Trudy Avery 

As an individual, I am the daughter, granddaughter, sibling, cousin, niece, and now mother and aunt of the disease of substance use disorder. I am the mother of four adult sons, and unfortunately, one of my sons has struggled with the disease since the age of 14. With all of the self-identified roles mentioned above, I can say that the most gut-wrenching relationship is that of me being the mother of the disease. For as parents, we truly have one role, and that is to take care of our children. And the disease of substance use disorder forces us to go against every instinctual grain that we have in our bodies to take care of our children. We think that enabling is the answer, but truly, it is the most difficult decisions that we end up making that helps our loved ones get to their life in recovery.

Having grown up in a very loving family, of which I feel very blessed, I also grew up very educated and experienced with the disease due to so many of my family members impacted by alcoholism. Knowing my background, as I married and planned for our own family, I knew that I would need to broach the subject of substance use disorder with my children. Thus, I began discussing with my sons very early on the fact that they had alcoholism in their genetic code and needed to be aware that they might fall to the disease as they got older. Never in my realm of thinking did I ever consider that  I needed to discuss heroin as I was never exposed to that world prior, and it was beyond my comprehension.

Throughout Corey’s years of struggles (14 to be exact!), we never gave up on him, but we were forced to give up on the drug. During one very difficult time, I told Corey that I would always love him, but if he continued to choose the drug over himself, we would have to let the ‘drug’ go, and that meant Corey would leave our lives alongside with the drug. Years of struggles followed by years of treatment continued with what we thought would never bring us to the light at the end of the tunnel. In 2016, we gave an ultimatum – treatment or the front door. Corey chose treatment (again) and this time he was ready. Six months in intensive in-patient treatment, not only for Corey, but family programming for my husband and me, brought us to the miracle that we are living today. We truly have our son back and his three siblings have their brother back. During a conversation about a year back, I asked my son what was different this time. I had seen him ‘sober’ in the past, but not really in recovery, but this time ‘real’ Corey was present in front of me. He contemplated for a moment and then said that he was so tired of being broken, and as he got older, he felt the losses of his disease grow stronger each and every day. He works his program day in and day out, and we as a family, could not be prouder of all his hard work to get to, not only his miracle, but ours as well. One day at a time….

There actually is a positive to Corey’s disease – his recovery has made him an amazing human being, and his disease has brought some incredible folks into my life – other families who have walked in our shoes and understand the pain and experiences that we have felt along the way who are now life long friends. His disease has made me a powerful advocate on behalf of others at the local, state and national levels and that purpose has given me a strong focus in life. I am forever grateful….