Drug Addiction - The Truth
I'm about to get very open and honest about drug addiction. Some of what I say may offend some people, but I hope by the end of this you'll be educated. Drug addiction is a disease HOWEVER it is a disease that is chosen. Drug addicts choose this sickness every time they pick up a pill or a needle.
My mother is a drug addict - so is my father. There are three things you need to know about drug addicts, 1. they are selfish 2. what they are doing is a choice and 3. the more drugs they do the more they become someone unrecognizable. My mom has done drugs since I can remember. She started off with pills - mostly Oxys and then she progressed to hard drugs - her favorite being Meth. The first thing you need to know is that despite my mothers hardships of having a violently abusive husband she still chose a path of destruction by taking drugs. I love my mother, and I always will love my mother but I do not make excuses for her.
My mother had every reason to want to escape her life. Her husband beat her until she had broken ribs, he beat her down physically and emotionally. However she also had every reason not to do drugs. Two beautiful children who loved her and needed her, two loving parents willing to do anything to get her out of her situation and multiple other family members who would have given anything to help her. She had every opportunity in the world to choose differently yet she still chose drugs. She chose to pop pills which turned her into a zombie who didn't feed her children. She chose to take too much Oxy which made her angry and so she beat her children. She chose to destroy who she was and what life she had because she'd rather get high. That is both selfish and pathetic.
As a child I watched my mother sleep with random men for money, I watched her stick needles in her arm, pop pills like tic tacs, and pass out in her own filth. Eventually she got so bad that she didn't feed us, she didn't care for us, and she didn't want us. We became resources that she could use instead of children that she gave birth to. My mom eventually became something other than my mom. For a while my whole family fought the addiction like a war. We would throw her in rehab, we would tell her how it made us feel, we would take the drugs away - nothing we did mattered. We gave her every chance and yet she got worse. So many times we blamed ourselves - maybe if we had done something sooner about Jaime her abusive husband...Maybe we could have put her in a better rehab facility...maybe maybe maybe. But the truth of the matter is nothing we could of done would have mattered because my mom didn't want to change. She wanted to take drugs - she didn't need them, they just helped her cope and instead of facing her problems she drowned them with needles and bottles.
"Drugs take you to hell, disguised as heaven"
Here is why I say drug addicts are not helpless. If you can choose to pick up a needle and stick it in your arm you can choose not to pick that needle up. It won't be as easy but it can still be accomplished. There are plenty of addicts who decide one day to not pick up the needle - and they will tell you that it was the hardest decision of their life. They will tell you that everyday they think about how easy it would be to go back to using, and yet the choose not to. Life is hard. Life throws things at us that we can't understand - it fucks with our heads and hearts. Trust me I know - because like my mom I was beaten by my father, I was sexually abused by the one person who was meant to protect me. Growing up with my parents, dealing with the shit that way my life it would have been so easy to start taking pills or drinking away my issues. And I won't sit here and say that I didn't try because I definitely did. The difference is that I realized that doing drugs wasn't going to help me, in fact all it would do is hurt those around me that I loved. I would become just like my mother and father people I despised. I chose to live through the hell and appreciate the good times. People do it everyday and those people are the ones who are really having a hard time.
The sober people who deal with their tragedies with an open mind, the tortured souls who don't find solace in the bottom of a bottle. Drug addicts - they have it easy because they aren't dealing with life. The flip side is they don't get to appreciate the beautiful moments either. The birth of a child, falling in love, watching their child graduate. They can't appreciate those moments because they haven't ever dealt with the hardships.
Those of us who have someone in our life with an addiction problem need to understand that there is nothing we can do to help our loved ones unless they want help. You cannot fight their war, you cannot change them, and you damn sure can't control them. They are selfish and will use you until there is nothing left. My family did everything we could for my mom and for a long time I thought "she's my mom I can't just give up on her." Until one day I realized my mom did not see me as her child. My mother once told me she never wanted me, she never asked for us and I realized she was no longer my mother. She would never tell me she loved me and truly mean it, she would never be there for me, and she didn't care. All she cared about was how to get her next high. It was all about her escaping life. I decided at that moment that I wanted to live. I wanted to live through the shit and the great times. I wanted to experience every tragedy fully because then I could prove that you can. I could prove that we don't need drugs to escape the hardships - I could prove that its better to feel all of the pain in the world than to run away from everything you loved.
So to those of you who are dealing with someone with an addiction issues I'll say this - remember that they choose this path, remember that to them drugs are the only thing that matters. Every sob story they give you is an excuse to try and not be judged. And you can try and help them, and I encourage you to do so but only to the point where you aren't giving up your life. Don't sacrifice your well being for theirs because they won't care. If you've done your best and they still choose drugs then its time to walk away. Its time to let go of them because they've already let go of you.
-Much love
Maggie V
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