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DRUG ADDICTION

Posted: Sep 16, 2010

A very dear friend of mine has become addicted to meth and crack. This has been over about the past year, year and a half. I have watched this tragedy unfold and watched as his family has been torn apart. When I see him and talk to him it's like the "lights are on but nobody is home". He says that everyone has turned their back on him when he needs help the most and we are all to blame for his situation. (addict talk i know.) He has been kicked out of his house now and his brothers, sisters, friends are sick and tired of helping him so he is living out of a van now.

He used to have his own business and made good money! He was a local plumber/electrician. I don't know why he started using cocaine, but from there it escalated to the crack and meth. He looks like a walking skeleton.

His soon to be ex and their children are doing their best to keep going, but he is constantly coming around and causing problems. He has been arrested several times for different things from wreckless discharge of a weapon to breaking and entering and assault. He IS NOT the same person we knew and loved.

I can't help but feel like there is something more we can do to help, but he is sooo far gone. The police, DA, her laywer and other professionals say that we cannot do a thing unless he is willing and voluntarily turns himself in for treatment. NOTHING! We just get to sit back and watch and he kills himself.

I wonder if anyone has ever had a situation where you felt that a person you love is G-O-N-E, yet was able to get help and has beel clean and sober? My sister is an alcoholic and every now and again gets bombed out of her mind. She has had therapy and counseling, but it's been years and years and she cannot seem to stay sober for any good stretch of time. I am so sad and don't know what to do.

;

In all seriousness - SAM

[ In Reply To ..]
Go to A&E website and contact Intervention with his story. I've never done this and don't know what the steps are to be selected for the program, but I watch it every week and it always encourages people who know someone with an addiction problem (or if you have one yourself) to contact them.

If he were selected, all of the expenses of a 90-day rehab would be paid for as well, and maybe even a sober living facility as aftercare.

Sometimes when you've done all you can do, it's time to turn it over the professionals, and Intervention has a pretty high success rate in helping addicts of all kinds overcome their addictions.

In all seriousness, I'd certainly submit his story to their website and see what evolves. You won't even have to tell anyone you've done so in case he isn't selected, but it's certainly worth a shot. There's nothing to lose at this point.

Good luck...I watched my brother essentially commit a slow suicide via alcohol, and I know how hopeless everyone involved feels.

Drug addiction - Anon

[ In Reply To ..]
First off, I truly feel for you, as I know how completely helpless you feel when someone you love is slowly killing themselves. My younger brother (in his 30s) has had a drinking problem for a long time that really escalated in the last few years. We all kept saying "when he hits rock bottom" he will come to his senses and see the problem that he has. In the last 3-4 years, he had been in and out of rehab more times than I can count, always for just 30 days and then within a week or two he was back at it. He has lost his home, his wonderful wife (there are very few people in the world I admire more than my sister-in-law, she is a GREAT person) and 2 beautiful young daughters. Then inevitable happened, he was finally arrest for drunk driving (a blessing!) and he woke up. Right now, he is living in a place (he has been there 9 months now, very religon based) with a very controlled environment and he has realized that for now, it is the place he needs to be as he realizes he is not ready to "live in the real world." For now, he is doing great and I am really proud of him. I just can't help but wonder what will happen when he finally leaves that place and is on his own again..it scares me.

I also feel I should share a little of my own experience. My husband and I met in our late teens after high school and I started using drugs. At first pot and then cocaine and at the end meth. For most of our 20s, it is what our life pretty much revolved around. Then in our late 20s, we had a very tragic year (my father-in-law suddenly died from an aneurysm on my birthday and my mother-in-law passed away on Thanksgiving day that same year). It was an eye opener and we realized we were about to turn 30 and it was time to "grow up" and have children. Believe it or not (without any rehab) we cleaned up our act, quit the drugs and had 3 beautiful children, which is the best thing we ever did. Our lives now revolve aruond our children and we would not have it any other way. We are now in our 40s and life is good. I thank God every day that we were able to turn our life around.

My point being is that it is possible to get clean and have a good life. I know that right now, there is not a lot you can do and it is hard to try and help someone, (no matter how much you care about them) when they don't want to help themselves. The only advice I can give you right now is to be there for his wife and kids, as they need you just as much if not more than him right now. All you can do is pray that someday soon he will hit rock bottom and wake up. Like I said before and as cold as it sounds, you can't help someone who won't help themselves. My prayers are with you and also with his family, as I have seen the destruction drug and alcohol addiction can cause. I hope he finds help soon!!

You are so right, Anon - BTDT

[ In Reply To ..]
My older brother was an alcoholic for at least 25 years of his adult life. He developed cirrhosis, hypertension, hepatitis, all of the usual maladies that go along with alcoholism. He even refused to take his blood pressure medication because he couldn't drink with it. My father even traveled to where my brother lived with his wife and 2 adorable little girls, and offered to stay at my brother's and help his wife care for the girls while he went through detox and rehab. He refused. He was entitled to VA benefits and likely could have gotten all the treatment he needed for free, yet he refused to engage in any attempt at getting sober. Shortly before his death, it cost him his marriage.

He died of a series of massive strokes. In cleaning up his apartment, family members came across no alcohol whatsoever, not even empty bottles in the trash, which was highly unlike him. I wonder to this day (he died 4 years ago) if he had, realizing he was near the end, decided to quit drinking "cold turkey" and that is what brought on his strokes. As anyone in the medical field knows, alcohol withdrawal can indeed be deadly.

It's very difficult watching someone commit suicide via the bottle/drugs over so many years, yet unless that person wants to be helped there is precious little we can do to "save" them.

I hope things work out for your brother when he is living independently. Having watched my brother go through so many failures in his life due to alcohol, I know the trepidation you're feeling right now. ~Hugs~

RIP My Brother...

he needs to want it - cll

[ In Reply To ..]
My husband is an alcoholic. He has tried to stop drinking several times and always goes back to it. He still functions, as in he goes to work every day and pays his bills and we have not lost anything yet. When we first met, it was after my first marriage ended and we both drank a lot then, but when I moved in with him and then my two young boys moved it, I would drink a cocktail or two in the evening but had my children to take care of, so I drank less and less. I now have gout and can have about one or two cocktails once or twice a year, like really special occasion, anniversary or birthday. I had thought as he got older (now 50) the drinking would wind down. He used to get drunk and be happy, horny and then hungry but as the years have faded on, he can get so mean, verbally at time. He has never been physical or hit anyone or we would have been out the door that day. I know he has a lot of pressure on him, as he has had to raise two boys who are not his, who on top of that got diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome (very high functioning autism), so part of me knows he is a saint having not walked out on me after 16 years of being together. The other side of me is really worried that he is going to an early grave from all the drinking. He has actually tried to quit drinking a couple of times for me because he knows it upsets me so much, but the last time, he did really well and then started sneaking it behind my back and I found it. It made me more mad that he was doing that than coming out and telling me, but I did realize something last time, he is not going to quit until he wants to do it for himself. So as much as I would love to give you a magic answer, he ultimately needs to want to do it himself. The best thing I think you can do for him, is be there to listen and encourage him, but until he wants it there is really nothing else that you can do. Good luck.

re: your friend - Sonja

[ In Reply To ..]
Yeah, they have to want it. I don't know about the being there though. I was "there" for my own brother as he walked down the dark path of drug addiction. After a while I learned that he was just being manipulative when he was semi-sober. It was all about him. He blamed everyone for his problem and would not (like OP's friend) accept even partial responsibility. I finally turned my back. It was terribly hard and left me with an empty place in my heart. But I have children and family and need to keep on keeping on. Maybe someday he will hit rock bottom (hope he does before he dies) and can find help. I can't be around him to wait for that day.

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