Grateful Mother
I have such immense gratitude for having Amanda and her program come into my life. I am a mother and I was living one of the worst nightmares of any mother. My firstborn son was struggling with drug addiction for many years. My husband and I are doctors in the SW Florida area, and neither of us has any family history of alcohol or drug abuse. This was truly a nightmare for our family. He dropped out of college without telling us for a couple of years, and pretended to still be attending college out of town. A little after the time when he should’ve been graduating was when we found out about the problem, although it had been going on since high school. Over a period of about four years or more from when we found out about it, he attended three different intense rehab programs, lived in a half way house after attending the last one, and attended numerous NA and AA meetings on and off, all to no avail. We went through cycles of allowing him to live at home and then throwing him out because essentially he never stopped using the drugs. I became obsessed with this situation, whether he was living at home or not. I was ridden with anxiety and worry, and would wonder if he was dead in a ditch somewhere. I attended many Nar Anon meetings (for at least two years), which I thought were helping me cope and understand. In these meetings I was directed into how to think about my son – that he will always be “sick” and that being an addict is a permanent condition, and basically I had to get used to these facts and accept them. There were slogans such as “relapse is part of recovery” so that you would continually think about and look for the next relapse. The list goes on and on of the negative attributes of addicts and all the horror stories of other peoples’ addicts. I was going to these meetings almost every Friday night. I was advised to get a sponsor and do my twelve steps because I was “sick” too. I did this, and then one day I thought it out and said, I’m not sick and I’ve done nothing wrong, and so I quit going to the program. Shortly after that, a friend told me about Amanda’s program, and I decided to give it a whirl. Amanda told me that I could change anything by changing the way I think. I had read in the past many books, such as “The Secret”, and had tried positive thinking, but always felt that there was information missing from these methods. Amanda gave me the tools in her program and eventually the formula to change my life. I started to think of my son in a totally different way, and the changes started to appear magically in front of my eyes. Within a short period, he stopped using drugs without attending any meetings or rehab. He started working regularly at odd jobs; then he applied for a job at a company in our area. Long story short, he got a great job, in less than six months after getting the job got a promotion/raise, has rented a house that he is renovating and possibly is going to buy, and there is already talk of a promotion again at his job. He has great friends and he is happy and healthy, living a healthy lifestyle. We are so proud of him!!! I have peace, calmness and happiness back in my life, and now I use these tools to overcome any “obstacle” or I should say I use them to take advantage of the opportunities that show up in my life, because now I rephrase, even when I am just thinking, everything in the positive. If I can create this change in my son’s life, I can create other great things in my life and I am so incredibly grateful for this one totally unique person that showed up in my life to help me do it: Amanda! I would love to give my name, but I decided not to, because I would like others to look at and see my son for who he is now, and not the way he was before. I would encourage any parent that is going through a similar situation to talk to Amanda. The results will be nothing short of magical!