Addiction is often referred to as a “family disease” because it affects more than the suffering individual, it has the power to rip through one’s family and social circle. Family can also provide support during the roughest times. Few exemplify the extent of addiction’s family ties as well as Penny Brown, former client and now director of recovery services at Divine Light. “Through the grace of God and Divine Light, I was able to save my family,” Brown says. Since Brown came into Divine Light, she has seen her son, her niece and two brothers complete the program successfully, as well as her ex-husband, who now works as Divine Light’s director of therapeutics. Now with five children, two grandchildren and another on the way, Brown is grateful to provide her loved ones with a more positive upbringing than her own. Family dysfunction Brown grew up with an alcoholic mother, an enabling grandmother and an abusive father, she says. It wasn’t until roughly a year into the program at Divine Light that she was able to open up about her past and address the underlying issues that brought her to use drugs to cope. Her mother, in the throes of alcoholism, was unable to care for Brown, so she went to live with her father, she says, expecting love and protection. In reality, the protection Brown needed was from her father. He sexually abused Brown continuously between the ages of 7 and 14, she says. Although she has worked through her nightmarish past and processed it at Divine Light, its consequences still linger. “I thank God that today I’m living in my own place, but because of the turmoil I’ve been through, I still sleep with the lights on,” she says. Brown is now able to use what once kept her in addiction’s grasp, what she once viewed as a weakness, as a constant reminder of the strength that got her where she is today. “I try to keep it at the forefront of my mind,” she says. “Because when I came in I was broken, spiritually and mentally. Someone saw something in me that I didn’t see in myself.” 12 Out of Darkness, Into Light Recovering addict reconciles with abusive past to bring strength to family and clients
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