Openness is the first step toward recovery... addiction remains a secret because of the overwhelming shame associated with it.

I'm not sure if I know any 'functional' families, if functional means a family without difficult times and members who don't have a full range of problems.

Openness is the first step toward recovery... addiction remains a secret because of the overwhelming shame associated with it.

When I transformed my random and raw words into sentences, sentences into paragraphs, and paragraphs into chapters, a semblance of order and sanity appeared where there had been only chaos and insanity.

Through Nic's drug addiction, I have learned that parents can bear almost anything....I shock myself with my ability to rationalize and tolerate things once unthinkable. The rationalizations escalate....It's only marijuana. He gets high only on weekends. At least he's not using hard drugs.

We deny the severity of our loved one's problem not because we are naive, but because we can't know.

A world of contradictions, wherein everything is gray and almost nothing is black and white.