Drug Addiction Stories

Pat is a lady I more know of than know, but due to circumstances I feel I know her very well.  Pat’s son was married to my stepdaughter, Erica.  His name was Anthony.  I didn’t like Anthony.  In fact, no one really liked Anthony.  He was a thug and a cocaine addict.  He was cruel to Erica and half the time ignored his own children.  Anthony had one brother and one sister.  Again, they were not the best of people to know and certainly not as sweet as their mother Pat.  Of course, the grand kids adored them all so that was just the way it was.  The series of events that were about to unfold were incredibly coincidental not just in one way, or two, but three.  The most important of these was drug addiction.

I got the phone call right after I had seen the nightly news.  Anthony had been in a car accident at a bad interstate intersection and had been killed instantly.  Although he and Erica were divorced, I knew she and the kids would be having a hard time.  Drug addiction had killed their father and now three small children would have to deal with that.  Of course, the kids had no idea about the cocaine addiction, but nonetheless, they may have to worry about it in the future.  A child never gets over losing a parent just as a parent never gets over losing a child, but after a while, Pat, Erica, and the kids had moved forward with their lives.

Fast-forward two years and it is like watching a rerun on the news.  It was the same intersection that Anthony was killed at, but this time, it was his brother and his sister that were killed in the crash.  Both of them were high on cocaine.  I must have sat there for 5 minutes just numb.  Poor Pat.  Not one or two, but all three of her children killed at the same intersection and all high on cocaine at the time.  Drug addictions had taken all three of her children from her.  My grand kids lost their father, aunt, and uncle because of addiction to drugs.  I cannot imagine the sorrow that Pat felt burying the last two of her children.  Here is a mother who never intended for her children to become drug addicts, but they did.  Their drug addiction ultimately lead them all to the same place to die in an automobile accident while high on cocaine.  At one time, Pat had three beautiful children playing at her feet.  Thanks to drug addiction, then there were none.