The Empty Chair

Today I will thank my blessings like so many other Thanksgivings, but also today I share our Table with The Empty Chair.  My son won't be joining us!
And for many of you, Your sons and daughters will not be joining you because the drug took their life.  A part of you died with them.  And even though my son is alive, a part of me died each day he chose to use. My life and my family's lives were forever changed because addiction ravaged us just as it reaps havoc on the life's of millions - lives of every color, every religion, every economic status and moral code.

Throughout our journey, countless therapists, interventions, rehabs, jail, confrontations with drug dealers, and hospital visits, I was terrified and lost. I was uncertain where to turn to next because there was no road map on how to help my son. I was his mother and my job is to fix my son, care for him and make everything ok. There was only a profound sense of hopelessness and helplessness. And of course, the expenses, the stigma and the shame.  I shouldered most of it, but also my young daughter who was my strength watched her mom daily struggle to keep it all together for her, as I put one foot in front of the other too many days to count as I struggled with an overwhelming heart of failure.

The Empty Chair is a symbol of all the emptiness I felt.  The ups and downs are the hardest. The upside of feeling a real sense of optimism and purpose and then the down, the CRASH, the phone call that says it was all a lie.  But worse for many, is the phone call that says, The Empty Chair is forever, "I'm sorry, your son is dead."  As the mother of an addict, it's the phone call we are all most afraid of.  I don't want to hear "I am sorry for your loss"!  I want to hear that their are mothers like me fighting for their sons and daughters.  I want to hear that we are using our voices to educate others about addiction.  I want to teach others to STOP enabling and face addiction, and I want to see us on our knees at the Cross.

Our country loses a staggering 150,000 people each year to alcohol and drug abuse. And 20 million people suffer every day from addiction.  Only 1 in 10 receives treatment.  Can you imagine if only 1 in 10 people suffering from cancer or diabetes ever received treatment?  I suspect you can't, because its unimaginable.

Last week the Surgeon General issued a history making report on the addiction crisis in America.  His message was clear.  Addiction is a chronic illness not a matter of moral failing.  He told us addiction is preventable, addiction is treatable, and recovery is possible.  But the Attorney General also said "science tells us how to solve the problem."  Now we need to use our voices, quit hiding in shame, marshall the resources and will to address addiction in our communities.  How "WE" respond to this crisis is a moral test of America.  And it's a moral test of YOU.

We all view the world thru our own moral lenses and too often we hear and see only what we want too. Why?  Because that's the easy way.  Denying the addiction that lives within our families, is the easy way.  Facing Addiction, talking about it, getting out of our comfort zone is hard.  For me, I have to know I've done everything I can to help me son.

I have to continue to be a voice and tell my story for those who can't.  On the days when facing the Empty Chair is the hardest, I DIG deeper, pray for strength, FIGHT harder, and USE MY VOICE!
On this Thanksgiving Day, I ask you to remember all the tables across America that have an empty chair and as you say prayers for all your blessings, please remember those empty chairs as people deal with the loss of a loved one, our soldiers who can't be home, and the homeless separated from their families.

Father GOD, I AM ,  Today the Empty Chair at our Table represents so many Family and Friends we are separated from today.  I chose to not let it be about sadness and addiction, but instead about HOPE and LOVE.  Thank you for giving me a heart of love to FIGHT, for a VOICE to tell my story and for the HOPE you give me every day.

I am an addicts mom, and today I celebrate Sobriety with my son from afar!  I light a candle for you today as a symbol of FAITH as we have done together before!  God Bless You my son!

Once and for All! Memoirs January

January 2017

It's dark, it's cold, it's wet...  A water droplet falls from the ceiling onto my brow and streams delicately down my face. The, what we would think, light pressure from the water makes me cringe in pain from the bruises I've endured this last 60 days. I sit crouched in the corner scared and afraid of any sound I hear coming towards me. I shiver in cold and in a pain I cannot explain to you. My life overcome again by the demon I allowed to live, the demon I was afraid to kill. The very demon who I again let into my heart, full of broken promises, lies, and sounds of sweet nothings. I turned my back on Jesus and became a victim to my own demise. I sit starving to breath clean air, starving for light in the darkness, starving for a reason to take another step. As I suffocate curled up in a ball, chains around my hands and feet attached to the wall of the dungeon I hear the gnarly snarl of the demon. I bury my head in between my legs and continue to cry. Short of breath, not a single sound exits my weary and battered body. One step after another the ground begins to shake, the thuds in the night are back to torment and haunt my very being. I smell the stench and feel the breath of the one who has me captive yet again. "Look at me!" The demon demands. As I peer through my arms slightly at his face, his teeth like the jaws of a great white, spit dripping from his lips.

He grabs my arms throws me against the wall and says, "your nothing without me, you need me, I am your savior." Suddenly a light swoops in, and behind the demon stands a light so bright all I can see is a white. White so bright my eyes begin to ache, after being in the dark so long I feel blinded. I can longer see the demon before me. He stands pierced with light across the room. As the light petrudes the flesh of the demon, he cries out with a yell so ear piercing my hands fall to my ears. His body begins to grow, light begins to run through his veins until he explodes into a huge burst of light!

The walls of the once dungeon crumble to the earth as though an earthquake just shook the world in two.

I look over and a man begins to walk towards me, I hear a voice say "It is finished!" (John 19:30)  As the man gets closer I hear him speak, "I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of my life." (John 8:12)

The man in white holds out his hand and the chains that I have been shackled to are no longer there, the bruises gone. He leans down wipes a tear from my eye and says, " ...whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel's will save it." (Mark 8:34-35). I stand up and see my cross laying aside the once doorway, the man turns and  points to the cross. I stumble, legs so strong I'm breathless to miracle. I pick up my cross and next to it lies my sword, the book of truth. The very Jesus I turned my back on has come to save me yet again. I look deep into his eyes and sing "I believe in you, I believe you rose again, I believe that Jesus Christ is lord!" He bends over and picks up the sword, holds it out to me in his hands and says, " ...If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free." (John 8:31)

"As the father loved me, I also have loved you; abide in my love. If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My father's commandments and abide in His love. These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full." (John 15:9-11) "You are my friends if you do whatever I command you." (John 15:14) "You did not choose me but I CHOSE YOU..." (John 15:16) I take the sword from him, hug him, fall to my knees and say "I serve you and only you it is you Whom I owe my existence too." He puts his arm around me and says "well let's go little brother, you are an heir to true royalty, and we have work to do." 

You know life isn't ever promised to be easy, it's not even promised! People say in constant why am I here, what do I have to live for? The truth is you have to get out of the world and into Jesus. You are here to serve Jesus! It took me another battle, but what I have learned is priceless. I have no dungeon, I have no demon, I've been cleansed by the blood of Jesus. I'm grateful of the armor he has given me to withstand the world and its temptations. My faith lives in the Gospel because I AM A CHILD OF GOD! 

               Copyright 2017

      Sean A. Blair-Smith

             R.E.B.L.E. Ministries

Crying at Christmas

In a season filled with joy and peace, lights and laughter, with family and friends all of us who fall victim to ourselves crouch in dungeons wishing it all to end. We try and portray to the world that we have not a care while inside our hearts grow colder and the season gets longer. We sit wallowing in our own self pity while guilt and shame feast heavily on our minds. Christmas is a feeding frenzy for the one decision we constantly make that allows our minds to feel freedom but our feelings to be numb. We stand trapped in the constant motion of the door that continues to revolve ever so rapidly. We ask ourselves why, why we can't stop,why we can't be "normal" , why we can't filter emotions like others,  why are we different, why do we choose the demon, and as some would say why do we always take the easiest road! As the season progresses the use progresses. As this day progresses we stand still, the highs finding themselves closer and closer together, the tears more frequent. We wander the street wishing the nightmare would cease and only having one answer, the remedy only our demon can provide. Alone, lost, helpless, hopeless, tired, scared, angry, hateful the emotion plays like a symphony at its grandest point in our minds. We find ourselves on our knees in our self made puddles begging for just a simple touch, a hug, the voice,,, of a loved one saying Merry Christmas. As memories from childhood Christmases play over and over in the theater of our minds we are interrupted with belligerent reminders of every wrong doing or mishap, Every failure every argument . On a day when the world is smiling, on a day when the world is joyful, on a day when the world rejoices for the birth of Jesus, we sit alone trapped and hopeless in the dark. Maybe if I drink a little more, maybe if I take a couple extra pills, maybe if I do a bigger line or take a bigger shot it will all be over. We ask ourselves over and over what's the point family doesn't care or love me, our kids have been a missing factor in the equation for so long, it'll be good for everyone. On the day when we should be celebrating the birth of a man who was born to die for me, on the day a man was born to ultimately take away every  wrong doing I've ever done I sit paralyzed with emotion. Today you feel helpless and alone because your loved ones have sheltered themselves from the one thing they can't trust or depend on. Yet today you were given the greatest gift in the history of time! The greatest gift ever given to man.

Today you sit thinking no one loves you, you didn't get any presents, you've been threatened of the cops if you come around, all you want is to see your kids, and be loved! You want to smile, to be joyous to be a part of what your life has missed out on for so long, Christmas. Today a man by the names of Jesus Christ was born for one sole purpose. That purpose was to be the sacrifice that would reconcile the broken hateful relationship between man and God. God has given us the greatest gift of all, his son Jesus to forgive us for our wrongs and hardships our sins , faults, and failures. You aren't alone he stands beside you, he stands in you, he stands behind you, and he stands before you asking you to follow him, to accept him as savior as friend! You are not loveless on this day you are not powerless on this day. Today you can start over, today you can prepare to take the demon down, not just to lock him away, but to execute him and bury his remains forever. Today you can start to become the dad or mom you were intended to be ! So I ask you,  before you take this last hit, before you light that pipe, take those extra pills, take that bigger line or slam that biggest shot, somebody loves, somebody was born to literally die for you! Put it down and allow God to love you. Allow God to rebuild and transform you. Don't let God's birth and painful death be in vain. You see Jesus came to LOVE you, to SAVE you. God gave us the gift of Jesus it's about time we give God a gift back. Today I ask you to make the hardest decision you've ever made,  I ask you to choose your family to choose your kids to choose God, I ask you to assassinate your demon once and for all, to die to self so you may be born again in Christ! Today I ask you to take off the old and put on the new, Make this Christmas about family by giving them what they are praying for over this Christmas dinner, that's for you to be sober and sitting with them next Christmas dinner! It's a long road and won't be easy in the least! But I guarantee the reward is plentiful and the support astounding! Today December 25th 2016 I killed my demon, will you?

                                                                         COPYRIGHT ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 2016

Duplications and Publish requests must be in writing.

Deliverable Sean A. Blair: reblesforchrist@gmail.com

Another Victory

Its dark, its cold, its uncomfortable! Today I have left the corner where Ive been tucked in for weeks. My strength has subsided to the beast. After days of emotions running like wild fire through my mind with no shelf to put them on or a place they can be stored, I just want them to go away I just want them ignored. Day after day the beast growls and snarls swiping one claw and then another banging his head against the very bars that restrain him, he sings a fine fine tune. “Where is your God now? He asks, you have begged day in and day out you have fallen to your knees, crying out,? He will not help beings you’re here with me, I'm much better for you cant you see, not let me out and you will live gloriously.” My heart pounds and pounds I say your right I should’ve never locked you up, as my mind battles itself internally my feet move two steps closer and one step back. I reach for the key and the beast grabs a hold of me he holds me close squeezing me tighter and tighter he whispers in my ear, I am the light for you, I can make it all go away, I can make sure you never feel like this again. Worthless, selfless, and full of guilt, shame on you shame on you isn’t that how it feels.  I kick with what strength I actually have forgetting  the battle that has to be won. He kisses my cheek and says , Now there there give me the key so I can go up the stairs. He lets me go I fall straight to me knees, I haven’t slept in days and my stomachs in all knots he screams and snarls and swipes at my face, staring deep in his eyes, I see a light its called grace. The demon collapses and falls fast asleep, My God you have come no wait where’d you go. The room is still dark but there is light at the top of the stairs, I will get there I swear, I grab and claw my way to the bottom step being as quiet as I can so the beast doesn’t awaken . He tosses he turns he snarls and moans but he is still not awake . I hear a voice of a child calling, coach, coach Sean…. I open my mouth to call out,but nothing.  coach we need you, come on….. it goes quiet and I realize that if not for my own worth then for them. I can carry guilt and shame  all I want by  myself, I can carry the loads that I choose to carry around, its not healthy , but I can do it. But to carry those loads and allow them to affect other peoples lives isn’t fair/ It isn’t fair for someone else to have to deal with the consequences of my own actions. I chose to carry that stuff not them. If I cant be the best me for them, then who am I really. The kids don’t need the weight and you know what neither do I! So as I carefully and quietly crawl up the stairs my voice gets louder  and  so does theirs! I remember I said leave the baggage where it sits don’t pick it up cause it gets heavy too quick. As for my God, he is there I know for a fact, I wouldn’t be getting out of this room all in tact. So ill continue to pray down on my knees 

'GOD DO WITH ME, DO WITH ME AS YOU PLEASE!"



                                                                                                      COPYRIGHT ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 2015

Duplications and Publish requests must be in writing.

Deliverable Sean A. Blair: reblesforchrist@gmail.com

No More Silence!

No More Silence

No More Silence. Speak the Truth. Start the Conversation.

My heart continues to break daily for my son and people like him that struggle with addiction. For all the emails, texts, facebook messages and personal phone calls and all the stories I've heard in the last month from many of you and your struggles, I am deeply humbled that you have reached out to me. I thank each of you for your prayers and for the inspiration to continue telling my story in hopes that maybe I can impact one more person in their addiction journey.

Scenes from those days of innocence often flash through my head – when as a kid my son went from one house to another, rode his bike to the playground or to the store- images of boyhood youth. Drugs stole him. My heart breaks for his children, and his sister who grew up worshiping her big brother, and all the family and friends whose lives he's touched with his bigger than life personality and laughter. Addiction has also stolen years of our family’s time with him. I know how Addiction takes over a home, because Addiction has been an unwelcome member of our family for the last seventeen years.

Addiction is stealthy. It hides in basements and bathrooms and bedrooms. It steals children and imprisons families under a cloak of silence. The addicts themselves are embarrassed and guilty and are afraid to ask for help. Parents feel inadequate, trying to figure out where they went wrong, what could they have done better. What does that say about me? I'm a mother and we are taught to keep our children safe! Guilt, silence, embarrassment – these are Addiction’s wingmen, giving it the wind needed to kill our kids, gaining strength in whispers at book clubs and coffee shops, ‘he’s an addict you know’.

 


 It’s time to Stop the Silence. It’s time to Speak the Truth. My son is a drug addict. I want to wear a t-shirt, a hat, a pin, something. I want a suffering family member or addict to see me in the grocery store and be able to walk up and say ‘me too’. I want families to not feel isolated and alone in this hell that is Addiction. It is everywhere, and we are hiding it because we feel guilty and ashamed. I have seen in people’s eyes in the past that they knew my son was an addict. But they also didn’t know if I knew, and I wasn’t shouting it from the rooftops. So the elephant was with me everywhere I went. We lived in a small town. I was sure everyone knew. I was sure my son’s name was whispered when I wasn’t there. Yet I stayed silent. Until one day, GOD whispered to me, QUIT HIDING. Open your mouth, your mind and your heart. Get smart, Find out everything you can about the drug, Tell, Ask for help, Minister to others thru your journey and so I DID.

In that small town, where everyone knew everybody, I started talking openly and I've never stopped. My son was in recovery. He had been clean and sober for 30 months. It’s a miracle he’s alive and over the years That miracle cost me a small fortune. True recovery is not cheap and it is not easy. It is not five days of detox, have a nice day. It is not a thirty day stint in rehab, have a nice life. It is a slow, slogging, exhausting crawl out of the muddy nasty pit Addiction digs under you.  None of this was easy for him. He dug deep and worked hard. He would not have been able to do this without the support he had along the way. He recognized that he would need that support for a very long time if not forever. He was beginning to see light and a future, but it certainly didn’t happen during his first thirty days – or even the next ninety. Time is the key. A huge percentage of addicts don’t have anyone (or have burned out the people they used to have) with the resources to get them the help they need.

Whatever the trigger, addiction is at our feet again. The roller coaster has begun again . For 30 months, I got a glimpse of my son back....It's increasingly harder to let go again, so I do the only thing I can, PRAY!

How are we to deal with this epidemic if we as a society leave these addicts out there to die? We all pay the price of this epidemic. Banks, gas stations, convenience stores are being robbed at gunpoint. Home invasions, car break-ins, shoplifting, and credit card fraud are all ways addicts are feeding their habit. For the families of addicts, we get to go looking for stolen possessions – sister’s jewelry, brother’s amp- at pawn shops, or we reach to pay for something only to find our money is gone. Let’s not forget the children of addicts. They pay the highest price.

The news tells us to worry about terrorists and gangs and whatever else they think will increase their ratings. I understand that these threats are real, but our society is quietly rotting in basements and bedrooms across America. Opiates and methamphetamines are destroying this country from within, stealing the next generation right out from under our noses. Kids who should be going to proms and football games are stealing from their parents, dropping out of school, and starting on a path that ends with jail or death. They are our future, and we need to start fighting for them.

The front line of this fight is to Stop the Silence. Scream the Truth. Let people know that Addiction is in their own towns. It walks the halls of their schools and sits beside them in their workplace. It is teaching their children, driving their buses, policing their streets, and killing their neighborhood kids.

If we stop the silence, people will start fighting this battle together instead of feeling ineffective, isolated and alone. If we speak the truth, society will begin to recognize the crisis we are all facing as this epidemic of Addiction stops hiding behind walls of silence and is driven into the light. If we start the conversation, we as a society can put our efforts toward a solution.

Share your story. Let people know how Addiction has touched your life. It has probably touched their lives as well. Help save our children. I'll share first -My son is an addict.
Stop the Silence. Speak the Truth. Start the Conversation. PRAY!

By Addict's Mom - Junann Smith

COPYRIGHT ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 2016

Duplications and Publish requests must be in writing.

Deliverable June Amaral: junannamaral@gmail.com

 

You stole my child!

You almost wake up and get this haunting feeling, this horrible feeling that my God, I just wish I wouldn't wake up today! Not that I would ever take my life but you're just so scared. Petrified, really, but not for myself. For YOUR child! It's like having someone punch you in the stomach. ... You're never the same from the second you find out.

 



I got asked several times yesterday, How does the mother of an addict cope? How does she juggle the challenge between supporting a loved one and not enabling their habit? And how does she deal with the stigma of having a child who is an addict?
Let me make this perfectly clear, that being the mother of an addict is an incredibly lonely and isolating place, and that often the only people who understand what I'm going through are other mothers who are going through it themselves.

The fear of getting the call, that's the worst! The call that says, Your son's dead! When you really start to understand that it is a disease ... you can start looking at your child in a different way, loving them for who they are and hating the disease. Sadly, the stigma of having a child with addiction is all too real and incredibly painful. Announce to your community your child has a disease like cancer and people will jump to help. Not so when you tell them your child is an addict.






"There are no little girls selling cookies for addiction. Nobody has bumper stickers on their car. IT'S AN intense struggle between supporting YOUR addicted child and not enabling their destructive habit AND IT'S the hardest thing in the entire world! IT TOOK AWHILE FOR IT TO SINK IN that I was last person in the world who could ever help my son!

As far as enabling, I think you need to lay it on the table for them. This is what you can do. Here are your options but I'm not going to sit here and let you take advantage of me and lie to me. Eventually I realized the longer I enabled my son, the longer he wasn't going to face the consequences. It took the line in the sand, telling him I love him and if he was ever ready to get the help and really wanted it that I'm here for him! But the enabling isn't just about the addicts. Parents need to realize they are enabling themselves and are risking losing everything by thinking they can save their children.

There are moms losing their lives to save their children. ... They're spending their whole paycheck trying to take care of their child. They're not taking care of themselves. That's just a ripple effect. I have gone through the range of emotions that most mothers of addicts experience: the guilt followed by the intense sadness and then the anger. It's just a very, very sad and a very lonely place!





Then the day came when "I said, you know, God, if my son is going to be living this life and be destroyed by this, I'm going to tell every mother and help every mother I can think of. I'm not going to keep it a secret. I know what I am and I know who I am and I know there have to be a million mothers just like me who are addicts' moms". I understand the parent's pain and for me if I can help one parent ease that pain, then I've done something. It definitely was a life-changing experience to start talking about it and getting educated about "the drug".

There's lots of treatment out there if your rich and can afford it. If not, it's called jail! We are seeing an alarming rate of death in our society. We have to break the stigma. It's a disease! Addicts are not bad people. We have to get the word out. Raising awareness and helping other mothers helps me stay focused.
                                                                           

Thank you, all of you for continuing to walk beside me and the outpouring of love and support! Every text message, phone call and comment has truly touched my heart! For your continued prayers and blessings, on behalf of my family, thank you and love you all!

By Addict's Mom - Junann Smith

COPYRIGHT ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 2016

Duplications and Publish requests must be in writing.

Deliverable June Amaral: junannamaral@gmail.com