Remembering Family Week

For some reason, I thought back to "Family Week" at Betty Ford (which I usually refer to as "Fuck Family Week") today and an image has been stuck in my head.

There was a beautiful and kind woman there with me, and I grew to love her almost instantly. We still keep in touch, and she is very dear to my heart.

At one point during the week, we were supposed to confront the addict in our lives and express the pain they had caused us. Her husband was not there, so she addressed someone else, or maybe it was a chair - my memory fails me. Her face was so mesmerizing in that moment that I did not really notice anything else.

I do not remember most of the things she said, but I do remember how real and raw her pain felt. I remember thinking, here is this beautiful, amazing, compassionate woman - and she did not deserve any of this.

I do not remember my moment or what was said to my husband. At that point, I think I skipped over a lot of things because I don't like being under pressure or in the spotlight. In some ways, I think it would have been better if he had not been there because I think I tried to spare a lot of his feelings and humiliation instead of getting rid of everything in my heart.


“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

- Maya Angelou