When my son became addicted, I kept hearing over and over from counselors and in Al Anon meetings that I went to this is a family problem, addiction is a family disease. And I didn´t understand that at first. I thought my son is the one who is using. He is the one who needs help. He is the one who is addicted. What I didn´t realize is that and that I realized very soon is that his addiction wasn´t only destroying him, it was destroying me and our family. I mean I couldn´t work. I couldn´t function. I couldn´t take care of my younger children. Eventually I realized that if I didn´t take care of myself, I wouldn´t be able to take care of him. And so, there is this sort of balance of taking care of your children, doing everything that you can but also keeping some separation, some boundaries. It is too dangerous for instance to have a using addict around the house if you have younger children and if it is at the point where somebody is actually being in any way violent, in any way threatening, still you don´t want that child on the street. You want to get your child somewhere safe. But you have to make these decisions as you go forward, and at the same time families are in crisis. And we would not have survived if we didn´t go into some family therapy. We were able to bring Jasper and Daisy, my younger children, into a doctor´s office with their mom and with me, and the four of us sat there. The doctor helped us through understanding what does it mean to have an addict in your family, helping the kids express how they were feeling about the stress and the trauma. Not only were they so worried about their big brother and confused that suddenly this person that was their hero, they adore him, he changed and all of a sudden everything in their family changed, but also their parents changed because we were completely freaked out. So family therapy was huge. Going to Al Anon meetings for me was really helpful because all of a sudden you are with parents who understand what you are going through because they are going through it, too. But the most important thing is to recognize that we have to take care of ourselves, too.