That’s my mom! Proud of you mom and thank you for giving me another chance at life. Without you, I wouldn’t be alive. ❤️❤️

I mourned my son while he was earthside and unfortunately I have to mourn him while he is not on this earth anymore.

I don’t know why I just saw this TED Talk today, but I must’ve needed to. Karen, if you see this, thank you for doing this, it took a lot of courage. Even when your voice was shaking, you spoke your truth, and I admire that. I related so much to your journey, as mine has been much the same with my only son Brahm. His father passed from cancer when he was 16 and he has spiraled out of control since then - it’s been 12 hard years. Some days I feel as though I lost both my husband and my son the day my husband passed. I loved when you talked about the relief you felt over Brian being in jail. I slept so good the night my son went to jail. He was safe. He was alive. I could rest. I, too, have lost relationships, neglected relationships, quit jobs, quit living and caring, made my life so small so as to be - I don’t know - here for him if he ever decides to want to get clean.??? I have begged, I have enabled, I have threatened, bribed and, yes I have even given him money full well knowing what he would do with it. I have drawn the line in the sand so many times I lost count. He has been in and out of jail several times, “baby Prison” once, multiple rehabs and half way houses & sober living programs. Each time, I had HOPE. You had me going while watching this, shaking my head in agreement because I can empathize with what your experience was/is. Until you got to your last point - HOPE. I stopped hearing you because my head was screaming so loud - Noooooooooo! It has taken me 12 years to get to the point where I am now : I just am willing to accept what I get from him at his discretion and in return I don’t judge I just return love. I don’t nag, I don’t bribe, I don’t make deals, I just say I love you, I miss you, you ok? As for him, he no longer asks for money, he doesn’t steal from me any longer, he doesn’t call me names and blame me for everything. I suppose he has matured some. We are at an impasse. For me, if I have hope, means I get hurt. My heart has broken. Really broken. Physically broken. So I just made a decision one day to stop having hope because hope hurts. The best I can do is send him text messages once every two weeks or so to say hi, I miss you. Sometimes he answers, most the time he doesn’t. Once in awhile he will call to ask if he can come by and visit. I let him…and we visit, I make food, he nods out on my couch and I let him for about 20 minutes. Then I will wake him and tell him he’s gotta go. Once or twice I’ve met him downtown to get a Starbucks. It’s sort of like seeing him is my own ‘fix’. Even if he’s not clean, he’s still alive. I don’t know what else to ‘do’ because the ball is not in my court and besides, I have ‘done’ everything I can think of. I got nothing more. I will have to go back and re - watch this - especially the green bubble part - I’m all in to visualization (But that’s another story) Hey - here’s something I haven’t tried! Visualization. This all sounds so sad and dramatic, but truly, these days I am mostly at peace. I do not want to go back to the days of utter insanity with him, so I just try to live in love. I have re-married and this man has taught me how to do this. For this I am forever grateful. However, I still feel like my left leg is gone and I’m using someone else’s prosthetic leg that doesn’t fit. I hope you are still doing well Karen and I wish nothing but the best for your son Brian. Living your life in recovery can be hard at times, Brian, go easy on yourself. Especially in the world we live in now. It’s hard to find HOPE. I think your Moms middle name is HOPE - so that’s where you will find it. I will try watching again tomorrow, Karen, and try to hear what you have to say about HOPE, because if you’ve got a way to do this I suppose I should listen. Sorry so long - guess I just had a lot on my mind. I don’t need a response.

I can relate to every word. Trying to figure out how I can live my life with all these feelings is so hard. But I’m not giving up on myself or my son.

Thank you SO much for this! My son and I are both lost in his addictions. He has given up all hope and I don’t know where to turn.

I ♥️♥️♥️ this mom’s attitude and her son’s responses! Thank you both for giving so many hope. 🙏

Found you in a desperate moment. Thank you for your story.❤

Hi. My son is the same, peace is something scarce for me. I feel like I'm living in a dark deep hole. Thank you

She spoke from the heart. So happy her son is on the road of recovery. Four years is substantial, but addicts must always remain vigilant about hanging on for dear life. My daughter's history is much like her son's, but she is not sober. After leaving a long term 9 month rehab, within a few weeks she used and was kicked out of the halfway house. She was doing so well until she wasn't. Presently she is in jail, she did not appear at her court hearing. They will be sending her to yet another rehab and the cycle will begin again. How to continue to hope after so many failures? Hard to believe she won't ultimately die from an overdose.... But it is so hard to not have hope, without it there is only mourning.

Heartfelt I can feel this video so much that it brings tears to my eyes because I to have an addict son and I have said some hurtful things like call him an addict in the heat of an argument 😢my son disowned me for that and it hurt me tremendously worse part on my behalf is I felt like why should I apologize he’s the one who put me thru so much with him overdosing 3 times and 10 years of addiction where do we win as a parent it’s exhausting I hope and pray 🙏 for a relationship with my son again I’m so happy your son is sober 🙏

This is so hard. Detaching with love hurts so much.

I can definitely relate. It’s been an 18 year roller coaster for us

Great talk, great mum and woman. She found her way go through this very hard and longlasting experience... mums must do what is the best for the whole family, for the struggeling child, for the other siblings, for the father including herself ... a lot of understanding💛, compasion💜 is needed to make healing 💚💚💚 possible.

So true. My son is chasing drugs and im chasing him. Its hard to break the habit of fixing his issues and its a lifetime healing and i don’t believe you can ever recover from that😢

I appreciate your speaking about the different modalities of healing and discussing how possibly the experts don't really know themselves. I have two sons in recovery, one accidentally killed a man. This turned my world inside out. Now I had to deal with this. I couldn't think my way through. It caused CPTSD. To help me understand what was happening, having treatment resistant depression, it was IM Ketamine treatment and therapy that saved me and gave me a new way of seeing the world I was dealing with. There are many ways to maintain hope. When I don't want to live anymore I shut my door and light a candle.

Hello, just wanted to say thanks I didn’t know someone else had the exact same thing going on in their life

Seeing you all love and hope. You are not alone.

I am going through this with my son alone..It's so frustrating

Thank you for your words, they were very helpful.

Great talk. Very supportuve and honest. Thank You 👍🌞🇬🇧

Thank you for this video. I am a mom of an addict. I currently don’t know where he is as he left a detox two days ago. He was using fentanyl and I’m afraid he is going to die.

Thank you so much.

My son Jamison is in jail after 15 years of opiate addiction. My name is Karen. He’s being purified through the fire.

My sister is on crack she started 6 months ago when she was dropping off our uncle to rehab when he fell out of my dads vehicle that my sister was driving landed on his head he had bleeding on the brain and died later that day ever since she has bin totally loss she left my dads place living with some total stranger someone we don’t know and her old friend seen her downtown riding a bike skinny as a rake picking up cigarettes butts and I don’t know what to do I stress every day to the max I have my own wife and kids to worry about but I would do anything for her if she wasn’t so far away she’s over 6,000kms away my mom called me a few days ago someone called her saying my sister was in a hard mess drinking a 60 ouncer of booze every night also doing drugs I’m sorry I don’t mean to rant on here but it’s hard when I don’t really have anyone to talk to about it my dad has given up on her even that he use to be a drug addict about 15 years ago it kills me I have no way to help her. I also use to be a drunk and I use to do drugs also not crack tho I seen what it did to my dad and swore never to try it about 7 years ago I gave it up I think I was just lonely and wanted a family I haven’t had a drink since. But my sister is going way 2 far and I’m scared she’s going to die 😭😭

My son did died from his drug addiction age 24 😢😢 in 2021 !

Sending you all lots of love and prayer. xxxxxxxxxxxx

Thank you!!!! ❤❤❤❤❤

Going through it right now - it’s torture!

I am at the point with my 23-year-old son Geno to where i feel hopeless and alone. This empty feeling of my soul needing to cry but unable to. My anxiety is crippling.

Yes! ♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️

I’m on those shoes right now….

💔❤️‍🩹❤❣️

😢😢😢

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Shame on you as parents for not teaching your son about the Lord Jesus Christ. Life apart from Him is the reason people fall into addiction. Trauma comes from people who are awful.

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