Families & Friends Of Addicts Support Group
Addiction affects more than just the individual. This community is dedicated to the families and friends of individuals suffering from any form of addiction. Mental health professionals are increasingly considering alcoholism and addiction as diseases that flourish in and are enabled by family systems. Family members react to the addicted person with particular behavioral...
Saw this on FB and was BLOWN away by it:
I once knew a woman who started smoking when she was 15 years old. As time went on and the years passed by, she got married and had 3 beautifiul and adorable children, Emma, Diana, and Anthony. As they grew, their affection, admiration, and love for their mommy grew so strong, you almost had to seperate them with a crow bar because they were all inseperable. As the children got older, they begged their mommy to stop smoking. They told her they were worried about her health and even brought home pamphlets on the effects that smoking has on a person. When she was 36 years old, she was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer and within one month, the cancer had spread to her liver and into her brain. Sadly, after 2 months of fighting, she succumbed to her disease and passed away. At the funeral, all you could hear was people crying and talking about how wonderful of a person she was. They spoke of cancer and could not believe that she, of all people, got it...She was not supposed to die because she had so much life in front of her
Sadness and tears spread over the graveyard like a dark fog in the early morning as they lowered her casket into the ground. The whole crowd consoled one another and not one of them spoke about her smoking or if it was the cause of her demise. Compassion and sympathy ruled everyone's heart and as the funeral was coming to an end, a dear friend of the woman said, "Cancer took another great person, we will all miss her."
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I once knew a man who started drinking alcohol and doing drugs at the age of 15. As time went on, he married a beautiful woman and had three wonderful children, Alex, Samantha, and Katherine and boy did he love them! He would make their games, drive them to school, and was a great daddy to them all, but as time went on, his addictions grew stronger and stronger. His excess drinking was public knowledge but his drug addiction was a dirty little secret. He would drink a lot and his kids begged him to stop, but he couldn't. As the months turned into years, his addictions were now out of control and one beautiful Sunday morning, his son Alex walked in his room with two baseball gloves to play catch with his daddy, only to find him dead and with a needle sticking out of his arm. You could hear Alex scream from a mile away and as the other kids came in and saw their daddy dead from drugs, tears and screams filled the room and their lives had just severely changed for the worse.
At the funeral, the three kids heard people talking about their daddy, their hero, and how he was so stupid and how he had a choice to quit and didn't. They heard people saying how the world just lost another, "junkie" and how he didn't have to live that way. As the casket was lowered into the ground, someone was heard saying, "if he was stronger and just quit using drugs, he would be alive for his family. He was so selfish doing drugs and leaving his children without a daddy!!"
Now, we all know that these two scenerios are ficticious events but the stigma associated with them is real!!! Nobody knows, unless they have been through it, what an addict goes through!!! We want to stop, but like smoking, find it very hard to do. When an addict dies, it was always his or her fault and they could have stopped if they wanted to, but if a smoker dies of cancer, or someone dies of diabetes because they were an overeater all their lives, it is never their fault and the compassion for their deaths far outweigh the death of the addict.
We need to stop this stigma, we need to educate people on addiction and we need to spread awareness everywhere...Yes, addiction is a disease and it is a killer......
I once knew a woman who started smoking when she was 15 years old. As time went on and the years passed by, she got married and had 3 beautifiul and adorable children, Emma, Diana, and Anthony. As they grew, their affection, admiration, and love for their mommy grew so strong, you almost had to seperate them with a crow bar because they were all inseperable. As the children got older, they begged their mommy to stop smoking. They told her they were worried about her health and even brought home pamphlets on the effects that smoking has on a person. When she was 36 years old, she was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer and within one month, the cancer had spread to her liver and into her brain. Sadly, after 2 months of fighting, she succumbed to her disease and passed away. At the funeral, all you could hear was people crying and talking about how wonderful of a person she was. They spoke of cancer and could not believe that she, of all people, got it...She was not supposed to die because she had so much life in front of her
Sadness and tears spread over the graveyard like a dark fog in the early morning as they lowered her casket into the ground. The whole crowd consoled one another and not one of them spoke about her smoking or if it was the cause of her demise. Compassion and sympathy ruled everyone's heart and as the funeral was coming to an end, a dear friend of the woman said, "Cancer took another great person, we will all miss her."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
I once knew a man who started drinking alcohol and doing drugs at the age of 15. As time went on, he married a beautiful woman and had three wonderful children, Alex, Samantha, and Katherine and boy did he love them! He would make their games, drive them to school, and was a great daddy to them all, but as time went on, his addictions grew stronger and stronger. His excess drinking was public knowledge but his drug addiction was a dirty little secret. He would drink a lot and his kids begged him to stop, but he couldn't. As the months turned into years, his addictions were now out of control and one beautiful Sunday morning, his son Alex walked in his room with two baseball gloves to play catch with his daddy, only to find him dead and with a needle sticking out of his arm. You could hear Alex scream from a mile away and as the other kids came in and saw their daddy dead from drugs, tears and screams filled the room and their lives had just severely changed for the worse.
At the funeral, the three kids heard people talking about their daddy, their hero, and how he was so stupid and how he had a choice to quit and didn't. They heard people saying how the world just lost another, "junkie" and how he didn't have to live that way. As the casket was lowered into the ground, someone was heard saying, "if he was stronger and just quit using drugs, he would be alive for his family. He was so selfish doing drugs and leaving his children without a daddy!!"
Now, we all know that these two scenerios are ficticious events but the stigma associated with them is real!!! Nobody knows, unless they have been through it, what an addict goes through!!! We want to stop, but like smoking, find it very hard to do. When an addict dies, it was always his or her fault and they could have stopped if they wanted to, but if a smoker dies of cancer, or someone dies of diabetes because they were an overeater all their lives, it is never their fault and the compassion for their deaths far outweigh the death of the addict.
We need to stop this stigma, we need to educate people on addiction and we need to spread awareness everywhere...Yes, addiction is a disease and it is a killer......
They become liars, manipulators, blamers, extremely selfish--seriously hurting others especially those who loved them the most. They destroy families unlike other diseases in which families pull together and support the sick person.