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