The Pot on the Stove

At our family group last week, one of the parents led the discussion. She told a story, her voice caught between anger and grief, about a door her son had broken during his active addiction. That door had become a symbol of his rage, of what addiction had done to their home, of everything they couldn't fix.

Eventually, they replaced it, but the old door stayed in the garage. Every time they passed it, there it was, a reminder.

Last weekend the dad finally took it out, cut it into twenty pieces, and threw it away. He described the anger he felt as he sawed through it, anger toward the drugs, the chaos, the years of pain, and the release when it was gone. The mom shared her relief, wishing the pain itself could leave as easily as that broken door.

Other parents nodded. They had their own reminders: a hole in drywall, car accidents, even a Christmas gift tied to a painful memory. Objects that carried more weight than they should. We all had something.

There wasn't time for me to share, but I thought of several examples in our home.

Between our front door and the powder room, there's a small dent in the wall. Probably no one else notices it, but I see it every time I walk by. I remember the slam that made it. The door shouldn't have been able to hit the wall, but somehow it did. And it left a mark.

That dent is still there. But the memory it stirred went back even further than the addiction. It pulled me back almost thirty years.

When my mother died, I was newly married. I got the call to come to her house. An ambulance was on the way. I had been making dinner. She was supposed to come over. A pot of water was boiling on the stove.

I turned it off quickly and ran out the door.

When I came home later, grief pressed so heavy I couldn't put the pot away. So it stayed there. Day after day. It sounds strange now, but at the time it made sense. If I left it there, maybe she'd still come for dinner.

I can still see it, exactly where it sat. About a week later, someone kindly tidied up and put it away. I remember feeling upset. It meant she was really gone. But of course, the pot was never going to bring her back.

Years later, when my loved one went to treatment for the first time, I redecorated his room during those thirty days. I deeply cleaned it, tossing out the evidence of his use. New carpet, new furniture, fresh walls, new hope. I thought if it looked perfect, maybe everything else would be too.

During COVID, I turned the basement into a sanctuary. I wanted it to be safe, peaceful, his own space. Instead, it became the place where he used. Later, I redecorated that too, this time into a quiet office with inspirational signs and AA slogans. It helped, but it didn't erase the past.

We do this. We hold onto objects because we can't hold onto people. We put our hope into walls and furniture and pots left on stoves because those are things we can control. We can paint them. We can fix them. We can leave them right where they are and pretend that keeping them means keeping something else.

But the broken door wasn't about the wood. And the pot wasn't about my mother. They were about us, about the ways we try to hold on, the ways we try to fix what can't be fixed.

I still see the dent in my wall. I don't know if I'll ever repair it. Maybe I don't need to.

Because what I know now is this: recovery doesn't live in painted rooms, redecorated basements, or objects we can't let go of. It lives in the slow, hard work of acceptance. It lives in learning that love isn't the same as fixing, and that hope isn't the same as certainty.

The dent is still there. I walk past it every day. But I don't see it the same way anymore. It isn't a reminder of what broke. It's a reminder of where we were, and how far we've come.