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The effects of substance abuse and addiction on families essay
The effects of substance abuse on family
Substance abuse in families thesis 2008-2019
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When I stared at my father’s eyes I saw a man who felt hopeless. It was the first time I saw him cry. All our burdens were placed on him. He did not find support through Cambridge Public Housing. I watched my father’s hopelessness turn to desperation.
I attended Specialty Court on February 22, 2016 at 1:00 PM. When I arrived to drug court, I felt awkward in terms to not knowing what was going to happen within the courtroom. Upon drug court starting it was an entirely new to me. The judge first called two clients in drug court that were not able to attend. The judge then called a client from “the box.”
Throughout my whole life, my father has been an alcoholic. There have been times when he has tried to quit, but it never lasted for more than a few months. His addiction has brought on stressful times for my family. Some days we did not know where he was or if he was coming home. Although my father’s addiction might not have made the best childhood, he did show me the kind of person I did not want to be.
Quickly, my siblings and I woke up. We heard loud arguing and ruckus from my parent’s room. Another sleepless night because my dad had come home sozzled and heated. This had become the norm in my home. My dad’s addiction was not only affecting him, but affecting his family as well.
My brother has been clean and sober for about a year. During the two years of his addiction I found it difficult to live with him and even be around him. I was never able to talk to my brother about his addiction because the drugs had transformed him into a completely different person as if someone else was living in his skin. I lived in complete fear of my brother. I didn’t feel comfortable at home whenever my brother was there, so I stayed out late to avoid being at home.
Why do you want to participate in the Bridges Summer Program? Participating in the Bridges Summer Program will help me greatly in the transition between high school and college. Reading about the program I have learned that this program is meant to help students transition to a college-level work environment and I know that I need this type of help. The good thing about this program is that they help students individually and this way students will have a better chance at really being prepared to start college in the fall.
When I was a teenager, the cool thing to do was hang out with friends, party, and drink alcohol, so I thought. My friends and I would tend to follow the crowd and it seemed to always lead to trouble. I was only 14 years old the night it all began. At the time, I could not drive so my friends came and picked me up, we all went to a house party and alcohol was there. Because we were senseless and easily influenced, we decided to try some to fit in.
I am still not fully recovered and I most likely won’t ever be, there will always be that little voice inside my head. I started my journey with addiction and recovery the summer before freshman year. Everything changed going into highschool. I started hanging out with different friends, I slacked in school, and my personality was trash.
Perspectives are often prejudiced by preconceived notions. Society has historically communicated that addicts are morally negligent people without any inclination to cease their destructive behavior and that the addiction itself is produced because of a character flaw or a weakness. Citing the addict’s seemingly careless attitude toward the financial burden and pain and suffering they arbitrarily cause others as proof of their imagined personality imperfections. As with numerous other things, unfortunately, experience is the best teacher. Before my personal journey with a drug-addicted child, I also held to the belief that an addict was an addict by choice and could stop the abuse by simply making the decision to.
As lifeless as she looked, her eyes were open. Smothered underwater in a baby pool on the back porch, I ran to her aid thinking she was no longer alive. Fortunately, she was still breathing and I cautiously dragged her out of the water. Tears streamed down my face as I shook her limp body in an attempt to bring her to consciousness. As a fourth grader, this was a horrendous experience, however, several other of my mother’s drunken episodes were just as terrifying.
It took me nine years to allow myself to live again. Making the decision to quit drinking was not easy, but necessary in order to live a happy and healthy life. My driving force for becoming sober was becoming able to reflect on how alcohol had been doing more harm than good. My mental and physical health suffered, as well as relationships with those I hold dear. Today I am able to use my past as fuel to continue living my best life.
When difficulty occurs, I am more likely to form the judgment on myself. Always ask me a host of questions of “why”. The latest example of my life challenge is when my father last entered the hospital, he suffered a lot of the unbearable pain and I could not do anything for him. I could only stay with him near the bedside. Every night, I could barely sleep.
Coming into contact with challenges and struggles can seem awful and unwanted at first. But as we get around those struggles and challenges we can look back and be grateful we went through them. Sometimes we can face something so scary it feels as though we will never get through that stage but when we do that person will be so much stronger because they had to go face to face with what scared them. Challenges are bumps in an individual 's road to success, some may appear bigger than others but perseverance can and will help a person to get over those bumps. The more challenges someone gets past helps them get closer to their goals in life.
“Here is the tragedy: when you are the victim of depression, not only do you feel utterly helpless and abandoned by the world, you also know that very few people can understand, or even begin to believe, that life can be this painful. There is nothing I can think of that is quite as isolating as this” (Andreae). I began to struggle with depression when I was in my second year of middle school. People always assume a major life event is what caused it, but nothing had changed: my dad moved out of state when I was in the fourth grade, I was friends with the same people I had been friends with the previous year, and I had never been very close with my step-father. But none of this was new to me, so what had caused this change in my mentality?
Reflective essay I don’t have much conscious memory about my mother and father separating, as I was extremely young. I guess you could say I am thankful for this now. However I do remember my mother hysterically crying one night and during one of their quarrels. My mother and father now tell me that this memory has been fabricated. They never fought when I was near, they say.
