parent of an addict – Linda Nelson

An addict is going to use no matter what. They have no willpower when it comes to whether or not they use that needle, smoking the crushed substance, or snorting the substance. None of it matters to them. All they ever care about is getting that next fix.

So for those of you out there that believe by having so much Narcan readily available, it’s going to enable our addicts, stop there. It will not increase the desire to use. If you believe that Narcan is an enabler and will keep them using, then you know nothing, nothing at all about addicts. Yes, it will enable them. It will allow them to remain alive. Yes, they will use again, but not for the same reason you believe. They are going to use because they feel they have to use. No one has shown them how to remain clean. Addicts don’t think about life or death. They don’t think period.

Those that have been to rehab, they will have learned tools to help manage their addictions. They too will not think about the consequences of using, not all the time. When they relapse, they relapse. They relapse for the sake of having forgotten why they stopped using in the first place. It has nothing to do with whether or not they will live or die. That thought never, or almost never crosses their mind.

Bottom Line – Addicts Don’t Care Whether They Live or Die

English: Three drug addicts seen smoking a hug... — English: Three drug addicts seen smoking a huge amount of crack cocaine, in a downtown eastside alley, in Vancouver BC Canada. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Rehabs should not be run by people who don’t understand addiction!

Embed from Getty Images

//embed.gettyimages.com/embed/73749957?et=GTvQR8QyQyNvKIDvGZgXiQ&sig=05xC8YzxK2ZjbiAyMvavIFnADuRqFOl8QdDzOqieljU=

Ordinary people don’t get it. They don’t understand. They’ve never been there, at the bottom. Only addicts know how to help other users return from the bottom. They know what it’s like to fall, to get to the bottom and feel there is no return. Addicts know the fears of drug abusers. It’s not death.

That’s why it is so important to have rehabs run by responsible addicts. Only by those who have been in recovery for a given amount of time. They are the only ones who know the way to recovery.

Through experiences that they share, they teach strength and understanding. The things they’ve gone through, the stuff they’ve done, they’ve done it all. They know the tricks addicts have used to hide their problems with addiction. They know how users will try to play the system. Addicts are masters of deception. It takes one to know one.

A long term rehab becomes a community. The larger the population of recovered addicts, the stronger the support system to those in recovery. Being part of a community satisfies the need to belong to something. All users feel like outcasts. The stigma associated with addiction has made this more pronounced over the years.

Before New Hampshire closed the long-term rehab that my son had belonged to, he was happier than when he’d been using. He had support. There were people he could call when he needed to talk to someone who understood what he was going through. But, by closing that program sent an ominous message to the recovering addicts. The message said, “No one cares.”

If no one cares about a recovered addict, then who is going to care about the addict who needs to be in recovery? This message collapsed a fragile community. No wonder so many of our addicts have been dying from an overdose.

It takes years to build such a community and only minutes to collapse it.

The only way to cure addiction is to learn to make a stronger network of recovered addicts. Until then our addicts will continue to use and die.

Grant provides Lawrence police with Narcan kits

Image courtesy of The Commons Getty Collection Galleries World Map App via Bing.com creative commons

Winter is coming! Oh, wait, it’s already here.
It is hard to believe that Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years has come and gone. I hope your holiday was filled with cheer and good nature. Sometimes this can be an impossible task during the holidays when things happen. Things that are on the other side of the spectrum. I’m talking about the loss of a loved one.
It’s such a sad thing to lose a loved one and even sadder still when it happens around the holidays. A feeling of hopelessness comes over them instead.
I know of a couple of ladies who have lost a loved one during the holiday season. Theirs is a tragic story of addiction taking its toll once again. Both ladies were high school classmates and each lost a child during the holidays, each a year apart from the other.
Addicts are nothing more than a ticking time bomb that can trip at any given time for any reason what so ever. It isn’t a matter of self-control. That was lost a long time ago. All it takes is just a second to lose all that was gained in recovery. Someone could offer a free sample or just place the substance in front of them, even though they’ve been clean for over 30 years.
Imagine how hard it is for someone recent to recovery. Their bodies had built up a tolerance to their chosen substance over time. They knew what they could tolerate and forget how long it took to get that way. 30 days or 90 days have passed and they use again. Fallen as angels, and so sad, they never stood a chance.
As parents, they will ponder on whether there was something more they could have done. When in actuality there was not one thing they could have done to save their child. Now they must be careful their child doesn’t pull them over the edge of the cliff with them.
I know all this, because I’m the mother of an addict. I’ve come to accept that the inevitable may happen someday to my own son. I have no choice but to remind myself that he lives on borrowed time.
These ladies that I know, are my stepping stones. I watch them from a distance and see how they fare in surviving after losing their addict child. They have shown strength during a time of festivities.
Yes, I’m filled with fear of what is to come. I learned a long time ago how to find my comfort zone. I’m not sure how secure the zone is for me, but it does exist. It’s only a faint memory of how I was, and what I felt before my son ever existed, before he was even a thought or the planted seed in the womb.
I would have to go back to that time and remember how I was happy before he existed, happy when he existed, and hopefully to find comfort when he is gone.
For now he survives, a thin line is what he walks, that can break at any given moment, and I accept him as he is, was and will be.