Still Standing After All the Tears: Putting Back the Pieces After All Hell Breaks Loose

by Valerie Silveira

"This is a must read for any parent or family member, who lives with a loved one's drug or alcohol addiction." In 2004, Valerie Silveira’s 18-year-old daughter was shot by her ex-boyfriend. Over the next decade, Jordan’s life spun further out of control and, as a result, Valerie’s plunged into darkness. She would face the heartbreaking reality that her daughter is a heroin addict, and the painful truth that she is powerless to save Jordan from her Drug Addiction Beast. Are you living with a Beast? They come in all shapes and sizes. Some arrive because of an alcoholic or addict in the family, abuse, abandonment, an accident or illness, loss, perfectionism, or something else. Many are a combination of two or more. A Beast is that situation, person, attitude, or circumstance that has left you lost, defeated, frustrated, angry, hopeless and helpless, or living in paralyzing fear. Our Beasts remind us of the past, keep us from living in the present, and fearful of the future. Beginning three years prior to the shooting, Valerie stepped onto what she calls the Roller Coaster from Hell. Her Codependent Enabler Beast rode it with her, but it would take Valerie nearly thirteen years to acknowledge the Beast that was slowly taking over her life. With a heart shattered into a million pieces, a broken family, health issues, financial hardship and depression, Valerie was giving up the hope of ever being happy again. Still Standing After All the Tears takes you on a journey through the agony and hopelessness of losing a child over and over again to drug addiction. Valerie shares her very painful and journey to battle her own two-headed Codependency Enabler Beast. This book will give hope to anyone living with any kind of Beast - that you too have what it takes to stand up and fight. She discovered the Nine Actions to Battle Your Beast that are helping countless others to stand up and fight; to put the pieces back together after all hell breaks loose.Nine Actions to Battle Your Beast 1. Decide to Stand Up & Fight 2. Get On Your Spiritual Armor 3. Put On Your Oxygen Mask 4. Build Your Circle of Strength 5. Change Your Attitude 6. Adjust Your Focus 7. Stop Being a Control Freak 8. Stand On Your Story 9. Make Meaning From the Madness Valerie has an incredibly relatable style and her sense of humor shows through the pain. This book is important not only for families of addicts or domestic abuse victims, but also for anyone struggling to move through or past a serious life situation. The Nine Actions to Battle Your Beast are the very actions that Valerie still uses today and that are helping others to stand up and reclaim their lives. If you are a mother of an addict or have a family member or loved one who is an addict, this book is for you. If your Beast has nothing to do with addiction, this book is still for you. No matter what Beast you have been living with, the Nine Actions to Battle Your Beast could mean the difference between living and really living. In August 2016, Jamie (whom I called Jordan in the book) was murdered. This time the Beast didn't knock on the door. It was more like a home invasion. He had me down on the mat, barely able to breathe. I really had to put these Actions to the test, and learn to stand again, with a hole in my heart. That is exactly what I did. I now carry my daughter's spirit with me as we go out into the world to make a difference.

292 pages, Paperback

First published February 6, 2015

About the author

Valerie Silveira writes stories about courage, hope, and purpose. She is the author of the Still Standing series and the creator of the Lubadoos universe, a magical world where young heroes discover the strength that was inside them all along.

Valerie lives in Phoenix with her husband, Rich, and believes the most powerful stories are the ones that remind us who we truly are.

Reviews

[Erin]

WOW! "Still Standing After All the Tears" is a heart wrenching true story about a mother and her daughters addiction. As I was reading the book I just wished I was able to hold the authors hand. I can't imagine the emotions throughout the time frame and the emotions that follow you. Valerie Silveira has an excellent writing style, all the chapters are concise and the book flows nicely making the book a joy to read. I will tell you even though this book is non fiction the first page had me curious about the rest of the book. Thank you Ms. Silveira for sharing your story, I know it couldn't have been easy to share, but know that you are helping thousands of people who are in the same situation as you because you wrote this book. What I liked most about this book was the fact that Silveira wasn't only sharing her story, but also showing you ways to cope and hopefully beat The Beast.
I would recommend this book to ANYONE, but especially someone that is going through, or has ever gone through addiction.
I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

[READER VIEWS]

STILL STANDING AFTER ALL THE TEARS

Valerie Silveira
Rockin’ Redhead Group (2015)
ISBN 9780986110405
Reviewed by Paige Lovitt for Reader Views (11/15)


“Still Standing After All the Tears” by Valerie Silveira was written to help empower readers to battle their “Beasts.” A beast is an aspect of something that occurs in our lives that leaves us feeling trapped and defeated. Beasts keep us stuck in the past and make it hard to move forward into the future. In many cases, a beast is created by an addict that is in our lives. In the author’s case, it was her daughter. Her daughter was a teen when her addictions began. Not only did she have to deal with her daughter being shot by an ex-boyfriend at 18 years of age, she also had to spend a decade watching her addiction spiral into heroin.

Silveira found herself battling a codependent enabler beast that she created in hopes of being able to help her daughter. As she progressed along this path, not only was her life put on hold, but it also affected the lives of her husband and son. Allowing her beast to control her life helped no one because her daughter continued to be an addict. Watching her daughter struggle to escape her addiction beast was heart wrenching, yet in the end Silveira realized that she had to battle her own beast so that she could move on with her life. While Silveira processed her own recovery, she developed a plan called, “Nine Actions to Battle Your Beast.” This plan will help guide any person who is dealing with addictive behavior and give them tools to get unstuck.

“Still Standing After All the Tears” by Valerie Silveira is written in such a way, that the reader will feel that they personally know the author by the time they are finished reading the book. As Silveira enlightens us on how to battle our own addictive behaviors, she also takes us into her world and shares the torment that she went through to get to the point where she knew she had to move on. The steps are very straightforward; it is the work that the reader will have to put into them that will be a bit more difficult, because it involves taking a hard look at yourself and acknowledging the areas of your life that need work. “Still Standing After All the Tears” is a wonderful tool to help empower you to recover from codependency or addiction so that you can move forward.

[Katie]

Still Standing After All The Tears is a powerful story of a mother’s struggle with remaining strong during her daughter’s struggle with addiction. The author found herself living a life she never expected, eventually realizing that she had become both an enabler to her daughter’s addiction (when her daughter would repeatedly hit bottom, she was always there to help her back up) and codependent (she found that her self worth was directly tied to being able to provide what help she could to the self destructive daughter). She realized that she in fact had hit her own rock bottom, finally gaining the insight that no matter what she did for her daughter, it wasn’t possible for her to truly save her from the addiction, that was up to the daughter herself. In this moment, the author chose to become stand up against her what she had become an enabler, and codependent, to rebuild her own life for herself and for her family. I think that this is a very strong story, and gives great insight into how it feels to love someone who you cannot save on your own, and how to build a strong and meaningful life even when dealing with such tragic circumstances. The author provides smart and insightful help on how to do the same in your own life, too.

[jennifer sclafani]

This is the very .best help I have ever received .

Reading this struggle , was like sitting with an old friend I haven't met yet . She writes from her heart and in between tears . I feel less alone in my child's heroin addiction .... be sure to have a box of tissues close by .

[Melanie]

Valerie is a very strong woman, she was pushed into the world of addiction because of her daughter's drug abuse. She enabled as most of us do until she said enough is enough. She started to stand up to her beast of enabling and now she encourages us to be stronger women and stand up to what ever beast if holding us down!