@faithwalker007

Don't I wish! A little euphoria would be welcome once in a while. I can't remember ever having that happen to me, with a possible exception of getting a big dose of dilaudid in the ER a couple of times.

We adopted our son as a newborn, and knew that his birth family had real addiction problems. As he got older, we could see that he developed habits, both good and bad, very quickly. When he was old enough to understand, we had a conversation about the addictive personality issue, and talked about how important it was that he never develop a behavior, such as drinking alcohol and smoking, that would easily become a life controlling habit. He really took it to heart. Unfortunately, he didn't apply it to drinking too much Mountain Dew.

The addictive personality has been evident in my 2 brothers, with significant drug and alcohol abuse for many years. One was able to break free of it after around 10 years, but the other one came very close to dying, with almost no liver function, homeless, separated from his family, many years behind on paying any taxes, nothing left to call his own. It took at least 5 years for him to achieve sobriety once he got started, and I think it's been 10 years or so since he reached that point. He's hypervigilant about his diet now. During the years that he was trying to get clean, our father died, and he moved in with Mom, with a strict zero tolerance policy for having any alcohol in her home. He fell now and then, but didn't give up. My sister had access to his finances because he was too far gone to deal with them, so if he didn't show up at home, she could track his debit card transactions, and knew that he was on another binge. He got clean and sober with my sister's and mother's help, before Mom died, and the trust my parents wrote up allowed him to live in the condo (which was paid for) as long as he needed it.

I'm proud of the hard work he did. 25 years ago, we went to see him at the VA hospital in Santa Rosa, and he didn't know us. Doctors told us that he would be lucky to live another year. Somehow he managed to survive long enough to reach the point when he was ready to turn his life around. So, there's hope for those who have an addictive personality.

Sorry. I never know when to stop. I think it's time now.

Jim

Jump to this post