HONORABLE MENTION #1

NAME: GRACE

The images of empty glass bottles and syringes flash through my mind every single day. I lived in fear, not for my own life, but for my mother’s. Addiction ruins families, relationships, people, and souls. I was luckily saved by my grandparents but I always wanted my mother to recover, no matter what she put me through. My mother actually was a patient at CADA. It felt so nice to think she was safe somewhere and I didn’t have to worry about her. Unfortunately, this tranquility was short-lived because my mother chose to leave. This addiction has followed her around her entire life and I’ve only seen a small part of it. Seeing the pain, suffering, disease, and despair in my mother’s eyes haunts me every day. This all started because my mother was corrupted by a sickness that cannot be cured with medicine.

Recovery has always been a funny word to me. I mean a patient ‘recovers’ but they are never the same. Recovery is something that has to happen mentally just as much as it does physically. My mother has been to countless recovery centers. She missed her high school class senior picture because she was at rehab. Over 20 years later, she was recently in rehab 6 months ago. She has never fully recovered because if she was, she would be on the road working towards her sobriety. She has recovered physically in the past and stayed sober for maybe a few months. But, she always turns back to her addiction because she has never been healed mentally or emotionally. This type of healing takes hard work and willingness. I feel sorry for my mother because she still does not see this. Recovery, the right recovery, can only be obtained if the addict wants help. Unfortunately, I have learned that my mother is not one of those people.

Because of my parents’ addictions, I have had to grow up and skip out on my childhood. When I was a child, around 8 years old, I had to take care of my brother and me. When my mother would take us home from school, she started dinner. We mostly ate food from the grill because my mother liked to smoke and drink on the patio. My little brother is unfortunately blind and autistic so while my mom drank, I took care of him. I gave him his baths, played with him, changed his diapers, and helped him. I still had to take care of myself while caring for him. Yes, it was hard but I would do it again because I love my brother so much. My stepdad would return home, dinner would be ready, and my mother would come inside and pretend to be the mother she wanted to be. My stepdad and mother got into many fights. It was terrible and many of these fights led to my parents blaming me. Of course, as a young child, I had no idea that everything that was happening was wrong. I thought everything was normal and I pretended that we were happy. I sought refuge by going to my grandparents’ house on the weekends. Addiction causes lives to be ripped apart and children to be damaged emotionally. I am one of those children, but I don’t let my circumstances hold me back. I know that my parents never wanted me or my brother to feel pain or to struggle but that is exactly what happened.

From an outsider’s perspective, it appears that people choose addictions. It looks like an addict chooses to drink, do drugs, or gamble at the expense of their families. Over time, I have learned that this is false. Addiction is a disease. It is a fatal disease that affects too many people. Everyone has an addiction, to some, it is video games or food. While to others in severe cases, it is drugs. My mother never meant for her life to turn out like this. She never meant to hurt her children. My father never wanted to spend half of his adulthood in prison. Addicts do not choose this life of uncertainty and pain. They do choose, however, to not seek full recovery. It is their choice to continue the lifestyle of heartache. Addiction kills just the same as cancer. It grows and grows until it compromises the body. You can live with both diseases until you can’t. However, there is a cure for addiction. The cure is finding who you are without all of the alcohol or drugs pumped into your body. The cure is finding the happiness deep within that overpowers all of the pain. The cure is looking for the meaning of everything. When you see the life that is given to you, why would you want to kill yourself with drugs? The cure is choosing life. Addiction consumes everything in its path unless you put an end to it and focus on the grace of life. Can you hear me? Addiction is the same as cancer. The same as diabetes. The same as Alzheimer's. It is a disease but it has a cure. A cure that is filled with hard work and determination. An addict who seeks this cure needs love and support. You can’t force the cure on someone. It needs to be wanted by the addict or else it fails. To me, addiction is a disease that has a cure but you have to want it.