What’s on your mind?

[Certificate of Excellence]

I am so sorry to hear about your family member who is actively struggling with opiate addiction. That's truly awful.

I have a very good support system and I am very fortunate to have realized early on, that this just isn't a road I wish to travel any further down. I wish the best for your family member and I pray they can overcome their struggle. It's just as hard on everyone else in the family to see them suffer. I will never go back to opiates, and I've instead relied on the gym to help me feel better.

Thanks again for the kind words!

One would certainly be enough but I have two actually - two brothers in law. It is the saddest, most angering, frustrating, heart breaking and helpless path to watch. It impacts my wife & her family terribly (emotionally, physically, fiscally, spiritually etc) as the brothers are good hearted, loving people who I knew before addiction too and who somehow made a horrendously bad choice together to take some pills and got caught up in opioid/heroin addiction that they have not been able to control even with repeated treatments etc. This has been ongoing trauma for about 15 years now. It helps me to see that there is a way out of opioid addiction because we haven’t been able to find & walk it yet as a family & at this point I am not sure if we/they will. Thank you for your bravery in sharing your story. Thank you for your prayers. Live your life full of love and free of addiction.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

I think I do, too.

My father hated heat when I was growing up, and never seemed to have a problem with cold. Towards the end of his life, he started having more issues with cold. He told me that he'd gotten into the habit of taking something to wear in case he got cold even in warmer months. I don't know in his case how much was age, and how much was related to health issues/treatments.

Of course, this may not simply be a matter of my perennial preference (and extraordinary tolerance for) for heat, and warmth, and light, nor just a matter of increasing age (and decreasing tolerance for the cold), but also a consequence of the fact that, in recent decades, I have lived a lot in warm climates.

Sometimes, I remind myself of those British exiles back home after a lifetime in India, former servants of the Raj, muttering about "the damned cold getting into their bones" as they shivered their way through the damp and miserable winter of the British Isles.

 

[The Clark]

One would certainly be enough but I have two actually - two brothers in law. It is the saddest, most angering, frustrating, heart breaking and helpless path to watch. It impacts my wife & her family terribly (emotionally, physically, fiscally, spiritually etc) as the brothers are good hearted, loving people who I knew before addiction too and who somehow made a horrendously bad choice together to take some pills and got caught up in opioid/heroin addiction that they have not been able to control even with repeated treatments etc. This has been ongoing trauma for about 15 years now. It helps me to see that there is a way out of opioid addiction because we haven’t been able to find & walk it yet as a family & at this point I am not sure if we/they will. Thank you for your bravery in sharing your story. Thank you for your prayers. Live your life full of love and free of addiction.

That’s incredibly difficult; I’m so sorry.

I do understand where they’re coming from, though. There’s something uniquely comforting about opiates, no matter how much your life feels like it’s falling apart, a few pills can make everything feel perfect for a little while.

The real challenge isn’t just stopping the drug use, but uncovering WHY you feel the need to escape in the first place. Once you can face that reason, it becomes easier to build something sustainable, though that’s much easier said than done. That’s the approach I took, and it’s worked well for me so far.

15 yeears… that’s such a long time—for both the person struggling and the family waiting beside them. I really do with you all luck.

Thanks for your prayers and wishes