I don’t really know how to start things like this. It’s become an uncomfortable and extremely touchy subject for me personally, but in light of recent deaths such as Mac Miller and Kyle Pavone, like Kevin Lyman said sometimes you gotta push the boundaries of what’s uncomfortable for you to help others.
I’m currently dating a drug addict. She’s in rehab at the moment, and let me tell you, it’s been hell and she hasn’t been gone for a full two weeks. But it has been nothing compared to the last 6 months. There really isn’t any kind of way to explain how things got so ugly, but they did. The lies, the manipulation. Doing anything and everything to come up with money to get a fix. I watched from the sideline as my girlfriend fell deeper and deeper down this rabbit hole. I watched her develops unusual habits, watched as she pushed and neglected every one of her responsibilities. I watched her bury herself farther and farther down, and there was absolutely nothing I could do. I mean yes of course I talked to her about rehab, but most of those conversations turned into fights. I did everything I could do, everything in my power to try and help her discover the path she needed to take. But a lot of times, it’s not just that easy. In my case it wasn’t anyway. No matter how much I told her I love her and that I would stand by her and that she had my undying support, as well as the support of her parents, for her recover, I still had to watch from the sideline her crash and burn. Because no matter how much you want them to know that you care, and that they matter and that they are loved and deserve a much, much better life than what they’re allowing themselves to have, sometimes the only way to see that, to seek help is when you have no other option to. When it has taken everything that you have, down to the people you love and care about. I didn’t think that I was strong enough to endure the storm of a relationship with an addict. I come from a background of drug addiction, not myself but with my parents. My biological parents were both drug users and it took my siblings and myself getting taken out by CPS and ultimately adopted to different families for them to shape up. But they did it. Addiction runs through my veins as it does with so many others. I didn’t think I was strong enough to face this fight, but I have to be. I have to be for myself, and for her.
(I realize that I just turned this into a big rant.)
I guess I’m just trying to say that this crisis that we are seeing, it is very much real. And it is extremely scary. And not just for us (the people who do watch/have watched someone go down the road of addiction) but for addicts themselves. So if you know someone, anyone, try and be there for them. Try and do as much as you can to help them. Get into the arguments, get into the ugly if you really need to. Do what you need to do to make sure that the people you know who are struggling with addiction, get the help they need and deserve. If we spent more time helping addicts and reaching other than we did shaming them, we might not have as bad of a crisis on our hands as we do now. I don’t know what I would do if I would of just stood by, and if she would of end up dead because of it. I’m sure as hell though that I would rather take those arguments than finding my girlfriend ODed. Take the time, acknowledge their problem and help them channel it. Take the load off of their shoulders when it seems like the world is too much for them, be their backbone when they need it the most. Just be there for them, through thick and thin.
Hey man, thanks so much for the inspiration. I am thankful for your perseverance to push into her pain and be willing to enter the mess with her. I hope that her recovery continues to go well, and I pray that she will be truly healed and your relationship will be restored.