My eyes begin to flutter open as the first rays from the sun hit my face. I close them again one more time as I kiss the sweet memories goodbye and prepare for my day. How did this become my new reality. An existence, a life that you are no longer a part of it. How can it be that one day you are laying here beside me and the next moment…

My life has always been mirroring this exact moment. Like a time capsule preparing me for what lays in store. It wasn’t so much the addiction that scared me but this moment right here. So many of those we knew have now been reduced. Kissing their loved ones for the last time. Hiding their disgrace from our eyes. The made the decision to use anywhere that they could hid from our prying eyes. They don’t know that our frustration is born out of our fear for this exact moment. They don’t see it the way that we do though. They can’t. Their demons have taken over long ago and where our loved ones once stood now is the hollow of the disease that they have become.

I am not ashamed of you are because I know who you used to be. For me you didn’t have the only hand that forced those pills onto you that day. There was always somebody else behind you pushing you down the dark path. I saw them for who they were. They weren’t trying to help. They knew that if they could gain control of you then they would be to use you in ways you can’t even imagine.  I see you though. I see that pain in your eyes because I am not afraid to look into them. If this is the doorway into your soul then I will join you inside your sorrow. If for anything you can see that we are not all like that. Yes I do have an opinion but it has no validity here with you. I don’t know your pain. I definitely don’t know your struggle. I can’t compare the life that I had with yours because I know that one second spent in the wrong direction can alter the storey. Maybe it is me that have failed to open my eyes this morning and it is you waiting for those sleeping pills to wear off.

We are all ashamed of the addict that walks amongst us. For some of us we don’t even know. That the life of the one next to us is so dark that they can’t even deal with their pain. They feel isolated and alone and worthless like there is no point to it all anyways. There is no point to it all. That doesn’t mean though that we should end.  The only rational behind this is that we were given a chance to love and nourish and thrive in ways that we could never if we didn’t inhabit a carbon body.  We all just want to sit an oblivion waiting for the next chapter to reveal itself to us. If we don’t like the book jacket though we can toss it aside and wait for the next decade to be on us and then tell ourselves it is time to improve. We numb our senses convinced it is harder to feel then it is to participate. All of our loved ones start running on fear and embarrassment. Not sure how to help. The only truth to loving an addict is there is never enough time. That for us the ones left living it will be the hardest journey we will ever have to endure. Where once our dreams were filled with happiness and life there is no future no hope. To the mom’s having to say goodbye to their children without ever knowing their true potential my heart will always be in pieces for you.  To try and find a purpose to it all when in a blink of an eye. For no good reason. That purpose, that light is now forever gone.

I can sit here and wish and pray and hope that maybe if I could somehow alter the ending…That ending. The one for our loved one is now a memory. With every passing minute it is further in the past then it ever was in the present. Their memory like their life is becoming more forgotten as the tales from when they were alive become more distorted and serve as a fictional piece than anything that ever happened in life. For those of you in this constant battle between wanting to live and wanting to die what I can tell you is that dying is infinite. Once you are there you can never go back. I like to think of that possibility from time to time. I think it is natural for us all too. But for an addict that thought enters their brain every time they use. Is this going to be the dose that kills me? So think of the addict with the $600 habit. The odds are in your favour that you will happen upon the lot that will make you drop. It’s our version of the modern day roulette. It’s incredulous to think that it was our health care system that created this scandal in the first place. Most of the addicts I have met were introduced to the high first from their doctor with their non addictive pain remedies. So at a time when you are feeling your lowest and thankful that you didn’t die you will wish the exact opposite in a couple years. The decision to make it so you can no longer alter oxy’s made it so this epidemic took off like wildfire. The easiest substitution for most addicts was heroin. Add in another pharmaceutical and we have a lethal dose ready to take out those that we look down upon.

Addiction and now has always been a part of my life. The loss being something though that is just rising u; in these portions that are just going to break me one day. I know what it feels like now when we hug our loved ones for the last time. I know how it feels to shut the door behind an addict trying to believe that they were ok. Seeing in their eyes though that incredible pain that was going to break and that phone call that was coming that no mother should ever have to make. I have sat at the bedside holding on to their hand encouraging them to make the right choice for them. Not for me or his mom. I told him that if where he was so beautiful and so tranquil that you couldn’t make it back that I would make it so that we all understand. I remember turning to his mom and telling her that is not a reflection on her but we have to allow him to make his own choice. Sometimes the pain that others are living is something that we can never comprehend.  For the first time laying in tranquil silence the addict can now make a choice. They have walked down the same road many times. They have been met with failure time and time again. If they come back to us it will be more of the same. Nobody want to die young. But I am hoping that maybe there is a choice. I have to believe in that. I have to believe that once their energy has transformed they are free at last and there is no more suffering. When all they are is a memory I will use that to guide me home. To remind me the sweet tragedy of feeling you are entirely alone. That nobody wants to understand only judge. I will never point a finger because I never want to lose. I don’t want to accuse and nudge, nudge, nudge away. I am a functioning empath. My whole insides can be ripped into shreds but there is always a time and place. I usually like to cry alone because I don’t want to upset anybody else. Maybe because it is in that pain that I know came great love. In the memory of my friend who lost his way I want to reach out to those that are at their lowest. Yes I don’t know you. But I do love you. We get to walk and live this great Earth at the same sliver in time. I don’t want to make your journey harder I want to make it better. I want to inspire you to find the way to live your greatest life possible. That no matter who you are you are worth it even in those moments of greatest despair.