This evening I got a call from a dear, dear friend. Her daughter, the girl I've known since she was maybe 14 and used to babysit our children, absolutely beautiful girl, has a drug problem. She's 30 now, 4 children, three fathers, and has been getting that oxy-contrin that has made the big splash in the news lately. That along with vicodin and something else.
I sat here on the other end of the phone, completely helpless, trying not to tell her that she needs to 'let go.' My friend is in Arizona. Her daughter is here, in mid-California, somewhere within a 20 mile radius of me. But I don't know where she is, her mother doesn't know where she is.
So... here with my "vast" knowledge of how 'the other half' thinks/lives/connives I felt horrible that I had to tell her that there won't be any way for her to understand what her daughter is thinking. That they get high because of a deep-rooted pain. They get high because there's air; they get high because they're angry, lonely, tired, hungry; because they feel familiar with that non feeling.....that coerced feeling of warmth that comes over them that becomes so familiar, so comfortable that it's a necessary part of their day and they're lonely without it.
How do you tell a mother that? I only gleaned this over many years. It almost seems sad to take it away from them. It's like a thick warm blanket that shields them from the world...but it shields them from life.
So I told her that she'll have to entertain the ideas that her daughter will probably have her children taken away. She'll probably wreck her car, lose her job, lose her house. She'll probably borrow money and not pay it back. She'll probably go through a million other things that would make my friend and most of us cringe. But if she has the strength of character, she'll make it, if everyone gets out of her way. But then again - she might not.
And there's nothing she can do. As much as we love the people we love, we can no more crawl into their skin any more than we'd have them crawl into ours.
Because we are our own individuals. We choose our own life path, we make our own choice, even when it's wrong. If we're lucky, we know how to reach out when help is offered.
But sometimes we do not.