Why Should Drug Addicts be Helped?
I certainly never figured that my sweet little girl would ever become a drug addict, but she did. I watched as she became more and more reclusive and began to avoid family and friends. At least, friends that didn’t share her love of drugs. The hardest thing I’ve ever had to do was watch my beautiful, giggling little girl become a miserable, pathetic thief and drug addict.
At first, she would ask for money. Apparently that wasn’t enough to feed her habit. After a while, she stopped asking, but I would be missing money from my purse. I didn’t want to believe she was taking it at first, but then even her little sister had money come up missing. After a while, given the missing money and her behavior, I had to admit to myself that she was an addict. Confronting her with it was one of the most painful experiences of my life. She began screaming at me, calling me names she never had before. Suddenly it was as though it was my fault all of this was happening. Her addiction was my fault? In the mind of an addict, I guess so.
Soon, I was “the bitch”. I was the one who was responsible for everything that ever happened to her. She didn’t have a problem, I did. She wasn’t an addict, I was a bitch. To her it all made sense. To me, it made me more determined to get her help. The more I talked about getting her helped, the more she screamed. A few times, she walked out, slamming the door behind her, and left for days at a time. She was out getting high and I was home worried to death about her. Sometimes she would come back and try to act as though nothing had happened. Other times, she would come back with an attitude expecting an apology from me.
I began to lock my money and my purse up in a lock box. That infuriated her. I also locked up my younger daughter’s money. I began to confront her about her addiction more often, which led to more screaming matches. After a while, I began to stop arguing with her and would just state my view and walk away. After 2 years of this, she finally got “it”. She finally realized that the rules weren’t going to change, that she would have to change. She would have to get help for her addiction. She did it, too. She got help and I got my little girl back. Somewhat worse for the wear, but she was back. Why should drug addicts be helped? Because they may be beautiful, wonderful people trapped in a world of addiction.
It happens innocently enough; someone goes to the doctor with an ailment and the medication the doctor prescribes not only takes care of the ailment, but also produces an addiction. There are many people who are addicted to pain killers, anti-anxiety medications, and muscle relaxers, among others. Of course, it was not the doctor’s intent to have anyone become addicted.

