(no subject)
Dealing with a drug addict is an exercise in impotence. Because there's nothing you can do; you can support them, you can try to help them, you can pick them up when they've fallen on the floor and don't have the capacity to get themselves back up again, but you can't make them stop. You can't fix them.
Different addicts handle things differently but the one common denominator is that you are less important to them than the drug. And nothing is the drug's fault. Basically drug addiction is one of the most selfish illnesses, all that exists is the user and the drug and the rest of the world just kind of fades away.
Currently my mother is addicted to a whole pharmacopeia of pills; there's the vicodin and the xanax and the ambien and the super muscle relaxant that literally knocks her on her ass. The thing is that, on one level, she knows that she's an addict but she doesn't care, life without her pills is scarier to her than life with them. Except it's not really much of a life at all.
It is what it is. And the thing is, I totally get it. I understand the urge to make the world go away, but most importantly to make yourself go away, banish all of those things about you that you just don't like and never want to think about. And I certainly don't envy anyone who is coming off of drugs, the physical and emotional agony, the way that you never really stop being an addict even when you're not high anymore. It's all awful.
But as hard as addiction is on the addict, it's also difficult for the people on the side, the friends and family who don't want to give up on them even though the weight of dealing with them, with the addiction, only ever grows.
But like I said, it is what it is. Just like the rest of life there are no easy answers, no magic bullets. Sometimes all you can do is take a deep breath and keep on.
Different addicts handle things differently but the one common denominator is that you are less important to them than the drug. And nothing is the drug's fault. Basically drug addiction is one of the most selfish illnesses, all that exists is the user and the drug and the rest of the world just kind of fades away.
Currently my mother is addicted to a whole pharmacopeia of pills; there's the vicodin and the xanax and the ambien and the super muscle relaxant that literally knocks her on her ass. The thing is that, on one level, she knows that she's an addict but she doesn't care, life without her pills is scarier to her than life with them. Except it's not really much of a life at all.
It is what it is. And the thing is, I totally get it. I understand the urge to make the world go away, but most importantly to make yourself go away, banish all of those things about you that you just don't like and never want to think about. And I certainly don't envy anyone who is coming off of drugs, the physical and emotional agony, the way that you never really stop being an addict even when you're not high anymore. It's all awful.
But as hard as addiction is on the addict, it's also difficult for the people on the side, the friends and family who don't want to give up on them even though the weight of dealing with them, with the addiction, only ever grows.
But like I said, it is what it is. Just like the rest of life there are no easy answers, no magic bullets. Sometimes all you can do is take a deep breath and keep on.