Women in Recovery – My Mother’s Story

Tatiana and her mother, Maribel, got together for lunch last Saturday, as they have most weekends since June, when Maribel began her recovery journey at St. Martin de Porres House of Hope. “We get together and try to reconnect,” says Tatiana. “After so many years, we had disconnected. My mom’s been an addict my whole life. Finally, I told her that I couldn’t deal with her addiction anymore.”

Tatiana went several months without hearing from her mom, and feared she was dead. Then she got a phone call at work. “Mom called and told me that she was in treatment. I fell to the floor crying. She had sought treatment a few other times, but it was never like this. She wanted to change her life and have a future.”

Last Saturday’s lunch was different. “It was our unofficial Christmas lunch. Christmas is hard for my mom. Her mother died on December 21^st several years ago. I told her that she didn’t need to think about making Christmas plans ““ she just needed to focus on her maintaining her sobriety now that she has moved out of St. Martin de Porres House of Hope.”

Having completed St. Martin’s addiction recovery program, Maribel found an apartment on the West Side and moved in last month. “I think she’s doing really well,” Tatiana says. “It’s good that she’s in a new neighborhood. It was so helpful for her to have structure that the program provided, so I reminded her to maintain that structure, to build a schedule, and everything else will come. It’s all clicking into place.

“It’s a treasure to me now that if I call my mom, she’s there.  It’s so nice to have my mom back. She was just a shell before. The program at St. Martin de Porres house of Hope literally changed both of our lives, and I will be forever grateful.”