Working Mothers and Substance Abuse

The other day I was listening to the NPR news show "Here and Now". One of the discussions dealt with mothers who work, raise children, take care of the family and have some form of substance abuse. The central theme was the fact these mothers don't fit the stereotypical substance abuse victim. They don't go to bars and drink, they don't go home and use (alcohol or drugs) while doing chores. What made them different was when they abused a substance. Many times a mother would drink or use when she took the children out shopping, to the park ( I heard the term 3 martini outing for the first time during this discussion) or when the children went to bed after all the household chores were done.
One of the many discussion points I found interesting was the fact that many of these mothers never believed they were abusing some from of drug or alcohol nor did they feel there was any harm in what they were doing. All of the mothers interviewed were in some from of rehab or had been in rehab usually by court order because they got caught either driving or were involved in some type of crash or altercation with their children that got law enforcement involved.
When the mothers were in rehab, many of them were able to bring their children to the sessions. Brining the children seemed to increase the success rate of the rehab and make the mother aware of the potential consequences of her substance abuse. The biggest factor appears to be the taking away of one's child. Many children called law enforcement toturn thier mothers in because they were afraid thier mother would hurt herself or them by getting in and accident. Most of the children seemed to think turning thier mother in and going to rehab with her was good for the family unit and seemed to help the mother get her life back on track.
One of the mothers interviewed for the show states she thinks about the potential loss of her children if she relapses and that is what keeps her sober. She also stated she having her children attend rehab with her gave them the tools they need to not make the same mistakes she made with substance abuse.
This discussion made me think of the discussions we have had in class about how children react and rebound from bad things. A centeral point of the discussion was the number of children who were involved with either turning the mother in to authorities or taking part in the rehab. Children certainly are resilient! Overall it struck me how the children had adapted to thier mothers substance abuse and, more importantly, how well they readjusted to their mother when she was done with rehab and living a different life.