Several years ago, our nearly 30 year old daughter was struggling with addiction, and had been since high school. We tried to help, and she was clean for a few months, but then went back to using. Then we did an intervention with help from professionals. She was not receptive to our concerns. At that time we took the car that belonged to us, that she was using. We also gave her a couple months to get out of a home that we were paying for. Tough love. And it was tough. It was at that time that she denied usage, placed blame on myself and her father.

For the next few years, we had some communication , but it was very strained. Then she asked me to go into counseling. We were in counseling for 6 months. I let my daughter expound on all the things she believed to be true, which were not. It was very painful to hear how she thought. She had lost any trust in us, once we did the intervention and took the car and home. Understandable, but there were so many other things that she thought we had done against her that weren't true. I maintained our position, that we did these things because we loved her and wanted to save her. Because she could very easily have been dead. We risked taking everything from her, even if she was mad, to save her from herself.

We were very fortunate to have an excellent counselor. My daughter and I have a comfortable relationship now, no strain at all. I did have to agree to not bring up all the things that were said and done to me in the few years following the intervention. Everything just got pushed to the back burner (after discussing it in counseling) and we moved on. And our daughter understands how much we love her, which I think she questioned since we did all the things we did to save her. Life isn't perfect, but it sure is better.