I recently joined a storytelling troupe. This is a weird one for me since I don’t like being on stage. No one would ever describe me as theatrical. But this particular group shares recovery stories. Wishing to ‘end the stigma” I felt a moral obligation to sign up.  Plus, let’s face it, I have a lot of ugly stories in need of a facelift. Quite possibly this group could help with that. And there was a selfish reason; I was searching for people whom I could talk to. I’m not a recluse; I have some pretty awesome, long-term friends. But the whole friendship thing gets complicated when your child suffers from addiction. Most of the time, your friends just don’t ask. I had been forewarned ‘when your child suffers from a disease like cancer you get cards and casseroles, but when your child suffers from addiction you get silence.’ I found this to be true. Five years brought me one card, and no casseroles. Occasionally I did get to share my experience… but the exchange became too lurid even by my standards:

Mom #1: “X can’t seem to pass his driving test and he is so depressed. I worry about his self esteem.”

Me: “Y is sleeping in a filthy motel forty miles away using type A narcotics. I can’t sleep at night worried that she may be dying as I lay here in my beautiful bed.”

You can see the problem.

So you end up alone with your thoughts, either by choice or because people don’t want to engage in this kind of exchange (how are they supposed to respond?) But if not careful your sense of isolation can fester into a wound of resentment. You can’t help but wonder what friendship is really for. You start to feel buried alive: your once perfect family is now dysfunctional and your friends are psychologically absent. It can be a dark place to find yourself in.

This time when my daughter relapsed I decided things were going to be different. I considered asking for what I needed. But I just couldn’t do it. It felt like asking someone to love you… pathetic and powerless.

Instead I opened myself up to new avenues of expression. The arts take Courage and Power (uppercase letters intended). I am going out on a limb here… but I would venture to say that the definition of good art is that it is emotionally complex, it inspires conversation, and that it accesses the buried but universal elements of human nature.

As suspected it wasn’t easy to stand up in a room full of strangers and entertain, inspire and heal with a broken hearted story. One teller spoke of a day when she had sat at a table littered with jittery tinfoil scraps and the small rocks of crack she had been hoarding. She describes her apprehension when a strange man decides to sit opposite her. When he offers her a little blue pill to help her come down from her teeth clenching high, it is not the free pill that takes her by surprise. It is the impossible blue of his eyes. Suddenly the drugs became secondary to basic human connection. I could feel my head nodding. Connections can be made in the most difficult of environments. And the truth is that those who say you can “do it alone” are either misguided or lucky enough to not have been in too dark of a place.

One of the last storytellers spoke sadly of the loss of her marriage and self control to drug use. And of her dad’s steady effort to take her on long daily walks. On stage she mimic’d how her father, on these walks, would steal long wordless glances her way. It was all she needed; to be fully seen and quietly loved. To be fully seen and quietly loved – it is the only thing any of us truly need.  Life had taught me this.  And the arts gave me the means to express it.