The Son Also Rises –

January 9, 2020 – Over the next few years, her son’s addiction got worse and her friends and faith community pulled away. She wrote the book The Story Lives, about leading a Christian life, which was published in 2012. Schapelhouman organized a book club to talk about her book. 

They met at a coffee shop, and six women showed up. First, they went around the circle sharing their stories — Schapelhouman first. “Part of my story is that my son Harrison has wandered into addiction,” Schapelhouman remembers she said. “He’s on the streets and I’m praying for him daily.” It turned out that the other book club members could relate. Other women chimed in, saying, “Me too.” Four of the six women were mothers of someone addicted to heroin; a fifth had two brothers who had a substance use disorder. “If it weren’t so serious, it was almost funny that we were all there together. What were the odds?” asked book club member Terri Bowman. “We felt it was truly God that brought us all together to process through this.” The group of women felt they had done their best to raise their children in a safe environment, with church, Christian schools, and healthy boundaries, Schapelhouman said.

“Suddenly, one day you wake up and your child is the opposite of anything you’d ever imagined; has become a criminal, an addict, a liar, a thief,” she said. “So our shared experience in so many ways was, ‘How did we get here? How does this even happen to us?’”

@OPB