the part of the family we don’t talk about
It’s hard to go through life without knowing someone - a friend, sister, neighbor, father - who hasn’t suffered with addiction. Me - I’ve witnessed people in my family struggle with alcohol and opioid addiction for my entire life.
Addiction is a hidden demon - ugly, daunting, and mean - it takes and morphs the person you thought you knew into something terrifying. My uncle fell victim to this demon. At a young age he began using prescription drugs to get high. Now, nearly 35 years later and he still battles with addiction.
When I ask him stories, he’s always willing to tell me about his life. He has used nearly every drug sold on the streets because they are cheaper than the opioids he was originally prescribed. Although opioid prescriptions are how his addiction began, he opted for the cheaper version of narcotics - cocaine, marijuana, fentanyl, ecstasy, and the list goes on . . .
He told me how his friends would have “pill parties” where they would dump pills (ecstasy, opioids, molly, etc) into a bowl and take them throughout the night - never knowing what he was putting into his body.
At the age of 40, he had open heart surgery. He had done so much damage to his body and his heart that he had developed pulmonary abscesses. The day after his surgery, he snorted cocaine while also taking his prescribed medications from his surgery.
If you ask me, I have no idea how he has lived to be 52 years old. He has neglected to take care of his body or health for the majority of his life. In addition to his drug abuse, he was an excessive drinker. But, today he is clean. I’m sure it hasn’t been easy, and he has had setbacks, but he has maintained his sobriety.
I think my uncle’s life would have been different if he would have had a different friend group as a teenager. His friends pressured him into taking more medication than he was prescribed and eventually leading him to trying different drugs. Similarly to most people, he became addicted.
I’ve seen both sides of my uncle. The fun-loving, pain in my ass who likes to tease and joke around with me and the person who’s cussed me out before, slurring his speech as he was nearly incoherent at my grandma’s house.
Drugs do change the person you know, the person you care about. It’s hard to blame him. He has made a lot of bad choices in life, but he has a mental illness. My uncle isn’t a bad person just because he’s made bad choices in life. Addiction needs to be redefined. There need to be more restrictions on prescriptions and more consideration for people who suffer from addiction. This problem spans the entire United States, so when will someone address the problem – we need to advocate for change. Change amongst our hospitals, change in our addiction programs, and change in how we view addiction.
