Motherhood is a personal journey, and everyone’s story is different. But most moms can relate to the societal pressure to “have it all,” to always put their needs last. 

These pressures can create feelings of failure, guilt, and shame for even the healthiest of women. In fact, one study found that in the U.S., feeling guilty is considered part of being a good mother.

Now layer in the challenges of living with addiction and substance use disorder (SUD) — a reality for millions of women in the U.S. 

“Many moms want to give up our whole personhood to help our children. Yet, when we do, we often find ourselves too unhappy to be really great parents,” says Ashley Loeb Blassingame, a certified alcohol and drug counselor and co-founder of Lionrock, a telehealth provider of substance use disorder treatment.

Blassingame got sober in 2006, at age 19, after battling heroin addiction, cocaine addiction, and alcoholism. In 2020, when her twin boys were three-and-a-half years-old, she entered a 30-day treatment program to prevent a relapse.

“It was like I needed a refresher. I did not relapse, but I was struggling,” she says. The decision was necessary, but still, she felt the guilt. “I experienced a lot of the things that mothers experience when they seek help for themselves, and the effects on the family.” 

These emotions would have been magnified had she been using, which is part of what makes it so challenging for mothers with young children to seek help.

When feelings of guilt are magnified 

Elissa Tierney had a loving family, boy-girl twins, and the marketing job she’d always dreamed of. But her marriage was toxic. She used alcohol — and later pain pills, after a back surgery introduced her to opioids — to escape. In 2014, she put herself in rehab for the first time. Her children were one year old.
She lost custody of her children in 2017, after calling the police on her husband. “I was wasted, and now it’s the second time they came to my house and I’m drunk. He [my ex-husband] is outside saying, ‘She’s an alcoholic. She’s always in rehab.’”

The police called the Division of Youth and Family Services (DYFS). The pain of losing her children prevented her from healing for years. She sought treatment repeatedly, but feelings of guilt contributed to multiple relapses and heroin use. Every time she visited her babies, she would feel overwhelmed and ashamed.

“I can feel it right now: the feeling when someone tells you that you have beautiful babies that need you. That was the worst thing you could say to me. You’re like, ‘I know that!’ From that moment on, I would do anything to not think about them because it was too painful,” she says.

Learning to live in the present 

Tierney’s healing couldn’t begin until she dealt with her guilt and shame.

“Sitting and thinking about how many years you have missed — that is doing nothing for you. I started focusing on the future, the day, the present. That helped me the most,” she says. She also gave herself permission to feel a full range of emotions. “Every day doesn’t have to be amazing.”

She attended group meetings and took a break from social media, because she felt that no good came from scrolling through images of “perfect” moms when she was battling guilt and shame.

In 2021, she regained custody of her children. Now she advocates for policy change to improve addiction treatment and runs a nonprofit, Worth Saving, together with her 10-year-old daughter, Avery.

Jill Borrelli, vice president of behavioral health at Point32Health, says an important step in healing is first being able to access support. “Our members health, well-being and disease management is at the heart of everything we do, which is why we do all we can to bring innovative treatment options to our members suffering from addiction.” Point32Health’s Behavioral Health team, who supports members of both their Harvard Pilgrim Health Care and Tufts Health Plan organizations, includes clinicians who specialize in addiction and can help members of its health plans navigate the system to access support. 

Focusing on the present helped Gail Weatherill, a dementia nurse, as well. She got sober in 1997 at age 40, after more than two decades of struggling with alcohol abuse. She says anyone who knew her before her recovery probably thought she had “life by the tail.” She had a great job, two daughters, and was married to a handsome Scottish man who consumed just as much alcohol as she did. 

Inside, though, she was suffering. She had battled a major depressive disorder since age 18. Drinking made her feel human. “With their dad drinking as he did, I knew that if I went down, those little girls were screwed. I had to swallow my pride and go to a 12-step meeting. I always say I got into recovery because I had these two little bright-eyed dolls. No matter how much I had screwed up, they still thought their mama hung the moon,” she says. 

When Weatherill got sober, her children were ages five and eight. While they don’t have memories of their mom’s heavy drinking, they do recall the hard work she had to do to get better.

“With their dad drinking as he did, I knew that if I went down, those little girls were screwed. I had to swallow my pride and go to a 12-step meeting. I always say I got into recovery because I had these two little bright-eyed dolls. No matter how much I had screwed up, they still thought their mama hung the moon.” — Gail Weatherill

“People have this perception that once you stop using, you start building back that instant. You do have to start building back, but there is all this internal work that doesn’t make its way to the outside for a good bit of time. So, there are lots of things my children remember that were unpleasant,” she explains.

For Weatherill, the key to repairing these relationships was making living amends — to show she had changed through her actions, because “talk is cheap.”

She leaned on people who were further along in their recovery and focused on doing the next right thing, even if that meant doing something small, like throwing in a load of laundry.

“It’s not the big things that we do that are going to shift the planet underneath us,” she says. “It’s the little things and doing them every day.”

Recovery skills can be parenting skills 

While addiction and recovery certainly add challenges to motherhood, the skills learned in recovery can help in parenting, too.

“I always joke, I don’t know how people do this without having done the work we do in recovery,” Blassingame says.

These skills include naming feelings, owning mistakes, and consistent, transparent communication.

For example, before leaving for her 30-day treatment, Blassingame explained to her children that everyone needs help sometimes and encouraged them to ask questions and share fears.

“Your kids are experiencing the dysfunction, so it’s important that they get to experience the recovery as well — that they’re let into that process as much as is age appropriate. I said things like, ‘I will never run away. I will never leave you. But it is important that we all take care of ourselves and each other.’” — Blassingame

When working with moms in her practice, she reminds them that repair is a natural part of every relationship and a vital skill to teach children. Furthermore, by making time for self-care, they are showing their children it is okay for them to do the same.

Another takeaway, for anyone in recovery, and moms everywhere? Community is not optional. “Addiction breeds in isolation,” Blassingame cautions.

“You need people around to support you, that you trust, that can either intervene, offer advice, or be there when you fall to help you get back up again.” 

Point32Health is a nonprofit health and well-being organization, guiding and empowering healthier lives for all. Throughout all of life’s stages and challenges, our family of companies inclusive of Harvard Pilgrim Health Care and Tufts Health Plan support members and their families with whole-health benefits and solutions.