Vodka and Vicodin. What’s your drug of choice?
This weekend I’ll be sharing the powerful story of a young mom who found herself unexpectedly turning to Vicodin and Vodka and ended up in rehab. This was not the life she ever imagined herself living. She was a parent like you, like me, who learned certain things can numb pain and fill holes in your life.
Where are your holes? What are the gaping wounds in your soul that you self-medicate?
If this doesn’t apply to you, don’t disregard this post. You may not self-medicate with prescription drugs or alcohol, but what do you fill your emotional holes with? What do you turn to that numbs the holes in your heart?
Food? Shopping? Relationships? Busyness? Appearance? Success? Children? Enabling?
Or do you turn to substances? A recent study (“Mother’s Little Helper, LA Times, Jan. 13, 2012) reported there is an increase in mother’s seeking ADHD medication for their children for their own self-medication. As a behavioral professional working with families and children, my colleagues and I observe an increase in parents self-medicating in some form. Parents are hurting, therefore children hurt.
What’s filling your holes?
I don’t know if emotional depravity is increasing in our culture or if self-medication is becoming more mainstream. My work with people tells me it’s both. Psychological and emotional wounds seem to be increasing and are present in every walk of life.
Ten years ago, I left being home full-time to working in public schools. A student who lived in my rural neighborhood very poignantly said, “You live in a fairy-tale.” The picket-fence image, the Bubble.
I knew what they said was true, though we had our own struggles as a family. What the student was conveying was at that time I lived in a small, Christian-everything-is-right-with-the-world-bubble. Over time, experiencing my own personal struggles and becoming more hands-on as a community member and an educational/counseling professional, I know the fairy-tale life is the minority these days. My own family was on the verge of going over several cliffs to destruction, and I’ve had self-medicating periods in my own life. I now walk where life is messy, beyond the picket fence-image.
What about you? Do you live in a bubble? Are you aware of those with gaping holes around you?
As you read Candi’s story this weekend, I challenge you to listen to the holes in her heart that she filled with substances. They are wounds and holes common to most of us. Cognitive distortions, self-doubt, bitterness.
Do you struggle with these?
Candi’s story is our story. It’s the story each of us has who tries to fill the voids in our life with unhealthy things. Though the “substance” may be different, the quest for fulfillment and happiness it similar. While some are more destructive, none satisfy.
The root of satisfaction she has found is the same I’ve found. It’s the same found in each of us changed by the grace of Great Healer, Christ Himself, the Son of the Living God.
As you anticipate reading Candi’s story this weekend, I challenge each of you to examine the holes and voids in your own heart and life and what you attempt to fill them with that’s unhealthy. Facing our wounds is never easy, but giving them healthy means by which to heal diminishes scaring.
My prayer for you this week from Philippians 4:6-7, The Message:
“Don’t fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of God’s wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It’s wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life.”
May we live not in a bubble, not in denial, not in pain, but in the wholeness of Jesus Christ, letting His grace and peace fill every wounded hole in your being.
How have you found healing and wholeness from your holes? We’d love to hear. And tune in this weekend for Candi’s inspiring story.
In His love,
Hi Brenda, its hard sometimes to take a long hard look at oneself and see all the holes in the first place. I self-medicate with food i think. Always battled with food. And I want to overcome this and have victory with God. And I will. Thanks for the encouraging post
God bless
Tracy