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Why Can't I Fix It?: The Questions We Ask When We Love Someone with Addiction - Paperback | Diverse Reads

Why Can't I Fix It?: The Questions We Ask When We Love Someone with Addiction

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Why is this happening? How do you care for yourself and your family? If you are struggling with a loved one’s addiction you are not alone. A compassionate resource for anyone stuck between a rock and a hard place.

When Rev. Nathan Detering shared the story of his brother’s death from a drug overdose with the members of his congregation, many of them shared their own addiction stories with him. Realizing the healing power of sharing stories and questions in community, Rev. Detering conducted interviews to identify and address the common questions that haunt us when we love someone with addiction. In conversations both within and outside his community, he heard the palpable need for those struggling with a loved one’s addictions to know they are not alone.

Weaving together his own and others’ deeply felt experiences of addiction, Why Can’t I Fix It? responds to sometimes desperate questions such as: Why is this happening? What can you do? What can’t you do? How do you care for yourself and the rest of your family? Can you trust your community to support you and your family? While the answers to these questions aren’t easily found, Why Can’t I Fix It? encourages those of us who are struggling with a loved one’s addictions to practice self-care and self-compassion, understand the cultural context for emotional responses and expectations of ourselves and others, and reach out for support.

ISBN-13: 9781558968981

Media Type: Paperback

Publisher: Unitarian Universalist Association

Publication Date: 06-06-2023

Pages: 120

Product Dimensions: 5.00(w) x 7.00(h) x 0.40(d)

Nathan Detering serves as the senior minister of the Unitarian Universalist Area Church at First Parish in Sherborn, Massachusetts, a position he has held since 2003. His passions in ministry include sustaining one’s ministry without overworking or over-functioning; writing for pew, pulpit, and public square; and mentoring students. Prior to seminary, Rev. Detering served for two years as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Grenada, West Indies. He lives in Holliston, Massachusetts, with his family.

Read an Excerpt

“I must confess that researching, interviewing for, and writing this book has been harder than I was prepared for. The stories I have heard brought back memories and resurfaced feelings I thought I had reckoned with or didn’t even know I had. The perspectives I heard from people outside my community have revealed to me just how much my and my congregation’s response to addiction has been shaped by whiteness and privilege. Much like the journey of companioning our loved ones in addiction crisis, the creation of this book has been a raw process marked with fresh sadness and fresh hurt. But it has also brought fresh hope.

Not long after Nick died, a friend shared with me a line from Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms: ‘The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places.’ Addiction has broken so many families within our congregations and communities. It certainly broke mine. This book is about reckoning with that breakage, and then leaning into the work of helping the families in our communities get stronger at our broken places. I am glad that my Unitarian Universalist theology and spiritual practices can help us. In our congregation we light our chalice, we share our prayers of sorrow and joy, we come together in community to help us hold hope, we practice being the people the world and families need, we seek to establish the kingdom of Heaven here in this life instead of pinning our hopes on some other life, and we affirm that no one is beyond the reach of God’s love. Whether you are a member of my faith, of another, or of none, I hope that you too will find healing and hope in these pages.”

Table of Contents

Introduction

  1. Why Is This Happening?
  2. The Differences Racial Identity Makes
  3. What Can You Do?
  4. What Can’t You Do?
  5. What about You?
  6. What about the Rest of Your Family?
  7. Come out of Hiding, Come into Community: A Family Testimony

Conclusion

Recovery and Support Programs

Acknowledgments