open-ended questions like, “How are you feeling?
What’s going on? What do you need from me as your mom?” That’s
[00:51:00] important, and I think it’s also important to get them into support groups like Al-Anon or other, other support groups that, again, are age appropriate. Get them into counseling. Family counseling was key for us, as well as individual counseling.
Yeah. So those are the kind of things that I would say to moms that are wondering what to do with their kids right now. Just have open, honest, age appropriate conversations with them, and get them into some kind of support group or therapy. Yeah, you’re right. They do know. The other kids know. We think we’re, we think we’re being so sly-
and we’re shielding them, and they usually know more than we do. I mean, my younger son knew way more than I knew. And then I think of the burden that that put on him, ’cause if I was scared knowing the level of information that I knew, and he was only two years younger, so he was seeing it like he had a front row seat.
[00:52:00] And they do have that magical thinking of, “Maybe I caused this somehow,” or the other one that I hear often too is, “Maybe it’s also gonna happen to me when I’m that age,” right? Like, “Oh, my brother did this at 15. When I turn 15, is that gonna happen to me, too?” And so I love how you said just have some open conversations, and know, uh, age appropriate, obviously, and that can be hard to know what…
Age appropriate is difficult, so it may take some help from a therapist or a coach to know what age appropriate is. But to be brave enough to have those conversations with them, because we’re also doing them a disservice if we don’t have those conversations, right? So wow, so much wisdom, Tara. So much wisdom.
Can’t wait to get the book in everybody’s hands. We’ll have a link in the show notes so that you can read from a battle-tested mom all the things, the book that you
[00:53:00] needed when you were awake at 2:00 in the morning. Thank you so much for writing it and doing what you do, and just give big love to your family.
I know it’s a long slog, right? And there’s just so much love that’s needed to wrap everybody up in that, no matter what’s going on. So thank you for being here. Thank you, Brenda. Th- and thank you for sharing hope with- Yeah … your audience too. It’s so important. I guess I should ask, I like to ask folks at the end, if there’s a mom who’s running into an elevator and the elevator door is closing, and you can give her a note through the door before it slams on your wrist, what’s the note gonna say to her?
It’s gonna say, “Dear Mama, you are gonna be okay. We’re gonna be okay. There is hope. You are not alone. There is
[00:54:00] hope. Share, share your struggle with a trusted person so that you know that you’re not alone, and we’re gonna be okay.” Beautiful. Thank you. Thank you, thank you. Thank you.
Okay, my friend, I am so glad that you are here with me today. Do you want the resources from this episode? If you do, head to hopestreamcommunity.org, click Podcast, and you will find this episode, along with 300 or so others, and every link that we mention. And if you haven’t tried it yet, we offer a free two-week trial of our online community for moms, The Stream.
No credit card needed, no commitment. Just go to hopestreamcommunity.org/try, and we can get you set up with a free two-week membership. And if this is your first time here or if this
[00:55:00] whole approach feels new and uncomfortable, that is normal. You can grab a free e-book I wrote called Worried Sick. It will help you start seeing new ways to respond to your child and find new ways to approach this whole situation that feels very confusing.
You can find that at hopestreamcommunity.org/worried. You, my friend, are an elite level parent. You are doing an incredible job. You do things most parents never have to do, and I am so honored to be walking this path with you. Take ridiculously good care of yourself, and I will meet you right back here next week.
