If the family systems disease of substance use disorder is upending your world, please hold on to the hope embodied my beautiful friend, Gwen: We held onto hope.Īnd our son’s miracle, like mine and like Gwen’s eventually happened …. We kept fighting to find solutions for him and for all of us. It buoyed up my belief that life for my family deep in the family-systems disease of addiction was somehow - some freaking how - going to turn around. Don’t quit five minutes before the miracle. I thought of the slogan she spoke with a beaming smile:ĭon’t quit five minutes before the miracle! I thought of her transformation and the powerful example she was to others. I was feeling desperate for his life and for the possibility of his ever finding a recovery solution.ĭuring those years when all seemed impossible there were sources of encouragement that I clung to daily including prayer, my own 12-Step fellowship, counseling and spiritual advisement. It was heartbreaking to see my son falling faster and faster through dangerous trap doors of addiction that we are all too familiar with. She said it all the time to those struggling against the disease of substance abuse disorder.Īnd knowing her brutal backstory and witnessing how her life became more and more restored, I knew her belief in the power of that slogan was well-founded.įast forward 20 years later to when I was the mother of a beloved son struggling in addiction to alcohol and opioids – a disease well-established in our family tree. One of her most repeated encouragements was the slogan: Don’t quit five minutes before the miracle! Gwen was a bright light in the middle of the room. Because if you do the work long enough, you will be able to handle life on lifes terms, without taking a drink. And the thing she cheered about was the power of God and the power of the fellowship.īack then church basements always seemed kind of dark and smoky, because at most of the meetings, attendees smoked a lot. What does it mean when we hear people say, 'Dont Stop Before The Miracle Happens' It means toughing it out during the hard times, now matter how long it takes. She gave off the vibe of having once been a cheerleader – she was very cute in a perky, ponytail kind of way. It was hard for me to even imagine her as the broken woman with a broken life that she described when she gave her qualification at meetings. She had lost everything en route to hitting a bottom– family, job, health and self-respect – and ended up homeless. She was leading the meeting, with a little over a year sober, and rebuilding her life. Gwen * was a joyful woman I met in a 12-Step fellowship Beginners Meeting almost 30 years ago when I was newly in recovery.
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