By: John Glover (MBA)
Addiction is like an infectious disease. It takes host inside someone and changes who they are from their core. This disease affects people both physically and mentally, often bringing out the worst in people. There is a huge stigma surrounding addiction. Many people think of addiction as something someone purposefully did themselves or showed people’s laziness because their lives got off track. These stigmatizations are detrimental to people’s health because they place blame on them instead of supporting them through recovery. This type of sentiment not only breaks people suffering from addiction down but continues to spread the cycle of substance abuse.
When addiction spreads to more and more people, it affects not only them but also the people who care about them. The consequences of addiction are not just centered around the person it takes host in but negatively impact those who see addiction daily. Family and friends are not immune to addiction, and therefore, recovery needs to be addressed on all fronts.
Research shows just how common addiction truly is across the United States. More than 13% of Americans 12 years or older have used drugs in the past 30 days, and almost 1 million people have died from a drug overdose since 2000. If all of these people are suffering from addiction in their personal lives, imagine how many family members and friends are also affected by the disease.
It’s important to note that those who need help the most are the ones suffering from addiction. However, recovery can happen on multiple levels. Addiction often creates tension and disconnection in relationships, causing people to grieve the people they once knew. Both the person suffering from addiction and their loved ones who have seen the disease manifest have things to work through. Recovery can be necessary on both sides and can bring people out on the other side.
Jim Hight talks about reconciling with family and recovery in his debut novel, “Moon Over Humboldt.” Hight draws upon his past experiences with addiction and recovery to highlight just how much addiction changes someone and how family members can become collateral damage.
“Recognizing just how different addicts are—and how differently a son or daughter behaves once addiction has taken hold—is vitally important for the parents of addicts. As David Sheff wrote so heartbreakingly in Beautiful Boy, when addiction took over his son’s life, the boy he once knew and trusted was replaced by someone who would lie, cheat, steal, and endanger his family to get drugs. “I am in a silent war against an enemy as pernicious and omnipresent as evil,” wrote Sheff after seeing his son bounce from rehab to relapse several times. “Only Satan himself could have designed [such] a disease.’”
The disease of addiction can be spread to everyone around it. Addiction pushes people away and is the ultimate test of love and support. Everyone has flaws, and sometimes this support falls through the cracks. This can cause a strain on relationships and can create an even bigger setback on the road to sobriety.
Addiction is a chain that holds people back from being free. That is why recovery is so important and should be encouraged. The mental toll it takes on family and friends should not be taken lightly. Addiction destroys things on multiple levels, and it takes time to recover and rebuild.
“I do not have an addict for a child—in fact, I have no biological children. But I’ve watched and listened to and sat with parents of addicts, and I incorporated elements of their stories (always safeguarding anonymity) as well as those of writers like Sheff in my novel, Moon Over Humboldt. Bill, the father in my story, has to learn to detach with love from his son—a process so daunting that he doesn’t even understand what it means at first,” Hight says.
There is no cure for addiction except for love, support and hard work to push through. The recovery period can be difficult, but it’s necessary to mend what has been broken. The nature of addiction is to divide people from what they know and turn them into something completely different. That’s why it affects the people around them so much. They have lost sight of the person they know and love. Recovery can happen together and should be encouraged.
Published By: Aize Perez
