Four years ago to our horror, our son admitted that he used drugs. Since then his journey has taken him from addiction and eventual homelessness, to admitting that he had an addiction problem and engaging with WASP Family Support Services and CARP services, and finally completing a recovery programme.
Throughout this time, our family was supported by WASP Family Support Services. From the first phone call to Cathy Murray, the Project Manager, we were met with kindness and understanding, sympathy and support. Wasp Family Support Services offers expert, confidential counselling and mediation to family members, both individually and as a family unit, to mitigate the corrosive effects of drug addiction and to scaffold and support families living with addiction.
Throughout all of this nightmare, Cathy was available almost 24 hours to offer advice and guidance and at times a face to face visit to reassure and comfort us.
Her expertise, knowledge, and professionalism at all times, informed us of choices that our son might take to recognise and address his addiction. As parents, we were gently guided to consider strategies to cope with the worries and concerns that threaten to overwhelm and consume parents and families dealing with addiction.
Cathy accompanied us at times to liaise with the Gardaí and Drug Unit and finally to court on several occasions when we made a Victim Impact Statement.
A collaboration between WASP Family Support Services and CARP resulted in our son engaging with a Drug Reduction Programme with a positive outcome. When this Programme was completed, the WASP Family Support Services and CARP co-ordinated his application for a recovery programme which he successfully completed. His re-entry into education was again facilitated by WASP Family Support Service, and they continue to support him in resuming a life drug free life.
Our experience with drug addiction brought us down pathways and roads that offered no signposts or directions. Without WASP Family Support Services and CARP, we would still be lost in the wilderness of drug addiction without direction, and our family would have collapsed as a functioning unit. The pressure cooker of worry and terror and fear would have exploded in our lives, destroying our family.
That we have emerged from this nightmare, intact as both a family, and as a couple, is testament to the incalculable and invaluable WASP Family Support Services and CARP. We were fortunate to be referred to WASP Family Support Services four years ago, for which we shall be eternally grateful.
Our survival to date, is a tribute to the holistic, professional services and the gentle, affirming guidance and support that WASP Family Support Services provide so generously to families.
