A story of  

“The hardest thing was watching him make the same wrong decisions over and over again—and realize I couldn’t stop him,” Joyce says.

The problem.

To have a child lost to alcohol or drug addiction is to suffer a thousand deaths. The more you try to save them from their addiction the more it burns a hole in your heart. Watching their light fall away into darkness, you enter your own world of pain. But while you may feel stranded by fear and confusion, you are not alone.

There are people out there walking the same path. They are the ones, the only ones, who really understand because they are like you, like Joyce. Joyce has a son named Eric, an educated son with an angelic face and bright future. Yet by the time he reached his late 20s Eric was sleeping under an oleander bush behind a grocery store. He was homeless, living on the streets, in and out of jail, in and out of treatment centers, addicted to opiates.

“I went and found parents in the same position, parents further along in the recovery process who wouldn’t judge me. They understood what I was going through, how it felt to love someone with a serious addiction. Other people tried but couldn’t fully understand. You can’t really relate unless you’ve lived through it.”

“The hardest thing was watching him make the same wrong decisions over and over again—and realize I couldn’t stop him,” Joyce says. “There was absolutely nothing I could do.”

“The hardest thing was watching him make the same wrong decisions over and over again—and realize I couldn’t stop him,” Joyce says. “There was absolutely nothing I could do.” Doing nothing can be difficult for any parent. But for Joyce, a nurse accustomed to helping people heal, it was brutal. “I was the kind of mother who looked up all the treatment places, did everything I could to get him help,” she says. Until he finally told her to leave him alone and shut her out completely.

The Solution: Community

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit.

Consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore. Consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua.

Make a Donation to Support Your Local Farmers & Sustainable Agriculture

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Etiam vehicula eu urna sed euismod. Aenean tortor magna, facilisis ut sapien id, eleifend faucibus augue. Nulla aliquet nisl a augue blandit suscipit. Aenean sed convallis nibh. Sed ut dui vitae lacus elementum cursus. Phasellus non urna vel nunc iaculis porttitor.

Find a Group Near You

PAL GroupsDonate