Free Addicted Like Me by Karen Franklin Page A

participate to get the privilege she wanted, but she quickly reconsidered her response and said okay. That spring she attended the teen retreat, with over one hundred other teens. When she came back she was quiet and looked angry. It wasn’t quite what I had hoped for, and I wasn’t sure how to read her. My
initial take was that she must not have liked the retreat. Perhaps she was irritated with me for having forced the issue. What I found out years later was that she had a wonderful, spiritual weekend. Lauren had made the decision to stop using drugs, which had been an overwhelming release.
    At the time Lauren came home, I had no idea what she was thinking. She seemed so withdrawn. But soon after, Lauren started looking forward to going to church on Sunday and agreed to attend the eight-month-long confirmation program at our church. The problem was that her addiction had progressed too far by this point. Although she had decided she did not want to belong to her addiction any longer, there was no way Lauren could stop with just one promise at a weekend retreat. I certainly remember being at that point, when I believed I could quit using drugs on my own. It was shortly after my divorce, and probably a few months after I had started attending church. I had gone out with a friend to play pool and drink a few beers, and that night my friend ran into someone who had some cocaine, and the next thing I knew I was snorting lines with her in the bathroom of the pool hall. I couldn’t understand how I could let myself down after I had decided to never do drugs again. Lauren wouldn’t be able to follow through either. It feels like you can reclaim your life when you promise to quit using, but you can’t, not without a bigger change.
    That summer was fairly quiet for us. We had no major incidents that I can recall. When school started in September, Ryan was living back home, just as I had promised, and Lauren was back at the charter school. It wasn’t long after that that I began receiving
the same calls I always did. Ryan wasn’t showing up for school. Lauren had started to break curfew, skip school and work, and spend most of her time with her boyfriend, Robert. I got fed up with it all one day and told the children that I wasn’t going to accept the rule breaking and that if it continued, the consequences would come. I began by removing every TV and radio from the house. I drove them all over to Shirley’s house, to store in her garage. I couldn’t lift the big TV, so I simply cut the cord with a pair of scissors.
    After I started Tough Love, I had consistently issued consequences, and yet somehow Lauren and Ryan remained in disbelief that I would follow through. It was actually part of a cycle I didn’t see. After my consequences, the kids seemed to settle down. Then because of the improved behavior I would loosen up the reins, and they would take to their old behaviors again, and we were back at the start. It was a wild balancing act in those days. I had parenting, work, church, recovery meetings, and life in general to contend with. It was during this time that I met Bob, my current husband. We met at work and started dating, but out of embarrassment for my situation I didn’t initially volunteer any information about the problems with Lauren and Ryan. As Bob and I got more serious, I told him what had been going on. I was surprised and relieved when Bob said he supported me and would help me in any way that he could. He seemed like a nice, normal, down-to-earth guy. It was good timing for me to meet a man like that, because I had stayed out of relationships while I worked on my recovery issues. I had reached a point where I was ready to date, trusted myself to make better choices, and knew I could use all the help I could get.

    The kids and I went to Florida that year, to my sister’s house for Thanksgiving, and our problems from home followed us there. Money began disappearing