Narconon New Life Retreat Gives Mother a Second Chance

In her own words:

Mother holding son

At the age of 10, my mom died from an overdose of alcohol and valium. Even at my young age, I knew it was fate; I knew her death was inevitable. She had suffered through many treatment centers resulting in sporadic bouts of sobriety. Nothing seemed to work however and her illness finally caught up with her.

Promising myself I would be nothing like her, I moved on with my life. Unable to deal with life, I started drinking on a regular basis at age 17. Alcohol began ruining my life and the lives of those who loved me.

However, I really believed everything would change when I got married and pregnant at 22. While I carried my son, I told myself that I was going to be the best mom and my baby wasn’t going to go through anything like I had. On October 24, 2006, I gave birth to a beautiful baby boy. He was perfect. He made me feel whole and I was a good mom—until I started drinking again.

>When my son was 4 months old, I decided my life was so great that I could probably drink again, because I was now normal. I thought drinking would not crush me the way it did before because of my son. That turned out to be just one of the many lies I would tell myself for the next four years. Within a couple months of drinking, I was already waking up in the middle of the night, not remembering having put my son to bed. I used him as an excuse for why I couldn’t go to work when really I was too physically and mentally sick. I took minimal care of my son so I could maintain the lie that I could do both, be a mother and drink alcohol.

My son’s life has been filled with me making promises then breaking them, resulting in having to buy his love because I could not earn it. I tarnished my little boy’s perfect, shiny, trusting heart by my instability.

This wasn’t supposed to happen. I was supposed to be the wonderful, loving, caring mom that my mom wasn’t.

Finally, after numerous attempts at getting and staying sober and half a dozen rehabs, I arrived at Narconon on October 24, 2011 for my chance at a better life. Even though it has been extremely difficult being away from my son, I came to the realization since I wasn’t really with him before as the mother I should be, the 3 ½+ months to get my life back on track would be worth it.

>Since I’ve been here, I have been able to see when I “became” my mother and stopped being ME. I’m finding the loving, caring person I was a long time ago and it feels great. Not only am I getting my life back, but my son’s life back, too. I might have been an alcoholic like my mother, but with the life lessons I’ve learned here, I won’t have to die because of it.

I have the choice today to give to my son what I didn’t have—a mother.

—S.H. Narconon Graduate