TERROS Helps People Cope, Hope & GET BETTER!
For more information about TERROS programs, services and appointments call (602) 685-6000 ext. 1950 Para asistencia en español, marca (602)685-6000 ext. 1900. If you are in a behavioral health crisis please call Crisis Response Network (CRN) at 602-222-9444.
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Drugs take a back seat to the bond between a daughter and her mother.
Drugs take a back seat to the bond between a daughter and her mother.
A year ago, Diane’s 79 year old mother was critically ill. “I knew my mother didn’t have many months to live when I went to see her in the hospital. I was high. I have been what you might call a heavy, but functional, addict for many years.
Looking at my mother, I thought, there is no way I can be like this with her when she is dying. My heart told me, ‘no more.’ Three days later I called TERROS and began treatment in the L.A.D.D.E.R. program for my addiction and my depression. I knew I couldn’t get clean by myself.”
That sobering day in her mother’s hospital room was more than the beginning of Diane’s recovery from drugs - it was the opportunity for Diane to deeply connect with her mother. “My mother knew I was on drugs. Yet she was proud of me because of how I raised my five kids. She said, ‘Please don’t go back to those days.’ I thought, ‘Mother, do you know what you are asking?’ I cried and said, ‘I promise, Mom.’ I didn’t want my mother to pass away knowing I was using. I think she held on to make sure I was okay. I was her baby – the youngest of seven children.”
The feelings connecting Diane and her mother grew stronger, especially during the last two months when mother and daughter lived together, with Diane providing physical bed-side care. “I took care of her. I lay with her and apologized for what I had done and watched her peacefully pass over. She died knowing her baby was okay.”
46 years ago, a newborn baby lay in a bed with her loving mother. A year ago, that baby gave new life to her dying mother.
Mother is gone; the drugs are gone, but the mother-daughter bond continues. “My promise to my mother is getting stronger every day. At a Narcotics Anonymous meeting, it hit me that the man upstairs helped me get sober before she died. I’m done with the using life style. I played that tape all the way through. I have no cravings, my kids are proud of me, and I have exciting plans.”
