I have really tried to understand addiction to drugs and alcohol. Not too many documentaries are on about alcohol addiction but there are lots on various drug addictions. I think we have all known someone who is an alcoholic, whether functioning or non-functioning but my real concern is trying to understand how someone can choose drugs over family and friends.
My reason is simple. I had a beautiful daughter. At least she WAS beautiful but looking at her mug shots in recent years shows how that has changed. She chose crack over everyone and everything that was normal and decent . She stole from everyone to support her habit. She even started turning tricks, as they are called, but that came after we were finally forced to use tough love in a last ditch effort to try to get her to clean up her life.
I give her credit for one thing only....and that is the fact that she stayed off drugs while she was pregnant with her daughter. However, she came to live with us at home while she was so we could help keep her off them. But, it wasn't even a couple weeks before she was back on her drugs and I was raising a grandchild. Don't get me wrong....I loved it but it was so damn sad that I had to. We hoped that the baby would make her WANT to clean herself up. We gave her multiple chances over several years to do so. She had friends that tried to help out.....friends that had even been through the same problems and straightened out their lives. But it wasn't *exciting* enough, I guess. She seemed at times to want to make the effort but that was just to deceive us. I don't even want to know all the details of what she put her poor daughter through but we ended up eventually getting custody of the granddaughter and, later on, after there was no longer any hope, we adopted the granddaughter in order to make sure her mother had no legal recourse to her.
Since her mother had been arrested so often, we got her to sign the agreement to forego custody because we could afford a court battle, if necessary but she knew she would lose. Her daughter, who is now a mother herself, would probably put a bullet in her mother rather than see her have anything to do with either of her children. Hell, I would myself! And I doubt any court would convict us.
Anyway, because I just can't imagine why drugs have the attraction that they do, I watch these documentaries because I would like it to make some kind of sense to me. Instead, all it does is make me cry for other families like ours that is missing someone that should be a part of their lives. I've watched stories about crack, methamphetamines, cocoaine...nothing really explains it. I know that some people have what is called an *addictive* personality or a genetic predisposition to drugs and/or alcohol. Okay. I can understand how that can be...intellectually. But, as a mother, it just breaks my heart. I know my other children hate to think of their sister as lost forever but I know at the age she is now, it IS forever. She is now 47-1/2 years old.
Her brothers and sister have all attempted to get her to agree to clean up by offering her both help AND a place to stay that was well away from her haunts. A girlfriend's wealthy father offered to send her to the Ritz of Rehabs and then give her a cabin to stay in on a big piece of property he owned (her girlfriend lived in another building on the same property). She refused all offers. Each and every time.
I look at her daughter's children and all I can think of is that she is missing out on what makes life worth living. It's just so sad. I end up crying, each and every time and tonight I decided that I have had enough of this. I am no longer going to watch another program. Enough is enough!
I do know that the only reason I am still married to the Beast is because he had two strokes over 10 years ago. He was a functional alcoholic before that happened. And he was a nasty one. I was gathering financial information about our air conditioning company, bank accounts, business creditors, and all the business and personal assets to take to an attorney I had consulted after the final straw when he had hit me so hard that my head had cracked the wall in our kitchen. It was shortly afterward that he had his first (big) stroke. I won't go into how tough it was to be his care giver when he had actually made me stop loving him but, God is good! The two strokes he suffered left him brain impaired enough in that area that governed his drinking ability that he was and still is not able to drink any more. He becomes dizzy and nauseous if he even takes a sip. See? There truly IS a God....in case you had any doubts.
About two years ago, he *got religion*. I think it was actually fueled more by his fear of dying than any real belief in God because I heard him many times state that he didn't believe in God for this reason or that. I always have and always will for my own reasons but I am at least grateful that he doesn't try to get me to come to his church with him. I think he knows better than to even try for fear I will tell him exactly what I think of his *conversion*. But, it makes me wonder if my daughter didn' t have a predisposition to addiction from HIS side of the family even more than from the Irish side of MY family. Yes, we have THAT going for us but not as much as some families that I know. It's just scary to think about.
Well, it's late and I am tired. I have another subject to worry about but just can't speak of it yet. I love you all. Say a little prayer for my younger brother who had a grande mal seizure today and damn near died. Stay warm and be good. ***Hugs***
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