This is Memorial Day weekend, a holiday to celebrate with family and friends. But what if your family doesn’t want your addict son or daughter at their house? Do you still go? Do you stay home? Do you make other plans? It’s hard to know the right thing to do. You hate to see your child cut off from his family. I do understand some peoples feelings. At the same time I don’t want my child to feel deserted.

My son has burnt many bridges, with both family and friends. It’s a hard lesson for anyone to learn but being a recovering addict brings up so many other feelings. Feelings of loneliness, not being good enough, trying your hardest and being isolated from the very people that should support you. Then there are the thoughts in your own head; will this cause a relapse? Should I say I’m not coming if my child isn’t welcome? The reality is you have no way of knowing which way to go.

I think it can depend of where they are in their recovery, if they are even in recovery at all or quite possibly you don’t even know where they are. My son has stolen so many things from myself and his grandparents that there was several occasions when he was told directly he was not welcome. So we had to make decisions not with our heart but with our head and sometimes it’s very hard to separate the two.

My parents had a 50th Wedding Anniversary party and he had just gotten out of rehab after having stolen a lot of valuable coins from my father. He seemed to be doing well after rehab and a sober living house but my parents said that they couldn’t have him there, they just didn’t trust him. I can understand the feelings of betrayal they had since I have experienced it over and over but I couldn’t hide the hurt I was feeling about him missing such a momentous occasion. Midway through the celebration my Mother told me he could come back for a little bit. You see my parents live just a few houses away from us so it wasn’t like he was unable to see the party. He came for about 20 minutes which allowed him to “save face” and also allowed my parents to not have to explain why their oldest grandson wasn’t there.

There was one Christmas when our middle child said that if her brother was going to be at Christmas then she would not be. These are the kind of situations that bring me to tears. How can you possibly choose one child over another? I told her that he was a member of our family and he was welcome to come for Christmas. I acknowledged her feelings but told her that she also needed to respect our feelings. He came for about an hour and my daughter went and sat at Panera until he was gone.

This is a very hard position to be in. It’s like you’re choosing between people that you love. It’s an impossible decision. No matter what you choose to do you end up hurting someone you care about.

So for this Holiday I wish all of you peace and tranquility. I hope that you are able to share the holiday with ALL the people that you love. Have some fun and make good memories. Allow Joy to enter if only for a little while.

The issue is Trust