Sylvia224

I haven’t been here in a while, but I just wanted to post a reminder of the inevitable result of active addiction. My cousin has just passed away as a result of his addictions. He had some very painful things happen to him in his life, and he began drinking and overeating as a way to cope with that pain. Before long, he wound up with diabetes, then cirrhosis of the liver. He lost his job, his home, all of his friends. He moved back in with his parents and, I think due to his feelings of shame and dependence, he became very bitter. He just gave up on everything and hid away. He had a couple very close brushes with death as a result of the internal bleeding caused by his drinking, and his doctors assured him that he would die if ever drank again. He wouldn’t listen, I think because he couldn’t. Because he was at that point so alone in his obsessions and addictions that death did not seem too high a price to pay to ease the cycle of hurting.
My aunt found him Tuesday night, vomiting blood and unable to stand. It took nine paramedics to get him into an ambulance. They tell us that he has been bleeding rectally for days, not telling anyone. At the hospital, his kidneys failed. Dialysis was unsuccessful because of the internal bleeding. His liver shut down completely, he was put on life support. His only chance of survival would have been a liver transplant, but he was not considered a candidate because of his continued drinking. His family had no choice but to turn off the life support machine and let him go with morphine, water and oxygen. He died about 19 hours later. He was not even 40 years old.
It really hurts me to hear people saying "he did it to himself" and "he caused his mother so much pain, it’s better this way" or "he just made one terrible decision after another." That hurts. If anyone is reading this who has experienced addiction, I’ll bet you know what I mean. It hurts because all he wanted to do was to find a way to cope with his pain (and believe me, this man experienced some very unfortunate things, he had pain). He didn’t mean to hurt anyone else, he didn’t intend to be selfish, he didn’t intend to lose everything. But the more things fell apart around him, the more he turned to the one and only thing that seemed to ease his terrible feelings of fear and isolation. Addiction is a devastating mental illness, and unless an addict summons and incredible amount of courage and strength to get help, this is what happens in the end. Not one of us can judge him, because we do not know what it felt like to live in his mind. I’ve even been told while he was still alive, "just look at how awful his life was. It’s better if he dies" and I am angry. Because his life was worth just as much as anyone else’s, but he was sick, he was not a terrible person. I guess I’m mainly angry at all the judgements I am hearing, even one completely neurotic relative who tells me that he is "going to hell" for "basically committing suicide" and putting his family through so much pain. As if any one of us is more than a few steps away from total devastation, and who is to judge? What person, I don’t care how good your coping mechanisms or whatever are, what one of us has never hurt another person with our actions? I’m really angry at addiction in general, because it is such a lonely, lonely place to be. What if I could have told him that I understood? I never did though.
Anyway, thanks for reading. I guess I tell this story as a reminder to everyone recovering that even when it gets hard and you’re tired and just want relief in your drug of choice, you won’t find it there. So keep fighting and praying.