This is seriously ONLY the tiniest snapshot of young people who have crossed the threshold of my home & life over the years:
A teenage boy whose Father was an alcoholic. His Mother tried to run him over with her car.
A young man whose Father was an alcoholic, and when he came home drunk, he would wake him and his brother and make them fight each other when they were just toddlers so he could watch. Their Mother wasn’t strong enough to stop the madness because her soul had been manipulated than obliterated by their alcoholic Father.
A young girl whose Mother was an alcoholic often passed out and unresponsive. The child would clean up the aftermath. Her parents were divorced and her Father lived elsewhere.
The son of an alcoholic Mother, this man suffered depression, and died of the disease himself.
You get the point. Every single one of these people were struggling one way or another with either drug addiction, depression, alcoholism, risky behavior and some even attempted suicide. I have listened to each of their stories, and lived through it with some of them. This doesn’t make me an expert on addictions, behaviors, or mental health issues. However, what it did do over time was help me to understand the bigger picture, the whys and the hows, and the impact of what a dysfunctional childhood and/or mental illness can lead to. In addition, I learned about improper dispensing of medication, over medication, ill-supervised dispensing of medication that led to mental breaks, horrific withdraw, or worse mortality.
That knowledge also led me to the avoid ignorant and judgmental people. An example of this is I attended a dinner party and the conversation veered to a recent rash of suicides. One of the other guests made a very harsh comment that she has no use for even trying to process how a person could get to that low mental state, it’s ridiculous, and she doesn’t care to ever understand it, change the subject. I always say blessed be those whose lives are not touched by any of this and never have to achieve any level of having to understand. I only gravitate towards people of genuine caliber now, especially devoted Mothers that possess empathy and desire for understanding versus ignorance and judgment.
Depression, alcoholism, heroin addiction, mental health issues are within every day people walking beside you-
A co-worker, a young businessman commuting into the city, a policeman, a famous sports figure, a teacher, a doctor, a parent, a child, a sibling, a best friend…. addictions and mental health issues have no one target group. It’s all-encompassing as we’ve experienced so abundantly in our lives and through the media.
This is a precursor to a Heroin Addict’s story. The young man who wrote it asked me to assign him a ghost writer name. Speculate all you want because it doesn’t matter at this point. I’m sure he and his family felt shamed enough over the years, but sadly they have plenty of company and support groups now that heroin addiction has reached a crisis level. They certainly do not stand alone. Heroin addiction destroys lives every single day. What this family didn’t know through their years of despair was they’d be the fortunate ones because their former addict is alive and will most likely be an advocate for helping others overcome heroin addiction. A pearl in the oyster so to speak – imagine that.
In conclusion, we all may play a key role in someone’s life who is struggling. We can love them, guide them towards the resources that can help heal them, be an ever-present source of strength, BUT we cannot walk their path for them. I’ve learned this the hard way too many a time. None of us have the power to heal what ails another’s body and soul. They have to want it, do it, and change their course.
So, to my dear friend who was forced to incorporate “tough love” with her drug addicted daughter, bless you. You loved enough. You did enough. You sacrificed enough trying to help make her whole. It takes more unconditional love to walk away. It’s her journey. Don’t let anyone tell you different.
The Word According to Be Hoxie (Hok-see) 