New Directions for Women featured on A&E Intervention
Sarah, a mother with a child whose family system was struggling due their family disease of addiction, was referred to New Directions for Women after participating in A&E Intervention. This video features vignettes of Sarah as she begins her addiction treatment journey. It also features our Board Member Becky Flood, as well as our previous Clinical Director, Lynn Blanchard. She shares her realization that her using of drugs and alcohol stemmed from wanting to numb various issues in her life, but she is now learning how to cope with those issues in recovery. Most, if not all, of the women we serve have experienced trauma in their life, whether that’s due to an incident of domestic violence, loss of a loved one, or simply the trauma associated with addiction to drugs and alcohol. Seeking Safety is the curriculum we use at New Directions to heal women experiencing substance use disorder as well as trauma. Women need a safe place to recover from trauma, over an extended period of time, while learning tools for sustained recovery including mindfulness meditation and other relapse prevention skills. Sarah and her son joined us at New Directions for six months to bond and build their mother-child relationship. Sarah’s son got to watch his mother get better, and also learn ways to be well, himself.
A transcription of the video follows:
Sarah:
I’m gonna miss being a daughter, and a sister, and a mother, and an aunt. I’m gonna have nothing anymore, because all I have is the drugs.
Rebecca Flood:
She may permanently lose her child, even if she is to get clean and sober. For many of us, we don’t realize that it has taken us years to get as ill as we are, and it’s gonna take years to get well. Recovery is not a sudden landing. It’s a long journey.
Sarah:
I’m just praying I can stick it out. You know? I don’t want this all to be for nothing.
Eighty days clean today. It’s exciting.
Lynn Blanchard:
She stepped up and got a sponsor right away. She’s doing her step work. She is now able to almost be a mentor to the new girls that are coming in.
Sarah:
A lot of my using had to do with, you know, issues in my life that I didn’t want to deal with. And, you know, I kept saying, “I’m fine. I’m fine.” And I stuffed, and I stuffed my feelings, and I didn’t deal with any of them.
Lynn Blanchard:
She has a lot of trauma issues that I do think she needs to get through before she can truly have long-term sobriety.
Male:
Basically, I’m sending her some cigarettes and slippers, personal – you know, cards – greeting cards, a little stuffed doll. Just send her some gifts. Showing her I care.
There’s a big void in my life without her, so, hopefully, she’ll
come home, we’ll go on as planned – as we planned, and we’ll get her into something beneficial for her educational wise. You know, to keep her out of the industry and all that. And let her just progress in school and stuff.
Sarah:
You know, I appreciate what he did for me, but it was not – it wasn’t ever really a relationship. I know I have to, you know, apologize for what I did, because it wasn’t – it wasn’t fair. I’m just gonna start over.
Sarah most definitely is going to try to be reunited with her son.
Sarah:
I know I can’t change the things that I’ve done, or the things he’s seen, but I can make a better future and not miss anymore. And that’s the only way I can make it right with him, is just to be there, and be clean, and be a good mom.
FeMale:
Lord, we just ask you to keep doing what for mommy?
Little boy:
Um, making her better.
FeMale:
Making her better.
I hope she stays sober. I believe that she’ll stay sober. What her
hopes and dreams are, they have to be hers. They can’t be mine.
