I steal my mother’s prescription tablets and then drive her to appointments

Dear Delyara, My mother has chronic pain and is prescribed medication I used to abuse years ago. Everyone believes I have been in recovery for six years. At first, I never touched her tablets. Then one day I took two. Now I remove a few every refill and tell myself she never uses the full amount anyway. Yesterday, she told her doctor the medication seems to run out early. I sat beside her and suggested maybe the pharmacy had miscounted. I heard my own voice offering the lie and wanted to leave my body. Mum defended me years ago when addiction made the rest of the family stop trusting me. She drove me to treatment. She locked medications away because I asked her to. Now she is older, slower, trusting me again, and I am stealing from the same woman who once searched my bedroom trying to keep me alive. I drove her home after the appointment. She patted my knee and said, “I don’t know what I’d do without you.” There were three of her pills in my pocket.