Who some of you here know is valiantly struggling with a severe, lifelong drug addiction. Last I heard from her was that she is currently living in the streets after losing her job and another stay in rehab and then moving in with family for a short while. It's winter time where she lives. She's still my sister in Christ, and all of this is still not at all okay. I hate drugs.
I try to help in situations like that sis often, and know that prayers are the greatest help. I'm praying Dani!
Drug addiction is no easy thing to overcome. I had a friend on FB that had been free for a long time, and her motivation was not to let her daughter down again. After leaving FB, my brother told me that she had slipped and had to go back to rehab. It's so tough.
A friend of mine just lost an addict friend of his. Her body just shut down, she fell into a coma for several weeks, and then passed. No family interest. No obituary. No memorial service. Nothing. I realize that a lot of people seek escape in drugs as a way to avoid life or whatever, but to treat them as though dead, and then not even bother when they actually die? I can't fathom it. I know it's soul sucking on the family and at some point you have to draw strong boundaries so that they don't take over your life with their chaos, but come on.
The thing that gets to me is how shaken she was when she lost a dear friend to addiction. I remember her posts about wondering why did he have to die, why couldn't he just listen to his friends. Sadly, little did she know what was sadly soon about to happen to her. I know her family has been supportive of her, but at one point her daughter gave her an ultimatum, and I think that's what kept her drug free for so long. But sadly not permanently.
Yes she can be very tone deaf when it comes to her own need to build a strong social network and listen to the advice of people who care for her and actually follow it; but the nature of the addiction is that the urge is so all-consuming, you simply don't care about anything else when it hits. The wake-up calls are then forgotten and no longer matter. It's a vicious cycle. I told her many times to maybe go live in a convent or on the property of her church or whatever, where she can pursue a simple life of simple service in exchange for room & board, but to expect consistency and follow-through is unrealistic also, and I'm not personally there to grab her by the hand and walk her through it so my hands are very tied. The one time she has done well for several years was when she lived with a couple who functioned as her spiritual parents and who provided 24/7 supervision while also making her feel valued and cared for, and who also discipled her. Then they moved to another country, so that ended. Then she had a bad car accident and the hospital gave her morphine, and that's what sparked her latest several years-long struggle that she's not been able to shake at all. It's been superbad. Truly. I have no clue how she's still alive, even. It's a catch-22 for the families too because many addicts make it a point to "disappear" so that when they do succumb or reach crisis, their family doesn't even know anything about it so they can't respond until someone tracks them down. Plus then there is the lying, deception ... etc. so what can you be reasonably expected to believe when you've been lied to again and again? I've no answers. Only sadness. In the end she belongs to God, and He knows what needs to happen.
I've watched many people battle addiction, so I know how difficult this is for the friends and family. I've seen people lose their careers and their families and spend years going in and out of jail until the disease finally takes them. My oldest friend whom I have known since I was seven recently lost her mother to alcoholism and that had been a long, hard road for everyone involved. I am very sorry to hear that your friend is going through this and I will keep her in my prayers.
Was she a member here? I remember an addicted member but can't remember the screen name and with the new software I can't figure out how to look at an exhaustive list of members.
I don't like it when I see or hear about it. Isn't very nice at all and even when you try and support and help as best as you can! end of the day the only person that can help is her or himself. Hard times but need to support each other you know
I hear you. I have a friend that had been a meth addict for several years, got saved, stayed clean for a couple of years, and has been recently, for whatever reason, dabbling in it again. He's having marital problems because of it. His wife goes back and forth on whether she wants to stay with him or not. They have 2 small kids together. It really sucks. Whoever said "drugs are a victimless crime" really head their head up their butt.
Hard drugs are pure hell. It's worse to love an addict than to be an addict, actually, because the loved one doesn't have drugs to check themselves out of reality with so they bear the brunt of the pain. Until they extricate themselves and let the addict bear the pain full strength ... which I know seems heartless but fact is no addict gets sober until the pain of a major loss supersedes the pain of withdrawal & craving for the drug and gives them the motivation to walk that hard path of committed sobriety and recovery and actually deal with life instead of checking themselves out when it suits them. Tell her to leave and take her children with her. And get herself into a co-dependent support group and program so she can get the support she needs and has something to focus on while he either gets his life together or kills himself -- but that will be his decision, and she has a responsibility to protect her children instead of staying in that chaos. Addiction to hard drugs is so powerful that he needs to truly choose, to the depth of him, in a way that goes deeper than his commitment to his drug. Or he's going to die. And it's going to be a slow death in stages that is going to consume his life and everything he loves before it consumes him. Not that I learned anything from being friends with Linda and watching her addiction saga and having many, many, many chats with her about the reality of things ...