Loving someone has its trials to begin with. Ups, downs, highs, and lows. But, loving someone who’s an addict makes everything 10x’s harder.

It all began when I was young. I was 6, now I’m almost 20. My mom and I were best friends, we did everything together. She was truly the most wonderful person I knew. Until, she got addicted to pain pills, then later became addicted to heroin, now meth. She began to look different.

Her eyes changed. They became sad and depressed. Her appearance changed, she weighed only 190 pounds. Her teeth began to rot, she looked like she had aged 10 years. She was no longer the person I knew or the person I loved.

She traded her wedding rings, my iPhone, my sisters iPod, our car even, all for money to buy drugs. It all began with a choice she made that later turned into a disease. My parents divorced when I was 10 and my dad seemed happier already. He was only staying with her for our sake, but when he realized we were better off without her, my siblings and I, he divorced her.

He didn’t want to give up, but had no choice. The woman he loved was gone.

On my 13th birthday she was suppose to take me out for lunch, but never came to get me. Instead her parents did and later they told me my mom had been arrested. Since then, she’s been in jail multiple times and prison twice. Keep in mind, my mom would have never hurt a fly. My mom was a beautiful, kind hearted woman. This was all the drugs doing. That wasn’t my mom who went to jail, it was someone the drugs had created.

I saw her overdose, which still haunts me. I’ve seen many things I wish I could unsee. I constantly worried and still do about her. Where she is, if she’s okay, why I haven’t heard from her, who she’s with, what she’s doing. I live in constant fear that i’ll wake up to a phone call from someone hearing she’s overdosed and is dead. Every time I get a call from my grandma, i hesitate to answer, terrified it’ll be about my mom.

There was a time or few, when I didn’t speak to my mom at all. I couldn’t. I couldn’t bare to even look at her, it caused so much pain. I was blamed for so many things, nothing was ever her fault. The guilt nearly ate me alive. I struggled for years trying to cope with her being an addict, then believing it was my fault. I still struggle to be honest. When you’re told something so many times, you begin to believe it.

However, I think the best thing someone can do when they’re put in the situation of loving an addict is, let go. You have to let go of the person you remember, no matter how hard it is. Right now, that person is gone. Remembering who they were is painful. I know, for me it is atleast. Every time I talk to her, I wish for my mom to answer the phone, but she never has. It’s always been this new person. So, I just go along with it.

I tell her everything is fine, I have a conversation, then we hang up and go to our seperate lives. She loves me unconditionally, I know that and I love her too. But, you have to put yourself first. You have to take care of yourself. Remember, it’s not your fault. No matter how guilty you feel, it will never be your fault.

Loving an addict is hard and it’s a full time gig. Sometimes I wish I could stop. I wish I could just give it to god, but part of me will always have hope that she’ll clean up someday.