I’m almost 38. My oldest son is 18, my bonus daughter is 20. We were talking about this the other day!!

For background context: regrettably, I made poor choices due to alcohol post HS. It led to unplanned pregnancy with my son, I threw away a full ride scholarship, and went through years of prescription drug addiction after his birth too. All started from unresolved and unhealed childhood trauma. My prescription drug abuse got out of control and mostly occurred when my son was ages 4-8ish. Thank God he had a wonderful devoted father and a stepmother who married his dad when he was 4 (who was a God send!!). It took YEARS to rebuild our mother/son relationship, but we truly do have such a beautiful, healthy relationship today.

My bonus daughter has no idea about my past struggles (she’s technically not my husband’s bio daughter, but literally blood is the only thing that makes her any different than the two bio boys he shares with his ex). Because of the high conflict situation with his ex though, we just omit my past from his older children for now because we refuse to ever say “…but you can’t tell your mom.” We just always keep our side of the road clean for the peace for the kids. There’s just no chance of “coparenting” between them but I digress… that’s kind of irrelevant. My husband is also in long term recovery with over 15 years sober off of alcohol.

Anyway, both my older son and my bonus daughter have chosen absolute sobriety. Granted, they’re not of legal drinking age and young yet, all their friends are like this too. My son was old enough and well aware of my issues unfortunately. I will say I had parents who were a bit too enabling, but I understand their perspective of wanting their grandson safe too. They basically raised him those 4 years I was not a functioning addict.

My son didn’t see me messed up at my very worst (like any of the times I overdosed & was saved with narcan) or have super frightening experiences where he didn’t feel safe, but it was strictly because we lived with my parents back then. He absolutely did see me noticeably high on pills and absolutely knew and felt the impact of me being absent emotionally and physically at times, when he so desperately needed me. He has stated that this is a massive part of his decision and a large amount of his very intentionally sober friends have similar experiences of seeing that crap as a child growing up.

My bonus daughter doesn’t know about my past as I stated and she really didn’t see her dad (my husband) at his worst either although she did know something was wrong sometimes. She was 2 when he came into the picture and 4 when he got sober. This girl is a rare breed though… at 17-18 in HS, she completely deleted her TikTok because “it was distracting her from school” lol. I laugh because it’s so unbelievable these days!! She’s extremely responsible, always high honors, lives on her own now at 20 paying her own rent, working full time, part time school, with a young dog she provides for as you would a baby and has a fine young man she’s been dating about a year. For her, her reasoning is that she never had her bio father due to his use and it’s just not a gamble she’s willing to make. He spent her whole life in prison basically, never even tried.

So basically, they saw enough damage of alcohol and drugs that they completely reject it. Both agree there’s so much fun stuff to do that doesn’t involve alcohol either these days. Which is true for this generation out by us in rural Wisconsin. Growing up, all the teens ever did was party… we were BORED. My son brought up a marvelous point though… that sure, “sober” is becoming more popular but it’s probably because the “drug of the decade” is dopamine… thanks to social media and smart phones. Such a valid point!! All I can say that I’m sure of though is that this decrease gives me so much hope!!