Tag Archives: YOLO

As I contemplate the draw of the Maelstrom and the descent of my family into the angry vortex of my son’s addiction, I contemplate more than anything the denial of truth addiction foments. The worst parts of addiction are the lies.

When we think of lies we tend to imagine them in individual terms, utterances from human lips intended to deceive. But intention has no place in the world of the addict. This thing that compels the human to act against his will of self-preservation obliterates any awareness of truth or reality.

The sense of what is true becomes lost in a sea non-truths that refuse to comport with reality. In my experience, the very sense of reality itself ceases to exist in the addict and how he deals with everyone around him. He ceases to understand what is real or imagined and things once known as certain can be transformed into things that no one but the addict recognizes. Continue reading →

Tim expressed love to others by giving. He was quick to share both his possessions and his time and, in a group setting, typically thought of himself last. That particular reality makes this part of his story perhaps the most difficult to tell.

I have become at ease with the once dreaded words “He passed.” I can now talk without losing my composure about the circumstance of his death and the circumstance when I received the news of his demise. I can now drive by the scene of his accident without grieving. All of those things are part of his story and they are the things on which I once focused in the aftermath of his passing, but they no longer torment me as they once did.

A much greater challenge for me today, is recalling what happened as the quiet period drew to a close. It began with what seemed like typical teenage rebellion, which I tried to dismiss as a phase brought on by the onset of male hormones—a boy growing into a man. Continue reading →