I found out earlier this year that my mom is addicted to heroin. 

A couple months after the pandemic hit, my mom got "sick". She went into the hospital for a few days. Her oxygen was low, legitimately. It's likely she did have covid - whether 19 or another coronavirus. 
But one night while talking to my sister, who still lives with my mom 2k miles from where I live, she confessed that she was nervous about my mom getting out of the hospital. Strange thing to say... I pushed her for details on why she would not want mom out of the hospital asap.

"I don't think she has covid." Why would she say such a thing? And ... what?! "Her symptoms are coughing, throwing up, and she's tired a lot."
"Okay, yea - she's sick.."
"A few months ago she gave me some pills to hold onto for her. She told me she has a problem and needs help. She told me she needed me to control how much she took. I think now she's doing what Catherine has been doing."
"Catherine's been doing meth... You mean something else?" Catherine is our older sister. She's been an addict since she was a teenager. Her father was an addict. He commited suicide, then my mom had my younger sister and I with our dad. That's another story.
Basically, Lil Sis thinks mom is better off detoxing in the hospital rather than coming home and starting on the heroin again.
"Yeah. And I don't think Cat is doing meth. She's doing heroin. I think they both are. And I think Cat gives it to mom. I think she's been taking it to her in the hospital, too. And I think they were doing it together when you were visting." My birthday is in January. This year I travelled back home to see my family and it was the worst vacation of my life. 
"Okay so... you think mom is doing heroin?"
"Yeah. And Cat is giving it to her. Cat is evil - I hate her."

My instant reaction was anger. Not towards my older sister. I know she's been struggling her entire life. Anger towards my mom.
My mom's dad was addicted to pills. He died a few years ago - unrelated, far as we know. Codeine pills, etc. Far as we know he never really did heroin - far as we know...

There's lots of addicts in my family, both sides, up and down. Grandmother has been in recovery for alcohol abuse for at least 40 years. Paternal grandfather abuses alcohol, and my father... though he's quite functional.
When I was little - single digit age - I remember walking in on my mom and her friends when I'd woken up in the middle of the night, pile of white powder between them all. I was young but I knew it was drugs. I could tell something was wrong about my walking in by how they reacted. 

Anyway. Lots of people do coke. Lots of people drink. 
Lots of people do heroin these days, too.
Never thought my mom would. Especially since she's never had any sort of injury that's caused her to have to take any sort of opiate medications. Far as I can tell this road was her chosing.
So I'm still grappling with the anger.
Lots of anger.
She doesn't know I know.

My sister's evidence? She's seen mom smoking it late at night, 2-3 times at the time she told me about all this. Maybe more since. And mom's nodded off in front of her a few times.
Mom's also been getting into lots of car accidents. She always blames it on stress and other distractions. Nothing major. Hitting a curb so bad it requires a week in the repair shop, or a parked car. You know --- stuff we all do on a regular basis. hah. That's how she makes it sound when she talks to me about it. Lil Sis also cited phyiscal evidence - foil left in odd places around the house, the smell... and she says she's found the shit itself underneath the bathroom sink. Mom used to always keep her wine bottles under the sink. 

I don't know what to think still.
I told Lil Sis I'd talk to mom. Sometimes I can almost get to the right head space - telling her I love her and am worried for her health and career and if she wants to talk about it or get help, we are there to support her with those things. But it's hard to get there, because I am having a hard time letting go of the anger. I am having a hard time finding sympathy. Which I kind of hate myself for. 

My mom is in her late 50s. I don't know how long she's been taking the pills ... maybe years. I don't know. Not my whole life, though. And she clearly recently started the herion. I don't understand it. So late in life. No reason to have been taking the pills in the first place - I am 100% sympathetic to people who were perscribed highly addicted pain killers and struggled when they were taken away. But this? I don't get it. I can't wrap my head around why --- Probably never will. Maybe there's nothing to figure out. This is her story, her battle. But she's my mother ... so in a way, it's my story, too. And I do want to understand. 

Addiction fucking sucks. 

I am also afraid. My mom is so reactive. And so down on herself. I'm honestly sort of afraid she'd like - kill herself - if she knew that I knew. Or if she gets help she won't be able to stay sober and will overdose. And my poor sister whose just started getting her life together would be the one to find her and that would seriously fuck her up. But that could happen any day. 

On the other hand - mom seems to want help. She asked Lil Sis for it. She reached out. She wants help. She's suffering alone. She's suffering. Alone. And I'm not stepping up to help. For no good reason. 

But even if I did try to help - my therapist (who is an addiciton counselor) pointed out that there's no guarantee she would get help, that she would get sober, and it's not my responsibility to fix my mom. Seems though that I've taken that as advice that I can do nothing. Which I feel bad about. The suggestion my therapist had for how to bring up the topic with my mom is just - not my personality. She said to bring it up casually, conversationally, no judgment. Which I can do. Generally. But with this - I just am having a hard time getting there. So do I bring it up and potentially have the conversation go downhill and cause harm if my anger shows? Or do I wait to try and get to a better place with this first? What if I can't get to that place? What if she dies in the meantime?

FUCK.


I don't know. I haven't talked about this to anyone except my partner and 1 friend. I've been avoiding talking to my sister because I can't think of any good reason why I haven't talked to my mom. She said she doesn't feel like doing it because she's bad at talking. Which - objectively - she is. I mean... if she really wanted to, she could. For some reason in this family everything falls on me.

I talk to my mom every day on the phone. Multiple times a day, every day. I'm 99% sure she's somked heroin while on the phone with me. She'll say she's parked her car near the house after work to stop and look at the ducks at the pond - then there's all this noise ... and the distinct sound of someone inhaling ... I finally asked her what all the noise was one day recently. "Oh... I'm just.... uh.... I'm just .... looking through some papers ... for work.... there's this ... thing I need to find for this client...". 


So here I am. 
Covid. 
I was in a fatal accident this summer. That's a fucking nightmare if you never had that happen to you, by the way. 
Mom's on heroin. 
Boyfriend is kinda shitty. Might break up with him, after 9 years. 

But I also feel - pretty good. Maybe I'm delusional. But I feel a fire somewhere in me that's keeping me going. 
After the accident this summer, I felt heartache like I've never felt before. I thought it as going to kill me - seriously. I thought I was going to just have a heartattack from the pain mentally and physically in my chest and/or just lose my goddamn mind and just die at times. 
But I'm doing better, 4 months on. Better.... 

Sorry this post is so negative. I don't know where else to get this out, and feel like there might be an echo rather than a thud like if I were to write it all in my paper journal.

I'll have nicer things to say next time. 

<3