Dear Addiction

Dear Addiction,

Why are you so ruthless? How do you choose your victims? You have taken more from me than I could ever measure. My entire life has revolved around you and I’m not even an addict. You stain everything you touch and the damage is irreversible sometimes. The stronghold you had on the woman who brought me into this world kept me from ever knowing a sober mother. I wish there was a way for you to take accountability for that but you’re a disease. How does a person accept something they cannot physically see until the effects are visible in the ones they love or in themselves? Your sole existence is to ruin lives and you’ve done just that.

I’ve been in love with someone who was in a relationship with you through alcohol and I begged and pleaded with you to not ruin us but in the end, you won. They always choose you. Maybe they don’t want you but they can’t seem to get away from you. I lost a best friend for a few years to you through heroin I and watched her daughter, my niece, go down the same road that I’ve been on my whole life of missing her mama because she was in a relationship with you. I thank God all the time that she was able to get out of your chokehold and be an amazing mother again but I worry constantly that you’ll creep back in and steal her away for good. I’ve watched you take my aunt and uncle away from their children. You leave innocent souls with a lifetime of damage to carry around. Not only did those little girls lose pieces of their parents during that turmoil, but the rest of our family felt their absence too. As if that wasn’t enough, you prayed on one of those broken children and brought her into your world too. You sure don’t discriminate or have any moral compass when choosing your victims.

While I hurt because of you, I cannot begin to understand the magnitude of love and hate for you that your victims feel during their time spent with you. The manipulation you create in their minds to convince them that they need you in the first place, then you make chemical changes in their brains so they actually do need you. You’re like a damaged person who manipulates another into thinking they’re nothing without you and breaking them down until you know they believe it and they’re too scared to get away from you. I’ve been there with one of your alcoholics and for the first time, I think I can relate to the fear of getting sober/getting out of the abuse. “Am I just damaged goods now?” “Will I ever be happy again or is this just my life now?” “Do I deserve better?” You’re a fucking abuser and I wish all of your victims knew the truth: that you’re a lying son of a bitch. There is happiness away from you and they do have a chance!

“But they’re sober now” doesn’t make their absence any less felt or make their chance of relapse any less. The aftershock of you is endless for your victims and their loved ones. Your reach is so far and wide. I fear you more than I fear death because I imagine being in your trap is synonymous with dying a slow death. I tried for a couple years to convince myself that my mother died of a brain aneurysm by chance but the truth is, you killed her. You took a mother, a daughter, a sister, an aunt, a niece, a friend and a girlfriend away from so many people. Why couldn’t you just let her go? I will spend my life trying to come to terms that it wasn’t her fault that you had her in your death grip and prevented her from being who she was before you took over her life. I just wish I knew that version of her; that I got a chance to love her soul before it was damaged beyond repair. I pray one day there is an end to you so we can all live in peace and that all the victims you took away from this place have finally escaped your prison.

Sincerely,
T.