I have been thinking about addiction. I suppose my cousin has me obsessing over it. Him and his addition has me all thinkee over it.
I am going to be honest he is not the first in my family to be addicted to something. I am sure that all families deal with addiction and its nasty outcomes in some form or another. My family is just like any other.
Most of the older men in my family are addicted to alcohol on some level. The men of my generation are addicted to drugs or alcohol or both. Then there are the ones who are beyond that and or have overcome. I am not sure what it is but it is like the plague in this time and place and my people.
I have watched good people with amazing potential go from hero to zero in what seems like a moment. Like yesterday, I was playing hide and seek with my cousin in our days of youth and happiness to find that time has swept away such frolic to reveal a man of addiction. A man who hated who he was to such a degree he lost himself in drugs such as speed and marijuana or whatever that passed his way to such a degree he became lost on his path to adulthood and was unable to ever find his way there.
I wonder what made him loose himself to such a place? Could it have been his relationship with his father? Maybe? He seems to harbor such resentment to this relationship. Yet, from my thinking, what is it that he is so hateful about? His father fully admits he was not the best and is very sorry. We all know that he was beaten, yelled at and emotionally abused. Yet, there have been so much worse done to many others. Not that diminishes his or any others abuse. I feel I was blessed to some extent. I also feel my cousin was let off with a get out of jail card as well.
His father harbors him now. Gives him a home, when no other would. Yet, my cousin hates him and will not forgive him. I forgive my molester and have moved on. Why not move on and be the better person?
Yes, being hurt as a young person sucks. Being abused smacks your ass and sucks monkey feet on a level on only the abused can understand. I know all to well, yet I managed to get past it all. Oh, yes, I struggle every day. There just comes a time when you poop or get off the pot.
I believe the first step to true healing is to forgive the abuser and then to forgive yourself for hating the abuser to begin with. Most importantly you must forgive yourself for whatever childish reasons you blame yourself for letting it happen. Perhaps that part is paramount. It was for me anyway. Once I realize the deed had been done, I knew I needed to face it, let it go, forgive all involved and move forward.
My cousin cannot change his past no matter how much he might want to change it. He cannot go back and make his father not beat him nor can he make himself not loose himself in drugs. What he can do is finally grow up and stop doing what he has always done. Run from the here and now and all the pain that real life and being all grownup can cause.
I have done a few drugs in my day. I will not lie. I have been high beyond high and drunk, staggering drunk. I have danced with the G-dead under the moon and not regretted one hippie dance move. However, there comes a time when all dancers must change their dance moves to something else that will define them later on and make them into the people they become. The people that will swaddle their children with bedtime lullabies. The people that will save lives or teach the young to be better than themselves.
To forever dance the dance of drugs and drunken nights of parties and whores is a fruitless and futile endeavor I am glad I did not end up grooving to. My cousin has stayed on this party way to long. His brain is whipped up and forever messed up. I wonder, if there is a way he can come back? A way to be who his true self is meant to be?
Is there a way back from this addiction? Is my cousin redeemable? Is it possible that his brain can be unscrambled and his life placed on a path that would resemble anything that is real life?
Can my cousin or the millions like him save themselves? Or are they just the trash that we should simply throw away? I would like to believe that everyone can finally make amends and become what God has planned for them. I truly believe this. I do.
However, sometimes people would rather be unhappy and delve in misery than be happy. So, I watch and wait. My prayers go into the Lords heaven and the angels sing to him of my cousins long and horrible path. I know that all it would take is my cousins freewill and his obedience to the "Big Ten" and he would be free. Yet, it takes faith for that. Ah, faith that is a completely different blog.
My husband would say that this is an excuse to stay in this state of drug or alcohol abuse and blame others for their misbehavior. He would say that once your 18 years old that your on your own and that is it. To learn to be the better person and move on. My husband would know. He was abused beyond abuse and abandoned by his own mother into foster care time and time again simply because he was inconvenient. He says that he walked away and learned to walk away from the crazies once and for all. To be with healthy people is the key to a happy life. I know that his mother will not be happy with this paragraph. I apologize in advance. I am simply repeating his words or paraphrasing in the slightest.
So, what do you think? Do you think junkies such as my cousin deserve a place or a final chance to become the people they were meant to be or do we cut them loose and turn our backs once and for all? I have no answer. I only know that there are millions of millions of men and women like my cousin who suffer every day, lives ruined because of circumstances and drugs or alcohol. I ask again...what do you think?
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