How Drug Addiction Has Affected My Family

My sister Michelle and I are 6 years apart. She's the older one. Over the years, our relationship has been one of love and hate - all due to the drug addiction she faced, which I'm only now beginning to understand.

She started out with such promise in life, but the peer pressure to fit in among a rough crowd in her public school made her cave to her conviction and test out a myriad of previously off-limits substances.

She started with cigarettes. The moment is so vivid in her mind and you can tell it affects her greatly. She was standing at the bus stop in 8th grade and one girl had just punched another in the face on the first day of school. That same bully lights up a cigarette, turns to my sister, and says, "You smoke, don't you?"

She said yes out of pure fear.

Then it turned into nighttime escapes where she and a few friends would get drunk. This type of crowd later introduced her to pot, cocaine, and then the worst drug that has kept her life in shambles ever since - methamphetamines - aka: Meth.

The low points have been multiple stints in jail, endless arguments and estrangements with our family, and rescuing my elderly father and niece and nephews from her drug den with a potentially explosive meth lab inside the house.

My sister's clean right now. She's working and living in a house with her two sons (her older son and daughter are grown). We talk from time to time, but I'm always waiting for that other shoe to drop.

I never got it until I started learning more about it and stopped thinking it was something she was doing to us. I love her and I hope she stays healthy. I wish I could take away whatever fear and hurt that drove her to this predicament.

We came from a "good" family, and I'm living proof that it can happen to any family, no matter how much you try to prevent it or how loving your parents are. You just have to do your best and try to do everything you can to prevent drugs from entering your family's life.

If you're stuck in the seemingly never-ending trap of addiction, you need to know that there is hope. Many people struggle between addiction and recovery and relapse several times before finally breaking free from this trap.

If you're struggling with your own drug problem, there are resources that can give you the hope that you need to get help. If you're currently in recovery, you'll be able to relate to the struggles of others who have been through it before.

Drug use can take you to the darkest depths. You can lose everything including your family, your friends, your livelihood, and your self-respect. But it's important to know there's always hope and help.

In some of these books, you'll read about the addict's struggle with losing everything, alienating their family, and finding a way back. No matter where you are in your life, you can benefit from learning how someone else has made the huge step of getting help and getting their life back together.

Some of the books reveal highly personal struggles through a pen name in order to remain anonymous in keeping with their 12-step program and in keeping the identity of their family members protected. And though they remain anonymous, you'll be blown away by their raw stories of pain, struggle, and finally hope and redemption.

If you're caught in the cycle of addiction, you should understand that there's a way out. By reading other resources of those who have been there, you'll be able to see how someone else in your position was able to make a new life for themselves.

Even if you don't personally have a problem with addiction, you may be affected seriously by someone else who does. Anyone who has a close friend or family member who is in the throes of drug or alcohol addiction understands the toll it can take. This struggle can literally tear a family apart and lead to feelings of hopelessness and even shame.

If you've given up on your family member, you should know that there is always hope. In some of the above resources, addicts discuss the lows and the highs and their stories, and though painful and difficult at times, it's a reminder that no one is ever really a lost cause.

When struggling with a family member who's dealing with addiction, you can often feel like there's no way out. You may feel like you just can't take anymore and even fear for your loved one's life. These feelings are very normal and natural, but it helps to temper them with hope.

Understanding where your family member is coming from and his or her experiences may help you to understand how you can best handle the situation. You may also be able to reconcile your feelings and begin to live your life better as well. You'll be able to understand why your loved one has disappointed you.

You'll get the truth about what it's like (at least for one addict) to live in a cycle of addiction. You'll find out what motivates a person to walk down this path and how you can best help them. You may also want to check out the 12-step program for families of addicts - Alanon. There's also a program for teenagers called Alateen.

If you're living life as a slave to addiction, you should know that there is help and hope available for you. There are many 12-step programs that offer the tools you need to recover at very little, if any, cost.

You can work your way back to life from a personal hell of drug use, pain, and loss by working the steps of the program. And you can stay involved in the program and even become a sponsor for others who are new to the program.

No matter what your addiction is - gambling, alcohol, sex, drugs - there's a 12-step program that can help you to get back to a life that's not dependent on when and where you get your next fix. Programs like Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, and Gamblers Anonymous can help you to regain your life and move toward a brighter future.

Let others be your example and your model as you work toward your own recovery. No matter how bad things are right now, there's always a way out. Many people have walked the path that you now tread, and they've lived to tell about it.

Not only can you survive after falling into the addiction trap, but you can thrive. Have hope as you read the story of others, including my own sister who is now drug-free and single-handedly supporting her children on her own.

It isn't easy. But it's possible.