Addiction: A Family Issue

I came across an article on Huff Post about heroin addiction. The title, Heroin Just Killed My Baby, caught my attention as did the first line: “The day my 15-year-old son, Brendan, took his first hit, he changed my life. Yes, not just his, but mine too. And not just mine, everyone who loved him.”

This is so sadly true. Addiction is a family issue and it changes the lives of everyone.

I know a couple who lost their daughter to a heroin overdose last fall. She was only 19. She went from one rehab to the next but to no avail. The addiction was way too powerful. She found her recovery in the only way some people do.

I remember sitting in a room with a young man who was a recovering heroin addict. It was difficult working his recovery program, but made easier with a group of people who loved and supported him. He was so tired of addiction and all that came with it. The last I heard, he was using again. Addiction is real. It’s a family issue. You probably know someone who is affected by addiction but you don’t know it. It’s every where.

These stories are all the same just with different characters and story plots but the outcome is common; you either recover or you don’t.

Why do we  think this only happens to kids from bad families? Why do we think it could never happen to us?

It’s crazy.

My brother was an addict. It took me years to realize he was an addict but he was and his addiction was a family issue whether we knew it or not.

Addiction affects the entire family.

It. Just. Does.

There is a woman I know who once told me that she was the only addict in her family. She then said something that will stick with me for the rest of my life. She said, “My addiction made my family sick.” What she was saying is addiction is a family issue.

She is working a strong recovery program today. I think she’s going to make it this time, one day at a time. She is an inspiration to many and quite an encouraging person. She is beautiful inside and out. I wish she could she the person the rest of the world sees and not just the person she feels like on the inside.

Addiction is a powerful force that most of the population knows nothing about. It’s cunning and baffling. Addiction can be recovered from but it takes a village. And it affects a village.

Addiction truly is a family issue.