Rising Above Addiction: I Am the Only 'Straight' Person In My Family

by Nathan
(Augusta, ks)

Stories of addiction come in many ways. Some come from the addicts themselves and weather they overcame it. Many overcame it and many have not. Mine is a different version than most. I am the only person in my family of 5 to never have done drugs or alcohol.

My mother having a prescription pill problem and also addicted to amphetamines, my father being an alcoholic, pill abuser, and methamphetmines. My two brothers addicted mostly to drugs and one both alcohol and drugs. I am the only straight one.

Although my parents are both strong addicts now, they were once the opposite. As a child my father had a successful masonry business making a quarter-million dollars a year with a very strong faith in God and a very generous person, my mother was an active mother being a bus driver and basketball coach and attending all my brothers sport activities, and my two brothers who are very good at sports.

Everything was good until my mother began using drugs with my fathers business partners' wife, then my fathers partner embezzelled $90,000 from their company and to top it off my brothers began using drugs. This led my dad to have a nervous breakdown and to start using drugs and alcohol.

Although my dad had had a previous drug and alcohol problem in the past, he had been a recovering addict for 12 years. He became a crazed maniac after using drugs especially mixed with alcohol. This all started when I was 7 years-old. We lost everything we had to my parents addiction, our house, 2 boats. Motorcycles, go-karts, cars. Even the pictures on the wall we lost. Everything was gone.

My mother took care of me the best way a drug addicted mother could. Staying in motel rooms and relatives were the best way to escape my fathers abusive rage which only happened when he was using. He eventually went to prison for a year for pulling a shotgun on my mother and causing the police, swat team and dea to come to my house to neutralize the situation.

After prison he went right back to it. He got straight for a year and a half and started back his own business my 7th grade year but only lasted until him and my mother got back together after an out-of-state separation. Now, I'm 17, still living with my drug addicted parents and brother.

My oldest brother was smart and left state and escaped most of the hard drug use, he only replaced it with a dysfunctional relationship with his wife and occasional drug use of marijuana and occasional alcohol. As I began to loose hope in my families' recovery, I start to realize that maybe somewhere,somehow, recovery can reach them and renew the strength they once had and begin to make a life for themselves and grand kids.

I'm currently 17 years-old praying for their recovery. This story is for any kid that says a kid can't be half-way sane and make it in an addictive household with a family entirely dependent on drugs. God is with every kid who is in this situation.

Just because you can't see faith, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Thanks for listening to the brief summary of my rising above addictions story. I hope you draw strength from my experiences and know any one one can make it if they try and they have God on their side!