I've spent the past three days working to get a very sick woman friend into a distant hospital for severe opiate addiction.
Day 1: Confront the lies and find out if she wants help or not (YES!), then locate the right kind of hospital for her and make arrangements.
Day 2: Work with family, hospital, friends, and a very messed-up woman to get her on the road and through the ER admission process.
Day 3: Cope with a now-unwilling sick woman who is clamoring to go home, she’s fine, she's not really demented from fistfuls of narcotics every day for the past four months, so come and get me! she says, this once-beautiful woman who looks like she is now 80 years old and who doesn’t know reality from a hole in the ground. Sigh.
My husband calls opiate addiction "dancing with the devil." It is impossible to extricate oneself from the grip of the devilish disease by sheer willpower. It is impossible to make someone else want to be free of the grip of the devil. Until a person wants to be sober more than she wants to be loaded, there is nothing anyone can do, not her, not friends, not doctors, not the U.S. Senate.
Today I am enormously grateful for the grace of my Higher Power. I don't know why I was blessed with that willingness. But blessed I was and am. If you say prayers, please pray for a sick addict today.
18 comments:
I spent some time on your blog, which I found because I was attracted to the title of your post. I love your poetry and the fact that you are a genuinely helpful person. I pray. And I hope your friend is well.
gotcha on the prayers...and i am glad she had you to help guide her along the way...we all need friends like that...
I hope your friend survives...It really does come down to being willing to do whatever it takes.
xx
I have a relative who got addicted to oxycontin. He got help after he was almost arrested & decided to commit suicide - close family members tracked him down & talked him off the ledge. He appears to be clean & on the right road now - but I still worry about him. And, sadly, I watch him like a hawk when we're together. Not that I saw the symptoms back then...
I surely will pray and I understand the power of addiction. It takes a power greater than ourselves to overcome addiction. I pray for her.
PG
Praying and sending love to you and your friend.
Hopefully she will find her path to recovery and a new life. Sounds like you've done amazing work showing her the path and that's all we can do, the rest is up to us to follow it.
Much love to you...
and many prayers for the still sick and suffering addict.
xox g
Consider it done. I will pray for her. Take care of you now. I'm send one up there to the Big Guy with your name on it too.
Sad, sad loss of a person. Hopefully something good can come of this trip for rehab, however reluctant your friend might be at this moment.
God help you Chris! My prayers go out for you both! I pray that she finds the willingness and strength to get on the road to recovery.
Will do Chris. Harrowing story.
I will sing psalms and dance with children and hum all day like David with his harp, a song by Jeremy Camp, Beautiful One. I am trying to learn it and teach it to an old school group of church kids who love new music.....and I will pray for her old self to want to dance with her God, instead of her devils....
p.s. I love that grinning pic. of you, put it in the window of your I.D. so we can see you smirk every day....
I know that angels are among us. They have been there when my mother was ready to get sober. They were there when my son overdosed. They were there when my ex-husband passed away from the effects of alcoholism. I think you were her angel. I pray she survives and gets the help she needs so she will know she had an angel by her side.
♥namaste♥
So sad. I hope that she decides that she is willing.
Oh, Chris, you do take on battles, don't you...but that is what a good friend does. I will certainly pray for your friend, that, somehow, she will find the strength to fight this addiction. I know it must be hard to see someone go through this. I am grateful you have your Higher Power.
I pray for that shadow to become
clearer...For HP to help
each of us: reach honesty, open mindedness & willingness- at the earliest possible moment!
I know this must be really hard on you, but your friend is very blessed to have you in her life. - G
You are a wonderful Friend. Stick to your guns. Someday she will thank you for what you've done. She's in the thro's of her addiction--it is THAT which is speaking, not your friend.
((hugs))
Gorgeous pic, by the way.
You are a true friend.
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