Local Voice: "Why Have You Come Here?"

I will tell you now the same thing I say to people I meet in meetings: if you have come here to learn how to ‘fix’ your addict or alcoholic you have come to the wrong place. I won’t do that here.

This blog - as is true with support meetings I attend - will only address the concerns of the addict's loved ones. I am not a medical professional, nor do I offer advice; I can only speak from my own first-hand life experience, and hope the reader will relate. My only goal is to pay forward what was so freely given to me: hope, love, acceptance when I was in need.

Here we don’t worry about how to get the addict clean; that is their job. Our job is to learn how to get strong so we can live sanely, no matter how crazy the world around us becomes.

I will strive to make this blog a series of non-controversial, informational and inspiring essays that reach out to the loved ones of addicts and alcoholics, spoken from personal knowledge.

If you know me you are already aware - or if you don’t know me, you will soon learn - I believe in brutal honesty and straightforward language. It is a most difficult thing for the loved one of an addict to search their souls. Often we are ashamed and embarrassed to admit that we have raised, fell in love with, or even work for someone who is addicted to drugs or alcohol. We may feel foolish for believing lies or making wrong decisions in an attempt to ‘help’.  Despite the difficulties, we must walk through that pain in order to heal from hurt caused by this disease. Sugar coating facts does not help this process so I always speak sincerely.

Brutal honesty, however, need not be brutal so I must also remember to always come from a place of respect and compassion, with patience for others who are at different points on their journey, remembering a time when I was also at that place.

However, my freedom of speech only extends as far as your right to privacy, so the who’s and why’s of my story will not be discussed in this forum - in truth, these particular specifics do not matter. For every person reading these words, at this very moment, there is a child, spouse, best friend, or boss with an addiction problem. Likewise, for every addict there is a parent, child, partner, or loved one who silently suffers from witnessing the act of active addiction slowly kill someone they love.

This blog is for that person. This blog is for the scores of people who should be sitting in support groups in church basements where they can be surrounded by others who have walked in their shoes. This blog is for people who are afraid or embarrassed to reach out for the guidance of another because of the stigma associated with the disease of addiction. This blog is for those whose numbers are stronger than one would like to admit, numbers that are maybe even too many to count.

And this blog is for me, because in giving we receive. As I extend myself outward to you, perhaps you will respond back to me and in this way two may heal instead of one.

Again: if you have come here to learn how to ‘fix’ your addict or alcoholic, you have come to the wrong place.

So tell me, why have you come here?