All I Want for My Son’s Future is Sobriety – A Parent’s Story

Before my son started using alcohol, he was a decent young man. He was an average student in school, a typical class clown, and played volleyball and soccer. He was very likable—just a typical boy and a good kid.
He had a good group of friends, but when we moved to Texas, he had trouble making new friends and was out of his element. He found it difficult to talk to people and became more reserved.
He didn’t become addicted until after high school, when he moved out and had a couple of jobs. He would drink to socialize with friends and his girlfriend.
He was in his early 20s and had moved into an apartment with three guys. One day, I went there and saw shot glasses. I thought it was strange because I didn’t think he drank. We didn’t recognize his addiction at all. It just seemed like normal partying on weekends for a while. Over the next two years, it got progressively worse.
When he broke up with his girlfriend, she called and told us that every weekend he would get loaded and that she couldn’t control it. We really had no idea before that. But when they broke up, we went to get him, and that’s when we started seeing there were issues.
With his addiction, it became harder and harder to talk to him. I had never felt uncomfortable speaking to my son before. I didn’t know when to believe him or not. From then on, we started to develop trust issues. He became more distant. Our relationship was strained because he was drinking and lying about it. He changed from being someone I knew had a lot of potential, who was courteous, smart, and polite, to someone who thought he wasn’t worth anything. His self-esteem took a hit.
The hardest part was the trust issue and never feeling like we could have normal family bonds. Every holiday was difficult. I was never comfortable or excited that he was coming over. I was always walking on edge, not knowing if he would show up having been drinking or not even show up at all.
It’s chaotic dealing with that, and it was hard not being able to understand his feelings. We felt sad for him and didn’t know how to help. It was depressing thinking of the harm he could do to himself. He could end up in the hospital or in a car wreck. You don’t know if the next call you get will be to tell you that he’s in the hospital, that he was found on the side of the road, or that he ended up hurting someone else. Every time he went to rehab, we just hoped that it would be the last time. We said that five or six times.
We kept asking, “Why does he keep drinking?” His answer was always, “I don’t know. I don’t like myself.”
After a couple of incidents, I searched on my computer for a place that wasn’t 12-step, and I found Narconon. It sounded like a good program because it was very different from what he had done before.
The staff were very responsive and caring, and they told me they would come pick him up right away and take care of it.
When he called me for the first time since being at Narconon, he seemed much more positive about what he was going through. And then, when I visited him for the first time, he looked like he had gained 10 years of his life back. His communication was open and went both ways. He would tell me how his day was going, which is something he wouldn’t have done before.
Now that he has completed the Narconon program, he has a more positive outlook on himself. He sees a future he didn’t have before. He feels he can help others with the same problem, and he looks forward to helping people. He was always doom-and-gloom before, but now he feels he has a purpose.
All I want for his future is sobriety. I just want him to be happy, and the only way for that is to be sober. We want him back in our lives and to be a productive member of society.
What Narconon has done is give him a structured program to follow, with clear steps. They took the time and didn’t rush it, moving him from ground zero to a place where he has a future path.
What stood out most to me was the staff. They did a great job, kept me informed, and answered my questions. They seemed very knowledgeable and professional.
“The advice I would give to another family in a similar situation is that, as hard as it is, you have to look beneath what you want to see and understand that they need more help than you can give.”
Finding the right type of help is important. Listen to what your loved one has to say, and don’t just listen to others’ opinions. The word “enabler” comes up often. You can never turn your back on your kids, but you need to get them help.
Mother of Narconon Arrowhead Graduate