Addiction isn’t what you think it is.
It isn’t just some homeless person, slumped over on a park bench passed out.
It isn’t just children in fostercare, remembering bits and pieces of their parents but not really knowing who they are, because they haven’t fought to get visits with them.
It isn’t just someone who has to drink a bottle of vodka to get through the day, drunk and belligerent throughout the process.
It is a father who who started taking vicodin because he was prescribed it after back surgery, who realized that when he didn’t take it, he felt sick.
It is a father who doesn’t drink throughout the week, but when Friday comes around, he stops at the liquor store on the way home from work and buys a rack of beer and drinks all weekend, never moving from the couch.
It is a mother and a father, who met in rehab, who don’t know any life without each other because they fell in love at the darkest points in their life.
It is a mother and a father, who use drugs a few times a month, for a couple days at a time, because the only way they know how to deal with the normal ebbs and flows of life is to be high, and after a few days or weeks of being sober, they can’t handle it anymore.
It is children who when thinking of their parents, think of loving, present, wonderful people who want nothing but the best for them, but are hurt on those couple days when their parents promise them a trip to an amusement park, but never open their bedroom door on the day of the trip.
It is children waking up on Christmas morning, waiting for their parents to wake up because it’s time to open presents, but they are coming down from the drugs and sleep for the entire day.
It is children being manipulated by their parents for being hurt by their addiction, and feeling bad for ever being mad at them in the first place.
It is children trying to find a way to justify why that drug is more important to their parents for that weekend than them.
Addiction isn’t always obvious. It is subtle, it is creepy, and it is lifelong. It is hurtful, not just for the families of the addicts, but for the addicts themselves. It is a disease riddled with trauma, manipulation, obsession, pain, and messed up coping mechanisms. There is no right way to handle it, and there is every wrong way to handle it. I don’t know what to do. I am lost. I am hurt. I am healing.
kianamaiart
origamiaround
vaporwave
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