Loving Addicts

A story that captures the understanding and struggles of loving an addict.

loving addicts.

It’s hard to love an addict. I heard this once on a podcast and wrote it down because I thought it was true – that I could relate and I would someday write a story about how loving an addict is hard.

But, as I stare at those six words, I realize that it’s not true. Loving the addict is not hard, it’s understanding their mind that is difficult.

I can go back about five years and tell you that loving an addict was hard because I didn’t feel safe, I didn’t feel loved, and I didn’t feel happy. I thought all of these emotions came from the addict himself, as if he could make me feel this way.

But, I was wrong –and truth be told, it wasn’t hard to love an addict. I gave all my love to an addict in hopes of saving him. I was terrified of his past, but even more terrified of his future. Would there be one?

Meth doesn’t scare me, meth is just a white substance. The people scare me. When they allow meth to dictate their lives, they become something unrecognizable to the human eye.

It’s the people who scare me – not the drug.

So how could they be easy to love?

Five years ago, my love was spilling, overflowing onto the floor. I was trying help someone, an addict, who didn’t want help. I was giving an addict everything I had – my happiness, my courage, my strength – and he just walked away, leaving it, still in the air. He didn’t take it with him and it didn’t come back to me. It was motionless.

My words, my love, my fear lay stagnant. The vibrations from my voice slowly fade into thin air like a wave that slowly drifts to shore. My voice is the tide crashing in, but if no one is there to hear it, then doesn’t it just become background noise?

It’s his carelessness that caused the pain, his eyes that caused the fear.

His past is his past and we can all let that go right now. Meth is still just a white substance. It’s his addictive mind that makes this white substance so much more. When he sees it, he yearns for it and the moment he touches it, he knows it has won.

His eyes fade to a dark gray; it’s not long before it reaches his blood stream and his eyes will darken to black within seconds. However, this isn’t the scary part, which seems scary within itself. The high has just begun.

I’ve tried to help an addict who didn’t want help. What I realize now, that I didn’t realize then, is that my mission was literally impossible.

I want to make this clear – You cannot help someone who does not want it.

It took me years of choking on my words to realize this. I was filled with so much fire and rage because he would not listen to me. I was spitting words at him, but what my blind eye could not see was that meth had already taken ahold of him. I stood no chance in helping him defeat his weakness.

For me, this is the scary part, knowing there is no turning back for him.

Loving him was the easiest part. I loved every form of this addict in hopes of saving his life; but knowing I couldn’t was the most tragic thing of all. Meth is still just a white substance, but not when you mix it with a dangerous mind.

I now long for the days his eyes are a baby blue.