Gavin Dixon's book is called The Devil: Diary of an Addict, Part One.
Part One. There is a Part Two coming. And somewhere in that gap — between the end of the descent and the beginning of what comes next — is where a lot of mothers live.
Not in the crisis. Not in the relief. In the in-between. The space where your child is still struggling, or maybe not as bad as they were, or maybe just different from how they were, and you are trying to figure out what to do with yourself now — with the hope and the fear and the exhaustion and the strange new landscape of not knowing what chapter you are in yet.
This is the final week of our series following Susan Laing through The Devil: Diary of an Addict. And this week, I want to sit in that in-between with her — and with every mother who knows exactly what I am talking about.
What the In-Between Actually Feels Like
People imagine that the worst part of having an addicted child is the crisis phase. The phone calls, the hospital visits, the acute terror. And those things are awful. I do not want to minimise them.
But the in-between can be its own particular kind of gruelling. Because:
- You have been in high alert for so long that you do not know how to lower it, even when things are calmer.
- You have been disappointed before. You know that better is not the same as recovered. So you cannot fully trust the better.
- You have reorganised your entire life around your child's crisis, and now you are not sure who you are outside of it.
- You are grieving — the years, the version of your child you imagined, the family you thought you would have.
- You are waiting. And waiting, when what you are waiting for is uncertain, is one of the hardest things there is.
Susan's account in the book captures this ambivalence with painful precision. The love does not disappear. The hope does not disappear. But they sit alongside something that is harder to name — a kind of low-grade vigilance, a part of her that has learned not to fully exhale because she has exhaled before and been wrong.
The Question Susan Had to Answer for Herself
At some point in the arc of this story, Susan had to answer a question that every mother in this situation eventually faces:
What does my life look like, separate from my child's recovery?
Not because she stopped caring about his recovery. Not because she withdrew her love or her presence or her willingness to show up. But because the alternative — a life entirely contingent on an outcome she could not control — was not sustainable. And was not, in the end, helping him either.
This is the hardest question in addiction parenting. Harder than the enabling question. Harder than the crisis management question. Because it asks you to hold two things at once: my child's wellbeing matters enormously to me AND my own life has value independent of what my child does.
Those two things are not in conflict. They feel like they are in conflict. They are not.
💜 Your life is not on pause until your child gets better. Your life is happening right now, today, in the middle of all of this. And it deserves to be lived — not perfectly, not joyfully every moment, but genuinely, as your own.
What Holding Hope Without Being Destroyed by It Looks Like
Here is the thing about hope in this context. Hope that is attached entirely to your child's recovery is fragile in proportion to how fragile their recovery is. Every setback destroys it. Every relapse is a catastrophe. Every piece of bad news lands like a verdict.
But hope that is also attached to something else — to your own life, your own capacity to heal, your own ability to find meaning even in this — is more durable. Not because you care less about your child. But because your hope has more than one root.
What does that look like in practice?
- It looks like keeping one thing that is yours — a friendship, a creative practice, a weekly walk — that you do regardless of what is happening with your child.
- It looks like getting your own support, not as a luxury but as a requirement.
- It looks like allowing yourself to experience joy without guilt. Because joy is not a betrayal of your child's suffering. It is evidence that you are still alive.
- It looks like celebrating small forward movements without making them mean more than they do. A good week is a good week. It is not proof that everything is resolved.
- It looks like knowing that Part Two is coming — not necessarily on your timeline, and not necessarily looking the way you imagined — but possible. Part Two is possible.
A Word About Susan and Gavin Writing This Together
The fact that this book exists — that Gavin and Susan wrote it together, that she agreed to have her voice and her truth on the page beside his — tells you something about where they are. Not that everything is resolved. Part Two has not been published yet. But that there is enough trust, enough healing, enough willingness to be honest with each other and with the world, to do this.
That did not happen overnight. That is the slow work of both of them — Gavin doing his recovery, Susan doing hers. Because she had her own recovery to do. Not from substance use, but from the aftermath of living inside someone else's addiction for years. From the trauma, the enabling, the grief, the relearning of what her relationship with her son could look like now.
That is Part Two. For both of them.
And if you are a mother still waiting for your Part Two: it is not too late. It is not finished yet.
💜 You have walked into hell with your child. You have stayed. You have loved through things that should not have to be survived. Whatever comes next — whatever Part Two looks like for you and your family — you will face it the same way you faced this: one impossible day at a time.
A Final Word for This Series
Over the past four weeks, we have followed Susan Laing through the stages of her son's descent — and her own journey alongside it. We have talked about:
- What a mother sees before anyone else does — and what she does with that knowledge.
- How love turns into enabling, and what it takes to understand and interrupt that cycle.
- What rock bottom looks like from the other side of it — the mother's side, the one nobody photographs.
- And today: the in-between, and what it asks of you to live there with both feet.
Thank you for being here. Thank you for having the courage to read these words — which means you are asking the questions, which means you have not given up, which means Part Two is still possible.
For Gavin and Susan. And for every mother and child who is still in the middle of their story.
The Devil: Diary of an Addict by Gavin Dixon and Susan Laing is available now on Amazon. This is Part One — the descent. Part Two is coming.
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Let's Talk
If you are between your child's Part One and Part Two — what keeps you going? And if you have made it to the other side: what do you want the mothers still waiting to know? Drop it in the comments. Your words might be exactly what someone needs today.
Disclaimer: Thrive Momma Coaching provides general education and coaching, not therapy, medical, or legal advice. If you or your child is in crisis, please contact a crisis line or emergency services. In Canada: Crisis Services Canada 1-833-456-4566 | ConnexOntario 1-866-531-2600.
