COMPASSIONATE GUIDANCE SINCE 2006
When loving your child through addiction leaves you afraid and unsure what to do next.
If your teen or adult child is struggling with addiction, you may feel exhausted, afraid, and unsure what to do next—trying to support them while quietly wondering, “Am I helping, or am I making things worse?”
- WHO THIS IS FOR -
At Sharing With Out Shame, parents move from fear and uncertainty toward informed, empowered action.
This is not about abandoning your child, using shame, or pretending everything is okay. It is about learning how to love your child while setting healthy boundaries, protecting your peace, and making decisions that support responsibility rather than chaos.
Compassionate Support
Guided by someone with both lived experience and professional training. You will be met with understanding, not judgment.
Evidence-Iinformed Approach
Guidance informed by CRAFT, harm reduction, addiction education, and practical family-recovery strategies.
Practical Tools
Clear strategies for boundaries, communication, difficult decisions, and protecting your peace.
You're not alone — and you're not the only parent who feels this way.
When your child is in active addiction, your whole life can begin to revolve around them. You may find yourself answering the phone at all hours, paying bills, giving money, trying to prevent the next crisis, or walking on eggshells just to keep the peace.
You may be asking:
Am I helping—or am I taking responsibility away from my child?
How do I set a boundary without feeling cruel?
What if I say no and something bad happens?
How do I stop living in fear?
How do I support my child without losing myself?
These questions are painful, but they are also common. Donna provides parents with practical tools to better understand their role, recognize their choices, and take healthier next steps.
DONNA'S APPROACH
Love your child without letting
fear, guilt, or chaos make every decision.
Through Sharing With Out Shame®, Donna provides parents loving a teen or adult child through addiction
with practical tools, compassionate guidance, and clear next steps for the difficult decisions they face.
01
Understand What Is Really
Happening
Addiction affects the whole family. Donna provides parents with the tools to recognize and change the patterns that keep them stuck in shame, guilt, and fear.
02
Stop Unhealthy Helping
Many parents act from love. Donna teaches you how to recognize when loving support begins to take responsibility away from your child.
03
Create Boundaries That
Support Change
Healthy boundaries are not punishment. They are clear, loving limits that protect your peace and encourage personal responsibility.
— WHAT CHANGES
Find your footing again — even before your child is ready.
Donna provides parents with practical tools, clear language, and compassionate guidance to move from fear and uncertainty toward healthier boundaries, calmer conversations, and a more peaceful home.
Calm over chaos
Recognize what is driving your decisions so you can respond more calmly and intentionally.
Boundaries that hold
Create clear, loving boundaries that protect your peace and encourage personal responsibility.
Love without losing yourself
Stay connected to your child while honoring your own needs, limits, and emotional well-being.
Freedom from shame
Release the guilt and shame that keep you stuck in unhealthy family patterns.
Healthier family patterns
Understand what belongs to you, what belongs to your child, and what needs to change within the family.
Renewed hope
Begin moving forward with greater confidence, healthier choices, and renewed hope for your family.
— MEET DONNA
Donna Marston—a mother who learned to let love, not fear, guide her decisions.
Donna is a wife, mother of two adult sons, published author, speaker, recovery coach, certified recovery support worker, harm reduction trainer, and founder of Families & Parents Sharing Without Shame. As a mother, she knows the heartbreak, fear, and deep love that come with supporting a child through addiction.
For years, Donna tried to rescue, control, and protect her son. Eventually, she learned that love alone was not enough. She had to learn how to set boundaries, stop unhealthy helping, and take responsibility for her own healing — without guilt or shame.
Today, Donna guides parents who feel overwhelmed and unsure whether the way they are responding is supportive or unintentionally harmful. Through workshops, courses, private sessions, books, and the Sharing With Out Shame® podcast, she provides parents with practical tools to regain balance—even when their child is not ready to change.
- Recovery Support
- CRAFT Trained
- Published Author
Harm Reduction
Family Recovery Support
Podcast Host
Free Guide
Is the way you’re supporting your child helping—or hurting?
You have begged, rescued, paid the bills, and walked on eggshells - yet nothing seems to change.
Donna's free guide, 5 Boundaries & Breakthroughs, gives you compassionate boundary strategies to help stop the chaos, protect your peace, and support your child without losing yourself in the process.
- Ways to Work With Donna -
Every family is different.
Begin where it feels right.
Whether you need private guidance, practical education, or tools you can use at your own pace, Donna provides several ways to begin.
Private Consultation
Meet privately with Donna for compassionate guidance, a clearer understanding of what is happening, and practical next steps for you and your family.
Best for: Parents who want personalized guidance for a difficult decision, boundary, or family situation.
Workshops & Courses
Learn practical tools for boundaries, communication, unhealthy helping, and family recovery in a guided educational setting.
Best for: Parents who want structure, education, and practical steps they can begin using right away.
Books & Journals
Donna’s books provide parents with practical guidance, real stories, daily encouragement, and reflective exercises for navigating addiction in the family.
Best for: Parents who want practical support they can return to again and again.
Free Community Support
Join a private community of parents who understand the fear, hope, and complexity of loving a teen or adult child through addiction.
Best for: Parents who want connection, shared understanding, and a reminder that they are not alone.
— THE LIBRARY
Books for parents and families facing addiction.
Donna’s books are written for parents and family members affected by a loved one’s addiction or early recovery. Each offers a different kind of guidance—from education and personal stories to daily reflections and guided healing exercises.
Sharing Without Shame
A heartfelt guide for parents and families who have someone struggling with addiction. Real stories, education, coping tools, and reassurance that you are not alone.
Peeling The Onion
A deeper dive to uncover the layers that keep parents stuck in pain, guilt, fear, and unhealthy patterns. Begin the process of healing and self-discovery.
Just for Today
A daily reflections book with 365 days of encouragement, wisdom, and hope for parents living through the emotional rollercoaster of addiction.
Healing Without Shame Journal
A guided journal designed to help you identify emotions, recognize patterns, work through old wounds, and build greater self-awareness.
— STORIES FROM FAMILIES —
Parents have found guidance,
hope, and strength here.
Donna has saved our family. I went to my first meeting broken, desperate, and afraid.
— Paula Stolberg
Parent, Sharing Without Shame Community
Donna's empathy, guidance, and encouragement can help you set healthy boundaries and establish the right behaviors that may actually help your loved one enter recovery.
— Ginger Ross
Parent, Sharing Without Shame Community
You helped educate me and my family. You taught us so much about boundary setting, how we can't save someone who is not ready, manipulation, tricks of the substance user. I never lost hope because of the group
— Paula S
Parent, Sharing Without Shame Community
COMMUNITY
You are not alone anymore.
One of the hardest parts of loving someone through addiction is feeling like no one understands. Donna’s free Families Sharing With Out Shame® community gives parents a place to connect with others who understand the fear, grief, hope, and strength this journey requires.
You can love your child
without losing yourself.
You do not have to keep living in chaos, guilt, and fear. You can learn to set healthy boundaries, make more informed decisions, and find peace again—even when your child is not ready to change. Donna will meet you where you are and provide practical guidance for your next step.
Compassionate guidance and practical tools for parents loving a teen or adult child through addiction—without shame, fear, or judgment.
Explore
About Donna
The Approach
Support & Tools
Books & Journals
© 2026 Sharing With Out Shame®. All rights reserved.
Sharing With Out Shame® is a federally registered trademark of Donna Marston.
Terms