BY LISA ELLISON
Jennifer Hope watched her dad struggle with alcoholism.
He faced that struggle since before she was born until he died at 54, so she was no stranger to addiction.
When her oldest son took his first drink at 16, “what followed was seven years of active drug and alcohol use.”
“During that time, I didn’t understand what was happening,” she said. “I felt scared and alone with nobody to tell us what we were facing out of fear of my son and our family being judged.”
She said she wondered how she had failed as a parent, spent sleepless nights preoccupied with her son’s whereabouts or if he was alive, and saw her son become someone she didn’t recognize.
“Unfortunately, there is nothing that can prepare you as a mom for dealing with the horrors of having a child struggle in this way,” she said.
“I lined up rehab, dropped my son off at sober living homes, visited him in jail and had to tell him more than once he could no longer live at home, knowing he would be homeless.”
Her health suffered, their communications were confrontational, she lost joy and became socially withdrawn.
Hope wants “to offer others what would have been helpful to me — a place to learn about the disease and a place where I could go and say anything without fear of judgment.”
She has a background in graphic art and design and a degree in journalism, but primarily identifies herself as a mom.
Her group, Mom of an Addict Inc. — a nonprofit organization — is a weekly support group for the loved ones of substance abusers.
She hopes that the community provides support by “telling people about us.”
Hope has worked for a community mental health center, is a certified addiction recovery coach in Indiana and will work on West Virginia requirements to become one here. She has also completed the Certified Fundraising Management program through the Indiana University Lilly School of Philanthropy.
“I was in a book study with a group of ladies and they did not know me when my son was actively using, The Jen they met was a different one than they would have met a few years earlier,” Hope said.
One of the well-meaning ladies commented that Hope did not look like the mom of an addict.
“I thought, ‘What does that person look like? They look like me, your neighbor, your coworker, and there is no discrimination with this disease,” she said. “Any of us could be.”
Anyone — not just moms — affected by a substance abuser is welcome to attend the meetings. The group is designed by a parent for parents and all loved ones of a substance user.
“It is hard to put into words, but I can easily tell you those who are part of it have become people I can no longer imagine my life without,” Hope said of the organization. She hopes it “brings connection to members who may feel very isolated right now, and any family who are struggling thinking this is their fault.”
Hope said that meeting community needs “will require increased budgets and staffing, updating and expanding our curriculum, adding new program components and training new meeting leaders.”
She said the “curriculum” for the group was reviewed by a licensed addictions counselor in Indiana, and is based on Dialectical Behavior Therapy, or DBT, principles.
“We are here to offer something to use in combination with other treatment options,” she said, adding that data shows half the population is somehow affected by substance use or addiction.
Hope said she wants the group to provide “what (she) had needed at the time of going through this with her son.”
Her son found recovery at a long-term rehab in West Virginia in 2017. When he graduated from the program, he remained in Morgantown.
When asked what finally turned her son’s life around, she was reluctant to say because “it is his story,” rather than her own. She said that her son came to a realization “that his living options had become very slim. He realized if he did not learn how to live differently, what lay ahead of him was not what he wanted.”
Mom of an Addict focuses “on us and what we can and cannot control, as well as how to make desired changes,” she said, adding that through her own “recovery journey,” she adopted unhealthy habits and needed to improve herself.
“We want people to find a connection somewhere, so we will do our best to stay apprised on family support options like 12-step family groups,” she explained.
“We also allow our sharing time called ‘cross-talk,’ which people get a lot of encouragement from. We bring in guest speakers.”
The group addresses enabling, but also “what detachment with love can really look like,” Hope said. It does not provide professional advice or services such as counseling or legal guidance.
Hope wants community members to know that, “Substance use disorder is not the result of a character flaw within the person or the result of a parenting or familial failure. It is a genetic disease that can be treated and managed. Even though only one person may use substances, the entire family is affected. Family members and friends have their own recovery journeys.”
A 501(c)3 organization, Moms of Addicts is funded by grants and donations.
“We welcome connections and relationships with other resources in the recovery community,” Hope said.
Learn more about Mom of an Addict at themomofanaddict.org, on facebook.com/themomofanaddict/ or Instagram themomofanaddict.
Hope can be reached at 260-918-3218 or jen@themomofanaddict.org.
