The stigma of addiction and the ignorance that follows it is almost as bad as the disease itself. Anyone who takes time to understand the disease would see NO ONE wants to wake up one day and be an addict. Why would they?
You are having to wake up and hussell. Lying to everyone, you love, so no one knows what you’re doing — resorting to stealing. Desperate to stop it just for a little while. To lose your job, then your home. Only to live in your car that eventually that also is gone.  Walking the streets being judged all you can think of is how to get the next fix. Your last concern isn’t that you haven’t eaten, drank anything or showered in several days.
You long to be judged, thought of as trash. Family ostracized as if they didn’t raise you right. Known and targetted by local cops. Never accomplishing or moving forward in life and starting over only to lose again and again.
You dreamed of being in the local crack house. Midnight trips to your drug dealer, dodging raids, shooting up in random parking lots.
You want Hepatitis, HIV, STDS. Damage caused to the heart, lungs, liver. Abscesses from injections gone wrong. Trips to the emergency room for infections. You are treated as if you don’t deserve treatment because after all your just a drug addict.
Wanting to be called junkie, trash, drug addict, crack head, tweaker all the wonderful pet names we are so fondly called.
Yes! This is what you envisioned in your life when you were little. I wish people who have not been closely affected could look at this and ask themselves how would they want their child, husband, mother, spouse treated if it were them.
I know for me when I see someone judging my son — looking at him like he’s less of a person. Wishing hed just disappear and hoping his problems don’t affect them I pity them.
Even as a drug addict, my son has compassion. Understanding. Empathy for people who also struggle. He doesn’t judge you for judging him. He doesn’t look down on you for being less than what God calls us to be. In my book, even though he struggles, he has what we all should strive for — the strength to overcome. The ambition to keep trying. Love and forgiveness because he knows despair.
Next time you see a drug addict standing on the corner looking like life has kicked them around just remember we are all one step away from some tragedy, disease or life event that may take our life down a path we never imagined or asked for. Realize that you and your loved ones are not immune to this fight and that God sees them no different than he sees you.