You Too

When a new family calls Woodhaven, I can usually hear it within the first few minutes. The exhaustion is there. The fear is there. But underneath all of that, there is something quieter and heavier. The isolation.

They have been getting advice. So much advice. Set a curfew. Make them get a job. Try tough love. Try gentle love. Take away the car. Ground them. Kick them out. Let them hit bottom. Do not let them hit bottom.

None of it works because none of it recognizes the actual power of addiction.

These families have been living in a world where the old rules no longer apply. Where normal parenting advice lands like instructions for a different child, a different life, a different family. They have been nodding politely while neighbors and relatives offer solutions that worked for them. Sometimes even professionals offer guidance that has nothing to do with the reality in front of them.

They feel completely alone.

And then they come to a family group. Someone lowers their voice and says with shame, "I used to hide the keys and my wallet and everything else before I went to bed." The rest of us nod. We smile gently. Of course you did. Many of us did too.

Oh. You too.

It is a small sentence, but it breaks open the silence.

The world makes sense again. Not because anything has been fixed, but because they are no longer the only ones. The isolation softens. They find people who understand that this is not about curfews or jobs or willpower. People who know what it costs to keep breathing through this. They feel understood instead of judged. That alone helps more than anyone expects.

The boys who walk through our doors carry their own version of that same isolation.

Many of them tell us they always felt different. Like everyone else understood something they did not. Like they were on the outside looking in at a world they were supposed to belong to but never quite reached. The constant sense of being observed and measured. The fear that someone would realize they were not enough. The ache of never fitting anywhere.

Substances made that feeling go away. For a while, drugs and alcohol created a place where the disconnection did not hurt so much. Where someone else seemed to understand. Where they felt like they finally belonged, even if that belonging was slowly hurting them.

Then they come into a room full of other teenage boys and that old feeling returns. I do not fit. I am different. Everyone can see it.

Except this time, they are surrounded by others who have felt the same thing.

They hear their own story coming from someone else's mouth. They see other boys who also felt out of place, who also tried to quiet the pain, who also thought they were the only ones. And gradually, they begin to believe they might not be as different as they feared.

That is when acceptance becomes possible. Not before.

You cannot face hard truths in isolation. You cannot look honestly at your past, your disease, your choices, or your pain when you are alone with it. But when you are held by people who have looked at the same truths and survived, something opens. When you realize you are not the only one carrying this weight, you can finally start to face what is real.

This is what happens in our circles of parents and boys who tell the truth beside one another. Not a program. Not a lesson. A community.

I watch parents' shoulders drop. I hear their voices shift. They say things they have been afraid to say anywhere else because here, at last, someone understands.

I watch boys do the same thing. They stop pretending. They stop performing. They begin to speak honestly about what it feels like inside their own minds.

That is the light we look for. Not the surface light of insisting everything is fine. Not the imaginary light of a future where none of this ever happened. The real light that comes from being known. The light that grows when connection replaces isolation.

There are others living this same story. Others who understand without explanation. Others who will not offer advice that does not fit your life. When you find them, the ground steadies. The world softens. The truth becomes easier to hold.

Oh. You too.

Sometimes that is all it takes to begin.