03/03/2024
Addicts don't want to be addicts.
Addicts don't want to die.
Addicts don't want to throw their lives away.
Addicts don't want their children to grow up without parents.
They just want to feel better.
They just want to feel normal.
They just want to stop feeling everything else for a little while.
Addicts are people, just like you and me.
Addicts come in all forms, dependent on many different things, drugs just being one version of dependence.
The problem is that our system is limited, laboring under the illusion that drug addiction is a criminal issue, a medical issue on the fringes that can be fixed with proper rehab.
That all ignores the fact that drugs aren't the problem...what led that person to drugs in the first place is the problem.
The drugs are just a means to an end.
Rehab doesn't fix addicts.
It primarily treats the physical symptoms of withdrawal.
Prison doesn't fix addicts.
It just puts them in a cage for a while.
Even death doesn't fix addicts.
It just leaves the people who love them here, forever wondering how different things might have been.
The only way to really deal with addiction is one that is multi-faceted, one that makes us uncomfortable.
It is messy and complicated and takes a lifetime of effort.
It sometimes involves relapses and second chances and third chances.
It involves support, sometimes sponsors.
It involves therapy and counseling until whatever the root cause is has been revealed and addressed.
It involves consideration of not just the physical withdrawal, but the emotional withdrawal, the social withdrawal, the psychological withdrawal.
It requires a mental health system with adequate resources, which clearly doesn't exist. It requires us to do better.
It requires support instead of judgement.
And sometimes, even when all those things exist, it fails.
It fails because addiction can take people and swallow them whole.
It can rob them of everything they value, everyone they love.
It can strip them of everything they care about, rob them of reason and logic.
It can convince them that they aren't worthy, that they have failed not just themselves, but everyone else.
It tells them that they are broken and irreparable.
Then it shoves them back down and does it again.
Our society says it failed because they didn't try hard enough, because they were selfish, because they were stupid.
How exactly is saying things like this going to help anyone?
The short answer - it isn't.
It just allows us to believe that if we try hard enough, if we care about other people enough, if we are smart enough, we can avoid addiction.
Our false sense of security hurts those who need help the most.
Never mind the damage done to the people they leave behind.
To those who claim Any ones death due to an addiction isn't tragic, I ask you to think about his children, his parents, his Family...
I'm sure they would disagree with you.
Until you've been there, you can't know what it is like.
Until you've watched someone you love try and claw their way out only to be dragged back in again, you can't know what it is like.
Until you've seen someone throw everything away just to feel better for a moment, you can't know what it is like.
Until you've dealt with someone desperately in need of help who turned to self medicating instead, you can't know what it is like.
Until you've had to tease out where the line between believing in someone and enabling them is, you can't know what it is like.
Until you've had to make choices no one should ever have to make, you can't know what it is like.
Until you've done all you can to help someone who doesn't want it, you can't know what it is like.
We all have our demons.
We all have our issues.
Many of us are closer to being addicts than we would ever admit out loud.
Some of us know how easy it would be to turn.
Some of us are addicts already.
Some of us already walk the line.
God Bless us ALL
