If youre lucky, they recover.
If youre really lucky, you recover, too.
By
Updated 4 months ago,January 2, 2025
I am not an addict.
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Loving someone with Substance Use Disorder can and will consume your every thought.
Watching their physical deterioration and emotional detachment to everything will make you the most tired insomniac alive.
You will stand in the doorway of their bedroom and plead with them that you just want them back.
Dont become angry with these people.
They do not understand.
Youll catch yourself wishing that you didnt understand, either.
will become a popular, not-so-rhetorical question.
It causes parents to outlive their children.
It causes jail time and homelessness.
It causes sisters to mourn their siblings.
It causes nieces to never meet their aunts.
It causes an absence before the exit.
It is estimated more than 60,000 died in 2016.
Drug addiction causes families to come to fear a ringing phone or a knock on the door.
It causes vague obituaries.
Died suddenly has officially become obituary-speak for another young person found dead from a drug overdose.
Drug addiction causes bedrooms and social media sites to become memorials.
It causes the yesterdays to outnumber the tomorrows.
It causes things to break; like the law, trust, and homes.
People have a way of pigeonholing those who suffer from addiction.
They call them trash, junkies, or criminals, which is not the whole truth.
Addiction is a chronic illness.
They have families and aspirations.
You will learn that drug addiction doesnt discriminate.
It doesnt care if the user came from a loving home or a broken family.
Drug addiction doesnt care if you are religious.
Drug addiction doesnt care if you are a straight-A student or a drop-out.
Drug addiction doesnt care what ethnicity you are.
Drug addiction doesnt care.
You will learn to hate the drug but love your addict.
It is not the person who uses, but their addiction.
It is not the person who steals to support their habit, but their addiction.
It is not the person who spews obscenities at their family, but their addiction.
It is not the person who lies, but their addiction.
And yet, sadly… it is not their addiction that dies, but the person.
