Welcome to Moms for All Paths to Recovery's New Blog!

I’m Kathleen Cochran, the mother of a person who uses drugs, and the founder of Mom’s for All Paths to Recovery (MAP).  

I’ve started this blog so that we can expand on the information we share in our Facebook group, and spread the word to moms who are not yet in our Facebook community, are not able to access Facebook, or just want to take a deeper dive into the work we are doing each week.  

Thanks for reading Moms For All Paths to Recovery (MAP)! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

In this first post, I’d like to share with you about why I started the group and how we work together as moms to educate ourselves and each other so that we can best support our children in whatever path they choose to recover. 

I started the group in 2020 because there isn’t any single source that moms can go to to get evidence based information and research about addiction.  Previously, I had been getting my information from support groups for moms.  Most of that information was just horrible. 

I was told to practice “tough love.”  I was called an enabler, told that I had codependency issues, and even told to kick my daughter out.  Some people even said that I was literally killing my child by giving her money because she might buy drugs and overdose.  Everything I heard in those groups went against my mother’s heart.  As I learned more, I found out that the advice I was getting also goes against the best evidence on what works to help people recover.  So I wanted to get the most reliable information out there to other moms who are struggling.  

I’ve spent the last six years unlearning what I had been taught, and it’s been hard.  I want to make it easier for other mothers.  That’s how I found myself learning about harm reduction and starting to practice it with my own daughter.  And she’s still here.  I don’t love the phrase, “You can’t recover if you’re dead,” but it’s true.  I’m for every path that helps anyone stay alive and get a little better. 

Why I started a group for mothers 

I have a passion for mothers.  I am one, and with no disrespect to other parents, I’ve noticed that mothers just seem to get things done.  We are excellent communicators, we’re organized, and I just knew that they feel things at a different level as it relates to their children.  When your child is hurting, you try to take their pain away.  If your child is sick, you try to help them get better.  You don’t throw them out.  That’s the complete opposite of our instinctual nature.  That mother-child relationship is really unconditional, unlike almost every other relationship in our child’s life.  Almost every other relationship will come with some conditions, but that’s not true when it comes to mother and child.  While some people have not been able to have this relationship of unconditional love with their mother, my hope is that the information MAP can provide can support all moms is providing unconditional love to their children when they need it most. 

As the group grew, I felt it was important to add experts in the field of addiction, so I recruited some of the best.  Then as I learned more, the phrase “nothing about us without us” began to really resonate with me, so I added more people who use drugs.

Countering all the misinformation

There’s so much misinformation out there, and we have to approach it delicately when new members come in with the old, stigmatizing language and thinking.  Sometimes new members will make posts using language like “addict” that we avoid, and we want to educate them and keep them in the group.  So we point them to one of our online guides that talks about the importance of person-first language.  I’ve asked, “Would you refer to your child as an addict if they were in an ER and you wanted them to get the best care?”  We never tell people what to do, but we try to provide them with the information that can help them make their own decisions about how to best help their children. 

We focus on education, not arguments

There are some people who believe that medications for Opioid Use Disorder (OUD)  are just trading one drug for another.  Evidence has demonstrated time and time again that Medication Assisted Treatment (MAT) is the most effective, safest way to help people move away from dangerous use of opioids, so we try to educate about that.  Our admins work really hard to avoid arguments and to make the conversations productive and educational but we find that issue is sometimes controversial. 

There are also conversations that come up when someone says, “I’m not going to let my child use drugs in my home.”  We ask, “Why can’t your child come home?” because we are always trying to help people avoid sending their children out on the streets.  We make suggestions from our own lived experience.  For example, if there are young children at home and you don’t feel it’s safe for your child to use there, is there a relative they can stay with?  Can you rent a room?  I once had my daughter living in a tent in my backyard while her brother was younger, but I made sure she had a place to live that was safe and some dignity, like a place to take a shower.  It’s so important that we prevent our children from becoming unhoused.  Once your child hits the streets it’s gonna be pretty tough to get them back, and you can be pretty sure things will get worse, not better.  Moms have been told that letting their child use drugs at home is enabling, but if they’re going to use drugs, they’re going to use drugs.  Our goal is to help moms keep their children safe. 

We have differences of opinion among members who feel that abstinence is the only way to go and those of us who believe in harm reduction.  Again, we try to educate, not argue.  We point to the resources we have, but at the end of the day our goal is to keep everyone in the group and keep on providing the best information we can. 

I struggled for years - I want to make it easier for other moms 

We get real, evidence-based information out to moms who need it and don’t have time to do all the research themselves.  We provide a place where moms can educate themselves to better help their children, instead of being shamed for doing anything to take care of them.  I struggled with misinformation for many years, and I want other moms to have access to the information I didn’t have.  I work full time so I can’t be boots on the ground, but I can be boots behind the keyboard!

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Thanks for reading Moms For All Paths to Recovery (MAP)! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.