During my son’s last intervention, he said to the interventionist, “I will go, if she goes.” He pointed at me. He was nineteen.

He and I had been crawling—not walking—through hell for years, in many ways. He was carrying tons of pain, boatloads of grief, and layers of emotions ignored. So was I. Despite the weight of what he was carrying, I saw he was the wisest person in the room. In a nanosecond, I knew he knew his mother:

• I was suffering: years of trauma and grief caused by the current, crushing heartbreak, and generations of woundedness and addiction were unraveling me, slowly and profoundly, although the public world I occupied had no idea
• That what I was doing—12-step recovery, therapy—was not enough
• If I did not start going deeper into the darker layers, neither of us were going to make it

I said “game on”. He went. I followed.

I had no idea what it would look like to descend down-and-in. All I knew was that I needed a program to help me integrate the mind-body-heart-spirit healing I craved. A friend of mine, who was a leader in the behavioral healthcare field, said, “Nothing like that exists. But you will create it. Meantime, go to a trauma retreat.” I went to a residential 30-day trauma program. It was powerful. And, there, I also became clearer about what was missing in the therapeutic world and what I would create to stand in the gap.

Upon coming home from my retreat, I upped my therapeutic game. I continued an archeological dig into my emotional/spiritual/relational landscape. I explored the layers of wounding, nestled in between nuances, covered by outward success, passed on generation to generation, and hidden in the crevices where darkness settles. I leaned into the tender, threatening process of taking accountability for mistakes I made and, the even more difficult process, of forgiving myself. Each layer of healing took me more fully into sorrow. Each shone a light on the broken shards I needed to lovingly acknowledge. Each deeper descent encouraged me to radically accept my gifts and shadows, my spirit and my humanity.

Three years later, my son and I are still walking a parallel process of healing. It’s messy. It’s replenishing. We now experience the strength of our anchor because we have felt the full onslaught of the storms. There is no abuse or addiction in our lives for the first time, ever; no one in our circle harming us, and no self-harm. Here are three observations I have made and continue to reflect on:

• The family member, who suffers from the addiction or a diagnosis, is not THE problem. They are the canary in the mine-shaft, urging others to wake up to the dangers coming for all. They also deserve the therapeutic support needed to embrace what is possible and release their distorted perceptions and self-sabotaging patterns, as comfortable as that emotional software may feel.
• It is not enough to provide resources to the one more obviously suffering. We must all do our inner work if long-term, family healing is to flourish and our descendants are to thrive.
• Love is not enough. We can not expect our loved one to be and stay well if the waters they swim in and return to are filled with relational garbage. Each family member must do their work, practice new ways of loving, turn the mirror on themselves, and clean up what is theirs.

Regardless of education, socioeconomic status, and the cost of one’s shoes, all families have layers of stuff that can entrap people in harmful and/or limiting patterns. And, so I ask you this: Are you willing to embark on the same healing/recovery journey you are asking your son or daughter, parent, or partner to go on?

Know this with compassion and courage: what hangs in the balance is only the emotional, relational, spiritual, and mental health of your family, individually and collectively, now and for generations to come.