The Addiction Plague

Another story in the news today. Another celebrity loses their struggle against addiction. It is tragic. It made the news because this was a face well known in Hollywood, but there are many faces not so well known that lost their struggle today as well. Today, yesterday, the day before, the weeks, months, years, decades & centuries before. This epidemic is not new. It didn't just pop up in 2014. Maybe some of the drugs are new, but isn't that just a new strain of the same virus? There will always be something consuming the lives that dare to dabble in its elusive proposition because there will always be those willing to dare.

I am grateful that my worst addiction was tobacco & that over 12 years later I have no desire to indulge in just one drag. None. Well now, that isn't true. There have been a few days when the choice not to smoke wasn't automatic, but as quickly as I desired it I was disgusted by that desire. It's difficult for the 33 year old version of me to believe there was once a version of me that actually enjoyed smoking. What a silly girl she was. Girl. I was 12 when I had my first cigarette & 21 when I quit for the last time.

More than that, I am grateful that a mixture of fear & common sense, but mostly fear, kept me from trying anything harder than tobacco, alcohol & marijuana. I'm almost 34 & still afraid of pain pills. I had to take vicodin after a tooth extraction once & those 18 pills still weren't all gone a year & a half later. In fact, I think that pain pills may scare me the most. They seem to be the answer for most pains, especially those that aren't easily explained. Here's a prescription for the pain...hopefully it'll be gone when these are. Maybe it works. Maybe it doesn't. Maybe by the time the pain is bearable there's a new pain that can only go away with more of those pills, but they cost so much. Heroin is cheaper. Let's try that. BAM! Now you've got the girl with golden eyes seducing her way into your arms every night. This is why pain pills scare me more than heroin. AND I NEVER EVER wanted anything to do with heroin. (Or meth, or coke, or crack...any of it.)

I watched heroin & meth tear down good people. Some lost everything. Some lost everything & then their life. Some lost everything for a while & hopefully will be able to rebuild their lives & stay clean for the remainder of their days. It is their choice to make. That future is theirs if they choose it. They can choose to live or they can choose addiction. Either way, it is theirs exclusively. No one can decide for them. No one can fix them. No one can be their fix. If they want life, they have to wake up & take life everyday. They will never not be an addict. They will be an addict who chooses sobriety...everyday...for the rest of their life. It might become a choice they make automatically, but there will be days they are tested, there will be things that trigger that old habit. The triggers might be subtle like a song, they might be brutal like the loss of someone dear to their heart or they might be in their face like an offer by someone in the clutches of addiction. Whatever the spark, only they can decide to smother or ignite it.

These people walk among you everyday. Maybe you know their story. Maybe you don't. Could be you know their story because they trusted you to love them unconditionally, to know that telling you was the bravest step they've made aside from getting clean. But maybe you don't know because telling you would risk how you see them. You see them now as a functioning member of society...a good normal person...and they aren't sure you'll ever look at them the same once you know their truth. Will you? Will you look at them with compassion? Or will it be empathy, for your story is so parallel to theirs? Will you look to them with grace for all they have overcome & all they have yet to conquer? For most of us one or some of these will be true, but for some their frightening admission of this will forever change the way they are perceived by this person. That is why you may not know. The idea of that shift that could shatter it all is so terrifying it may haunt every new relationship be it business or personal, friendship or more. It could be the history of use or the behavior that ensued during that use which hinders their ability to come clean about being clean. Maybe it is both. 

Yet with that cross to bear, they are the lucky ones because they continue to have a choice. They still have another morning. Another chance. So many don't. They are gone. They paid the price with their life. Likely they left behind loved ones who couldn't save them. Who have questions that will never be answered & pain that cannot be cured. They are here relentlessly doubting the choices they made, wondering if they could have done more or why they didn't see it. Never fully understanding why.

Now as a mother I look at all this from one more perspective: How do I convince my daughter not to go down a path from which she may never return? Is there anything I can say that will guarantee her safety? Will ensure her immunity to this? No. Not a single thing. I can give her my reasons. I can show her examples. I can read her an article every.single.time. I come across one, but none of these things can stop her because ultimately it will be her decision. I won't be standing there to make it for her. I can only hope in my heart of hearts that she will choose life & not take the risk. That she will love herself enough to not become one of the Not Quite Dead. So I pray that when she gets to this bridge I've done all that I could to get her safely over. Unscathed & untouched by this all too common thief of life.

I don't think this is going to get my point across...

If you aren't familiar with Sixx A.M., start with The Heroin Diaries (the book) then listen to the CD. If you haven't read any blogs by I Want a Dumpster Baby, you might want to look her up on Facebook...you know if the links in here left you needing more of either one!