Life choices. Choose wisely.

We all face trials within our lives. No matter how good someone else's life may seem on the outside you never know what they go through behind closed doors on a daily basis. 

We also make choices every day. But do we always make wise choices? Sometimes, no we don't. And some of our choices end up leading to a long and destructive ending rather to a road of success. 

You may think someone else's life looks golden or their grass looks greener or their white pickett fence looks bigger or better, but if you only knew some people's real behind the scenes life and what they may have to endure then it becomes more clear that what looks great from a distance may not be as good as it appears inside. The outside can be deceiving. 

Addiction can be one of those things that  is behind closed doors or out in the open and of course can be deceiving, destroying and destructive. But it is one subject that I feel is not talked enough about. And the family who also deals with an addict in their lives is definitely not talked about enough either. But I want to touch on that subject in this blog. Let's talk about how your addiction can affect the family and destroy or even almost destroy them. 

There is a family who I know, who I won't use names for because of the sake of privacy. But I do have permission to post about this family. 

This family is your average Americana family, living in a single family dwelling in a small town where they were fairly well known by many there. Blessed with two kids and a few pets. They participated in their town's events, clubs and supported their local businesses. They attended a home church on a regular basis and was very faithful to their church family. They seemed like good genuine Christian people who were blessed with a simple good life and stayed to themselves. 

They seemed to live a fairly normal and semi comfortable life style raising their children to become respectful adults one day. Training them up with Bible beliefs. They did have your typical normal struggles of the economy inflations that a lot of low class and middle class as well both deal with but other than that they paid their bills and bought what was needed for the household and lived a happily family life with what they had. They tried to be content with what was given to them.  

Or at least that is what it appeared to be like from anyone who knew them. But behind this seemingly happy family life lived a dark unspoken addiction lurking in the shadows and just waiting to strike and waiting for the opportunity to, what would eventually almost tear this small family apart.  

This addiction was not that of alcohol, or even heavy drugs or gambling But was of prescribed medication. Something that is also not spoken much about. 

I have never personally been addicted to drugs or alcohol so I can't say I know of how it effects ones self physically but I have seen the impact it has had on this family and I can only imagine that no one sits back and thinks, one day I'm going to be an addict. Then chooses to actually be one. It starts off slow in most cases and ends up damaging more than ever imagined. 

It slowly creeps in and before you know it, you're hooked. And in the moment you as the addict don't see any problem or maybe you do but you choose to ignore it perhaps. You may never see a problem with it. But you choose to continue on thinking that you are not hurting anyone. But are you? 

And what you, as an addict really do not see or choose to ignore is what you are putting your family through during this time. What is there take away from it?

You may think you are causing no harm at all to anyone by what you are doing but you are so wrong. So let me share some insight or a revelation of what your family and your loved ones have tolerated when you are choosing your addiction over them.

This is taken from real life events. And is not fiction it's absolutely not made up accusations. A precious family suffered for actions taken by their addict family member. 

Let's set the scene....

As you are choosing to get doped up on your choice of substance, your family is having to do things without you because of course you are in no shape to participate with them. 

As your family and you are on an outing somewhere out and about for a day or a few hours you as the addict seem to be fine and dandy, acting normal but then unbeknown to your family you choose to slip some more drugs in your system before leaving and by the time you and the family arrive to your destination, you are already high or getting doped up and a lot of times by then it's too late and you have started embarrassing your family by the way you're acting and therefore your family has to leave to head back home to keep from further embarrassment and miss out on trying to enjoy going out. 

You not only embarass your family by your actions but you cause your young children to be scared for you because they do not fully understand why their parent is acting like that and you scare them because they love you and just want a normal parent but you are not able to meet that need for them by your actions. 

Your children are nervous to invite a friend over to the house even for just a few hours, because they are unsure if you will be a normal parent around them or a drugged up one and how you might end up acting causing embarrassment. Or they confide in their closest friends so they won't be alarmed but then that is one more person who knows your family secret that they try to hide this secret from in the first place. 

Your family sits around most evenings watching you so drugged that all they see and probably ever remember you doing is nodding off to sleep instead of engaging in family nights. 

Your family leaves you at home to go hang out with friends and upon their return you have unknowingly locked them out of the house and the neighbor has to help break you in which ends up finding you with all of the lights out standing in the shower with you being in an altered mental state thinking you are in your shed outside. But yet when the paramedics are called and your spouse tries to explain to them that they really think that you must have taken some medication that had an adverse effect on you, or possibly mixed some medications that may have caused this incident, they then look at the spouse like they are border line crazy because you are acting just fine once they arrive and begin examining and questioning you and of course you refuse any further medical attention. And this is about the time it all started; the long road that led to destruction after destruction. 

As your family sits at home and you take their only vehicle to go to your so called best buddies home to only get high with them, you don't make it back home in their only vehicle in one piece, and not only once but a total of 3 times in a very short amount of time between instances. With one time causing extensive damage to the vehicle which led you to being deceitful about how it happened and then eventually totaling that same vehicle later by driving under the influence of "prescription drugs" and then less than three weeks later after that totaled the next vehicle once again. 

And while the other adult in the household is trying to make a living by working outside of the home, therefore needing that vehicle to travel back and forth to work, and needing it for other errands and transportation you have now made it an inconvenience for everyone. 

And you not only jeopardize your own life by basically driving under the influence, but you could have injured someone else in the process or even worse, you could have killed other lives by making the unwise decisions that you did. 

But you claim that you were just sleepy though. And, sleepy for what reason though? It definitely was not from absence of sleep or from working. Because doping up is definitely not considered a job. And miraculously the law enforcement believed you. 

You not only have embarrassed your family or jeopardized your life or someone else'sbin many unknown incidents but you have caused so much stress during this time for your spouse and children. So much stress that you will probably never even realize to what extent. 

Your household should be able to look up to you and feel secure, loved, safe, and comfortable with your company. Instead they feel worried, afraid, upset and unsure of what to even expect of you each day. 

But God is good because He not only saw you through those moments you chose to take some extra medicines for whatever excuse you used to take it for, because you swore you hadn't taken anything else or even admitted to taking more than you knew you should, but God also saw your family through and kept them safe and kept your spouse from having a major stroke or nervous breakdown of some sort due to all of this added stress. 

Your spouse had a huge job of trying not to lose their mind, in the process but they were able to single parent, provide, navigate all while trying to keep a smile on their face to anyone watching and they actually stayed sane through it all. 

And in spite of all of the above moments that you chose addiction over your family, you still denied causing any of it or the fact that you had an addiction at all therefore not reaching out for any help, because you didn't think you had a problem. Everyone else was the problem, not you. You weren't hurting anyone not even yourself. That's what you led yourself to believe. But your family knew that wasn't the case at all. 

Your spouse tried to cover up your addiction on many occasions to avoid further embarrassment on yours, the children and their behalf and even went as far as whenever they needed to leave the house to go somewhere that they made sure that one of your children stayed behind to keep an eye on you, in other words they as your child babysat you instead, to ensure you didn't injure yourself or burn down the house accidentally from being so doped up that you didn't know your head from a hole in the ground, and you still tried doing things you had no business trying to do in the condition you were in at the moment but with your altered state you thought you were fine though and that you weren't putting your household in any danger. 

How fair was this for your child to have to be making sure you were safe and sound and watch you like a hawk when it was for the reason of you having to pop some more pills. Not for the reason of you not being able to help yourself. How was it fair to them to be the responsible adult when they were not even near adulthood yet. Yet, they cared that much to help you and be obedient to the other parent who was once again trying to conceal your addiction. 

You even would go as far as when your spouse finally refused to let you use your one and only vehicle once again to take off to your dope friends house, you went as far as attempting to walk there even though it was a 20 mile hike one way. You were really that desperate for another fix. And even though your so called friend would find ways to humiliate you, put you down any chance they got to do so, be envious of you, called you names and surly had no respect for you or your family either, you still chose to be around them any chance you got. You chose them over your spouse and kids. 

Your spouse took up for you, covered for you and tried their best to make things seem just fine to others because they were too ashamed to let very many people even know about your addiction or a portion of it. Your spouse put up with far more stuff from your choices than they needed to. And most people would have told them to just walk away and not put up with it or to send you packing. But your spouse tried to be a good spouse and endure through it. Because that is the promise they made to you when you first got married, was to vow to endure life together no matter what and not give up on each other. Through thick or thin. 

But the amount of stress and disappointment you put on your spouse just about did them in. But God saw them through and helped them stick it out. Would they have done anything different if given another chance, perhaps, or perhaps not but they would have more than likely noticed the signs way earlier on and attempted to put a stop to it in the beginning instead of letting it go on as long as it did. 

But your spouse has forgiven you and hopes and prays that you will completely overcome this addiction one day that has such a stronghold on you that you still continue to fall weak too at times. And most of all they have forgiven themselves for allowing this to continue on. 

And even when you would admit to knowingly disappointing and hurting your family, you would ask for forgiveness but then go back and do the same thing a week or so maybe a month later and would seem genuinely apologetic about what you did when you would come to your senses but continue to repeat the same behavior. Do you think after a while an apology meant nothing when you were just going to go and do it over and over again. 

Did you ever look in the mirror and hate the person you turned into? Or did you hate to even look at yourself in the mirror for failing your family and yourself? 

So let me just add in my opinion on this part here; I have always been a firm believer that no matter how much we beg, or hope and wish that a loved one will turn from their addiction or whatever is holding them back from it, they will only do so when they see their need to do so. Only they can be the ones who take that charge in their lives. And yes, God can help them do so but they have to want the desire to reach out to Him to take this addiction from them or whatever stronghold they are afflicted with and cleanse them with a renewed heart and a desire to put their trust in Him. 

And yes, not only non Christians can be addicts. It can happen to a Christian just as much. Satan is hard at work trying to destroy and kill everyone he can. Even Christians. He will use them to turn others from Christ. Because why would he try to work harder on a non Christian who is serving him already. He wants to keep you from serving the one and only God. 

So not only you as an addict and a confessing Christian along with it, are hurting your family but you are turning away others from knowing Christ as well. Because in their eyes, if they are not a Christian and they see you abusing drugs and they don't do so themselves, then how are they any worse than you? Why would you expect them to listen to anything you have to say. We need to be sure as Christians to not be a stumbling block to those we come in contact with. 

You as an addict, are not a horrible person and you are only human and humans sin each day, even Christians do as well. But you suffer from weakness though, a weakness to turn away from the very thing tearing your family apart little by little and the stronghold that Satan has on you to keep you from pointing others to Christ. You made a bad decision early on that led you down a road of sorrow. 

If you could have seen down that road in the beginning and all of the out come, would still make the same decision? 

But what will it take to make you see that you are indeed not only hurting yourself or your family? Will it take a loss of a loved one, losing everything you own? A job? Losing support of family or even your own household? 

Addiction not only hurts everyone named above but causes so many heartbreaks, disappointment, embarrassment, turmoil and damage that you may never see. 

So if you happen to be an addict, please ask yourself, Is it worth losing my loved ones either by untimely death or losing them from being in my life and around me....is it worth it to continue choosing my addiction over my family and over Gods blessings on my life that I'm missing out on. 

Those so called friends that are feeding or contributing to your addiction aren't going to be able to replace your family when they are gone. They may not even stick around their own selves. So what then? You may be leading yourself down a road of complete loneliness. 

I am not sure if this blog will help anyone but if it helps just one then it was worth sharing. And if nothing else I hope it helps those families or friends dealing with someone who chooses an addiction over them to let you know that you are not alone. You are seen. 

Dealing with someone who is in addiction can be stressful and cause resentment, bitterness, betrayal, and even enviness in knowing that you are being chosen over  by something else. But don't let it drag you down. And remember you can't change that person no matter how hard you want to and may have even tried numerous times to do so with no avail. 

But God can fill any void we are in need of and He can heal that addict just as much as anyone else. Satan is the father of confusion and lies and seeks whom he may devour and destroy with whatever source he can use to do so. God is a loving and forgiving, a patient Father who only wants the best for us. 

He wants us wholeheartedly but He wants us to be Christlike. So ask yourself if you are a Christian, am I being Christlike today? If not, strive to do better and make that change needed to be as much like Christ as we possibly can be. And please make wise decisions. 

And if you are not a Christian and would like to be so, or learn more please let someone know your need. Find someone who loves Christ and can provide the help you are in need of.