I am a women, and a mother, but I am also someone who speaks from experience, when I say that drug addiction is a disease that ravages families and ruins lives.
It took me years to overcome my demons.
Some might say you can never overcome them. Maybe that's true. As for me I fill that empty space with love now. It sounds cheesy right? Like one of those hallmark cards you get at the local grocery store. You know, the ones that you pick up, read, subconsciously gag and put back down.
All you need is love.....riiiiight.
In my case my demons began at four years old when I was left on the doorstep of a aunt who didn't want me.
That night is burned into my mind forever. A scar I will never get rid of. My mother left me screaming that night on the staircase of my aunts house because we lost our home, and everything else when the IRS came and took it. I had the worst and only earache I have ever had in my life to top it off. I awoke alone on the staircase, my mother gone.
I think at that age you definitely are smart enough to know when your wanted and loved and when your not. I couldn't imagine my girls in a situation like that.
I wasn't physically abused. I was a burden.
A few years later I ended up back with my mom. We went on to live in a drug induced, chaos filled life. My life was forever effected by others decisions.
What I didn't know at the time , was that drugs played and would continue to play a major role in my life starting way back then. My family lost everything because of drug addiction, over and over again.
It wasn't until I got sober myself at 22, had my first child and my first apartment that I realized, that I would do whatever it took to make sure my children would never have to go through what I did. They would have everything I didn't. They would never be left alone or on someone else's doorstep. They are my responsibility, no one else's.
I now have a family of my own. I have what I think I was always searching for, a family who loves me. They need me as much as I need them. I wouldn't be who I am without them.
After I had my first child, we were a family of two, my tiny baby in my arms alone trying to figure it out. I didn't know what life had in store for us then, but I knew my life mattered. Above that my child's life mattered. Its a experience all its own to see a light at the end of the tunnel after so many years of darkness.
In the last nine years since then, my family has grown.
I am blessed with a blended family of two girls and one of the most talented drummers I have ever met as my stepson (he's on a scholarship for music at S.F.S.U!)
My best friend is the love of my life.
This story has a happy ending, or beginning if you look at it from my point of view. I broke the cycle. My children are not statistics.
So after all that when I see someone going down the same path that my parents went down with their own children, I can't help it, I get pissed. Its like what the fuck? Why aren't your children your number one priority? Don't you understand the MASSIVE consequences
to your actions? Screw what happens to your life. You chose that shit. Don't you understand what it will do to your children? The effects that drugs and violence have on a child can last a lifetime.
It will follow them around and eat them up inside, until their is nothing left but another mother or father all grown up having fucked up children of their own. And so on and so forth. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree and all that. Its kinda like that movie The Butterfly Effect but on a much larger scale. Every action you take will effect the lives of generations of the ones closest to you FOREVER! Good or bad its your choice what effects you choose to have on the lives of your children.
That being said its not easy choosing your children over yourself. Its a selfless act, parenting. You live your life for them.
You will forever weigh the choices you make and how it will effect them.
In the end the satisfaction I receive from my childrens lives fulfilled and accomplishments gained, outweighs the fleeting and hollow instant gratification I gained from drug use. The children are our future. Its up to us, the parents as to what that future looks like....
About the author: Gizelle Arriola is a stay at home mom to a wonderfully chaotic family, who writes about her misadventures in life and parenting. She enjoys poker, reading, and long walks on the beach (not necessarily in that order) and whenever possible she takes her handsome and at times impossible husband along for the ride.
Check her out on her Facebook page Dearest Mommy,
https://m.facebook.com/dearestmommy
Or her blog site,
dearestmommy1.wordpress.com
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