Addiction: The Role Of Substance Abuse In My Family

Formerly, I believed people with addictions were worthless and not worth helping, until addiction happened in my family. When my cousin became an alcoholic I realized anyone could become an addict. I also began to understand how cruelly addicts are treated and that they need help instead of being pushed out of our society. It was not until someone close to me developed an addiction that I truly realized that addiction can happen to anyone, even good people, and that addicts needed to be treated with compassion instead of with spite. I remember how my cousin slowly drifted away from the family over the course of a few years, until he was no longer answering any calls from his cousins, aunts, and uncles, and was barely even talking to his siblings and parents. I remember watching him slowly waste away, losing weight and becoming extremely skinny, and him slowly losing his voice until he could only speak in a muffled, pained, and scratchy voice. When his addiction was at its peak and I saw him at a family party, drunk before he even got there, stumbling, and speaking incoherently. I had no idea how this could happen in my …show more content…
In our current society, our government treats anyone addicted to illegal drugs like violent criminals and sends them to prisons filled with drugs and violence which will only make them come out worse than before. Furthermore, there are few public, free, resources for addicts, and even less for those addicted to illegal drugs. My family was lucky that we had the resources to enroll my cousin in a good rehab facility, but for many others this is not a possibility. Our government and our society needs to treat addicts like human beings for once and try to help them instead of ignoring them or throwing them in