Where There Is Life, There REALLY Is Hope

By Caroline Cook

Have you just discovered that someone you know is a drug addict? Are you heartbroken? Do you feel overwhelmed? If so, you are not alone. That is what happened to me. I thought I would have to bury my daughter by Christmas 2014.
Snippets of my and my daughter’s story aired on 60 Minutes and Seven Sharp in 2015—current affairs programmes in New Zealand. Now, you can read the full account of my perspective of the traumas that led to my daughter’s addiction, the impact of them on me and what I learned along the way.
My daughter shares her story in a companion book. Together, we have a miraculous story that has a happy ending. The great triumph after tragedy is that it is always possible to rebuild something with more beautiful results. My daughter and I are now closer than ever and she is doing better than I could have ever imagined.
Expect to feel encouraged, empowered and hopeful as you travel through the pages of this book.
Where There Is Life, There REALLY Is Hope, the inside story of a mother of a P addict who survived the rigours and now wants to share the insights she learned along the way.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley
• Release date: Apr 29, 2018

Caroline Cook

Motherhood wasn’t in Caroline’s plans for life as a youngster. But the moment Vea was born, it turned her world around. She felt an instant bond with her baby girl and an instant determination to protect her from all the evils of the world.

Book preview

About the Author

Motherhood wasn’t in Caroline’s plans for life, as a youngster. But the moment Vea was born, it turned her world around. She felt an instant bond with her baby girl and an instant determination to protect her, from all the evils of the world.

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Where There is Life, There REALLY is Hope

Published by Austin Macauley at Smash words

Copyright 2018, Caroline Cook

The right of Caroline Cook Irving to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the

Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All Rights Reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with the written permission of the publisher, or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Act 1956 (as amended). Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is

Available from the British Library.

www.austinmacauley.com

Where There is Life, There REALLY is Hope, 2018

Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd.

ISBN 978-1-78710-026-8 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-78710-027-5 (Hardback)

ISBN 978-1-78710-028-2 (E-Book)

First Published in 2018

Austin Macauley Publishers.LTD/

CGC-33-01, 25 Canada Square

Canary Wharf, London E14 5LQ

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Acknowledgements

First and foremost, I must acknowledge my wonderful and strong daughter, for having the courage to share her story and prompting me to share my side of it in order to encourage other people. I treasure the closeness we have in our relationship because of all we shared, during our writing journey together. I respect her boldness to constantly strive for better in life.

I am forever grateful that our mighty God reached down into Vea’s life and scooped her up out of her addiction, grief and rejection. She is a changed person because she knows her creator.

I met my husband, Rich, after all the events in this book occurred. He has been completely supportive of Vea and I, getting our stories in print to help others. I immensely appreciate his encouragement and support to proceed with this project.

I am indebted to Mr JT, Adrian and Kim (see chapter 17), for the incredible support they gave me during the 2 years that Vea was a drug addict. Without them, I don’t know how I would have got through that time.

My little brother, Richard (who towers over me at 180+cm tall!), has been a massive support to me over the years with everything that life has sent my way. If not for his support, I know that some of the situations you will read about in this book would not have had the good outcome that they did have.

My mother, Elisabeth Paterson, read every drafted chapter of this book and provided valuable feedback to me. She was unaware of all the details, prior to reading about them. Parts of it were heart-breaking for her but she wanted to help – she is a gutsy lady.

I came across Dov Phillips and his practice, Inspiring Wellness in Auckland, New Zealand, when I was still at a very low ebb, sometime after Vea had recovered. His wisdom and support helped me shift gears to interpret the events of that time in my life completely differently, so as to be empowered by my experiences rather than be burdened by them.

Andrew Jobling was my writing mentor from start to finish of this book. His feedback on my writing, and his enthusiasm about Vea and I sharing our stories kept me encouraged through the writing journey, even on the days when it all seemed too hard and too painful.

This book would never have seen the light of day to encourage others if not for Austin Macauley – publishers of this book. I am grateful to them for trusting in our project and for bringing this book to print.

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Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1: From the Beginning 13

Chapter 2: The Teen Trials

Chapter 3: A New Vision

Chapter 4: Vea’s First Overseas Adventure

Chapter 5: Life-Saving Attempts

Chapter 6: Reaching Out

Chapter 7: A New Start

Chapter 8: A Sad Farewell

Chapter 9: Endings and New Beginnings

Chapter 10: Could It Be…?

Chapter 11: Solo Gran’ma

Chapter 12: Missionary at Home

Chapter 13: Reconnecting with My Daughter – A Drug Addict

Chapter 14: Living with a Drug Addict

Chapter 15: Moving On

Chapter 16: Vea’s Spiritual Awakening

Chapter 17: Maintaining My Sanity

Chapter 18: Three Months Clean

Chapter 19: Sharing the Hope

Chapter 20: One Year Anniversary

Afterword: Challenges for Churches

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Introduction

I was devastated when I learned that my daughter was addicted to meth in 2013. That was a world I knew nothing about and yet it intruded in my life forcing me to confront it. Vea’s venture into the drug world lasted a torturous two years. During that time I took my grandson in to live with me. After initially being petrified about having a drug addict in my house, I allowed my daughter back home as well. As time progressed, I expected to bury her before the year was out. It was a hair-raising journey.

It was a long, very slow descent downwards in life before my daughter wound up addicted to meth in 2013. Trauma after trauma beset her from her mid teenage years through to her mid-20s. Grief from the loss of her 19-month-old son to a driveway incident held her hostage more than any of her other traumatic experiences. The emotional pain was too great and too difficult for her to process so she buried it all inside herself one after the other. Then meth seduced her. Initially, she was relieved of feeling any emotional pain. As time wore on, she discovered it was a world that ate its victims up alive without killing them.

Helplessness was a feeling I became all too familiar with over the years as my best attempts to help her were unproductive and I was forced to watch from the sidelines. It caused me much pain. But now I have come out the other side and my daughter is drug-free. Things are looking positive for us as we move on in our lives after drug addiction wreaked its havoc. I am only too well aware that meth is a ruthless killer. And so it is with immense gratitude to God that we proceed forward in our lives with Vea alive and well. Victory!

Vea decided to write a book about her experiences and the redemptive power of God’s love in her life to encourage and provide hope for those she left behind in the wretchedness that is the drug scene. After all, God reached down into the despair and hopelessness that was Vea’s life and lifted her out of that wretched place providing her with all the hope she could ever need.

I applauded her and supported her in her decision to write a book. When she invited me to contribute a paragraph to talk about her journey from my perspective, I jumped at the opportunity before she finished her sentence. Over the following few days, ideas simmered in my mind as I thought about what I would write. The more I thought about it the more there was to write about. I requested a full chapter in her book for my piece. She heartily agreed. I was encouraged. My mind tossed around the most important points that I wanted to comment on and that I thought would be helpful and encouraging for other parents finding themselves in that awful predicament I discovered myself in, as the mother of a drug addict.

Then a memory flashed in my mind. It was the memory of the day that I went shopping for a book written by a parent of a drug addict and found the bookshelves bare. I remembered how desperate I had been to learn how another parent had negotiated the pathway that I was devastated to wake up on. At that exact moment, I decided I needed to start plugging that hole in the market by writing my own book. I shared my brainwave with Vea. She was very supportive and so here we are. I did not write a chapter in her book – I wrote my own book – this is it.

It is not a how-to manual of best methods to help your grief-stricken, drug-addicted adult child when you allow them to live in your home. You will surely find some answers within these pages as you relate to my experiences. But I certainly did not do everything ‘correctly’. After all, I was walking through unchartered territory without a guide. I had a lot to learn on the way. Sometimes I got it right and sometimes I did not. But I kept chugging along.

Hindsight has taught me a lot but I still don’t have all the answers – far from it. I just have my experiences and the lessons I learned along the way. I am sharing my story, the wise decisions I made as well as the mistakes I made, in the belief that sharing is helpful as we can all learn something from each other along life’s pathway.

Reconciliation between my daughter and myself has emerged from the depths of the great beyond. Writing our books simultaneously has healed our relationship and drawn us close. Upon the completion of each chapter, Vea was my first reader just as I was with her writing. It has helped us to appreciate each other’s experiences and perspectives of the various situations we found ourselves in over the years. It has provoked conversation about how we managed during the dark days. Apologies have been spoken and received; hugs of appreciation and encouragement abounded as we persevered towards this goal of helping others. That was the most unexpected and the most precious part of the writing journey for me.

While I wrote this book specifically with parents of drug addicts in mind, I see that it could be helpful for various people in a variety of different ways:

If you are the parent of a drug addict, it is my hope for you that you will discover a few gems that worked for me that you can implement in your own situation. It is also my hope for you that you will learn from my mistakes and do things differently from me so that you do not wander into the dark valley that I came to know. I also encourage you to write and share your experiences to build up the body of information out there for parents to draw on to empower them as they cope with their lives with a drug-addicted child. The more resources we as parents have, the better.

If you are the parent of a drug addict, this book would also be useful to share with your ex drug addicted child (or other family member or friend) so that they can understand your perspective better. You could take any aspect of it, read that short portion and use it as a basis for a discussion to share your own thoughts and feelings with each other as you establish life anew and heal from the past.

If you are or were a drug addict and do not understand how your parents or family feel, this would be a useful book for you to read. While each person is different, this would give you some insight into a different perspective from your own.

If you feel weighed down or oppressed by anything at all in your own life, whether it be an addiction or anything else, this book will encourage you. For within these pages, is the story of triumph of the human spirit over multiple tragedies. The great triumph after tragedy is that it is always possible to rebuild. And in that process something more beautiful unfolds than what was there originally. So I hope you feel encouraged and empowered to rise above whatever may be trying to pin you down in your own life if you read this book for that purpose. And I know that you can evolve into something more beautiful if you allow yourself to let go of your pain and grab hold of your bright future.

If you love reading about how God takes a hopeless situation and turns it around into a mighty testimony of His miraculous, unfathomable, endless grace, this book will delight you.

If you are reading this book because you know me and/or my family, you will discover there is a lot you did not know. But isn’t that so for all of us? You will know me a lot better after reading this book.

Whatever your purpose is for reading this book, I hope that after closing the final page, you are encouraged by reading about my experiences. I hope that you feel empowered to make decisions confidently going forward. Most of all I hope that you keep hope alive in your life despite your circumstances. Because it is only with hope that we really feel alive inside and that we can live our lives to the full.

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Chapter 1

From the Beginning

Valeria means ‘STRONG’. As it turned out, there was no name more appropriate for my daughter than this name meaning ‘STRONG’ because she needed to have a strong character to make her way through all that life was going to throw at her. Circumstances that came her way, surely demanded that.

Valeria (Vea for short) is my little fluke. Her father and I did not plan on having children so early in our marriage but plans in life very often have to be adapted and adjusted I soon discovered. Vea joined me in this world just in time to celebrate my first wedding anniversary with her father. I was a teenage bride, we moved countries to settle in a city we had never lived in before without any work lined up prior to our arrival, and then I became a teenage mom all within the space of a year. That is a lot of change to contend with. But it never ceases to amaze me the way the human mind just knuckles down and finds a pathway through the maze of situations that life presents; and the way that opportunities present themselves when you need them if you keep searching long enough.

My opinion of young children as I was growing up was that they were incredibly annoying. I didn’t even enjoy spending time with my friends’ younger siblings if they were a lot younger than us because they just couldn’t understand enough about anything. I certainly spent no time with babies. There was no great desire or urgency within me to have my own children either. For that reason, as well as other reasons, discovering that I was pregnant was like standing at the base of the North face of Mount Everest without a route plan.

An event that occurred at 4.42pm on 27th March, 1986 changed all that though. All of a sudden I felt like I was in a tropical paradise with the warm sun shining down on me and a cool drink in my hand as I rested in a hammock strung between two coconut trees with the warm, gentle breeze maintaining the momentum of the swing. That was the moment that my precious baby girl popped out of me; the moment my life changed forever; the moment I suddenly adored little children. Well, maybe not all little children but certainly this little baby girl that I cradled so tenderly in my arms. I remember that very special moment as if it was yesterday. As I laid my eyes on my baby for the very first time, I felt an instant bond with her, an instant love for her and an instant determination to protect her from all the evils of the world.

Being a mom became the best feeling in the world to me – I simply adored my new role in life. Whoever would have guessed? Certainly not me! I had a new lease of life; new focus; new purpose; new inspiration to live my life in a way that would provide her with a good role model. With that came a fireball of energy and zest for life that I had not known before. I was entranced and amazed as I witnessed my baby girl’s little body growing and developing right before my very eyes. Her interactions with me were totally adorable. All the little face expressions she pulled were mesmerising. Her implicit trust in me was so innocent that it aroused a deep desire within me never to betray that.

Poem writing was a passion of mine at the time so I kept a special book