Do you know a parent who suffers from a drug or alcohol addiction? Do you know the affects that an addicted parent can have on a child?

Unfortunately, millions of children suffer every year simply from being the son or daughter of an addict. Children of addicted parents are the highest risk group of children to become alcohol and drug abusers due to both genetic and family environment factors. For most addicts, knowing that they have caused so much pain for their children is a huge source of guilt and regret.

Thankfully, there is hope...

Denena was raised in a Christian home with a good family. "I started running from God at a young age; I was always a rebellious child," Denena remembers. She found herself drinking and doing drugs beginning at the age of 11. When she was molested at the age of 14 the drugs and alcohol began to take hold. "After I was molested the alcohol and drugs started taking on a new purpose for me... it would just numb all of the pain."

Over the years she continued to steadily use drugs and alcohol, all the while her parents never knowing what was going on with their daughter. At 17 Denena was raped and became pregnant. She aborted the pregnancy and used drugs to again avoid and lessen the pain.

Denena was married, divorced and had a child before she began using crack at the age of 37. This particular drug took her on an immediate downward spiral; she was arrested right after she began using crack, she began going in and out of rehabilitation treatments and she and her daughter were soon forced to move back home with her parents.

Denena had a defining moment however when she relapsed yet again in January of 2008. Denena had already caused an extreme amount of damage to her family, but it was her 17 year old daughter, Kelli, that finally reached her. One day Denena went into her daughter's bedroom. "I was actually trying to figure out how to get more drugs when I went into Kelli's room and found her lying on the floor. She was just an empty vessel and looked so devastated. She looked up at me and she said 'What do I have to do to get your attention? Do I have to start cutting myself?' And, I thought, 'What am I doing to my baby?'"

She decided to put Kelli into counseling and was asked to attend one of the first counsel sessions along with her daughter. "I was still getting high at this point and the counselor told me that if I didn't get out of the house they were either going to take Kelli away through the Department of Children and Families or I had to leave. It was the first time Kelly really had an advocate. Kelli was sick and tired of living like this. That wake up call was a real bottom for me because I had never had the real threat of my daughter being taken away from me."

Denena's mother began looking for yet another treatment center while Denena was living on the streets since she could not live in the same house as her daughter.

Denena came to the Mission in May of 2008. The Waterfront Rescue Mission was her seventh treatment center. "I had a small flame of hope still in me or I wouldn't have been able to come here," Denena recalls.

Denena remembers exactly what it was like when she first came to the Mission, "Everyone was pouring their love on me and that's what gave me staying power. Being encouraged all the time, that was the polar opposite of what I had been living for the past few months. Then I just started listening and doing a lot of praying. I was amazed and impressed that the Mission had so many different classes I had never had before and everything started coming alive. I started getting really excited and passionate for God."

Although, she had left her daughter behind Denena knew she was in the right place when God began working on their relationship.

"The relationship that God restored between my daughter and I has been amazing. When you get in here you start realizing what's really important to you. I was devastated by thinking that she may never forgive me. But, I started getting cards and letters of encouragement from my daughter. And at my graduation she came and played a song for me on her violin. She played Amazing Grace."

Denena graduated from the Mission's Women's Recovery Program in November of 2008 and is now involved in the Missions field. She leaves in May of this year for Peru where she'll stay for 27 months to help build community mission churches.

Kelli recently graduated from high school summa cum laude and is in college now; she has received six scholarships on her own.

Children, just like Kelli, are often times the innocent victims of a parent who suffers from drug and alcohol abuse. It's because of your donations that Kelli is moving forward with her life and now has a mother that she knows she can count on to be there for her.

Will you help the next child who is calling out for help, just like Kelli did?

Donate Now to help others just like Denena!