It is never an easy thing to come to terms with the fact that a loved one may be abusing opiates. For parents, the fact that your child is engaged in substance abuse can be a devastating blow to your sense of security, as you have helped guide that child throughout their entire life, only to arrive at a place where they now rest beyond your guidance. For siblings it can be tremendously difficult to watch your brother or sister turn into someone that you do not recognize under opiates’ dreadful guise, and as a significant other, nothing is more heartbreaking than watching the person you love and have chosen to spend your life with fall into a terrible cycle of addiction.
Due to how devastating watching a loved engage in addiction can be, sometimes it is easier for the individual to resort to denial as a means to continue to live their life and not experience the full weight of their circumstances. While some on the outside may judge this disassociation and not understand how you are not addressing your loved one’s addiction head on, it is often times never that simple.
For one when it comes to dealing with addiction, loved ones are often times left in the dark, even though they are the closest people to the addict. This is in part because no one is truly equipped to handle addiction within their family or group of friends. It is such a foreign concept to most people, especially those that have not dealt with addiction first hand, that even making an attempt to cope with the feelings and issues that are arising out of your loved one’s addiction can be overwhelming and almost impossible.
Secondly, addiction is an illness that creates a shroud around itself. It causes the individual engaged in the addictive behaviors and those closest to them to constantly question their senses. All parties involved will understand on some level that something is amiss but putting their finger on the fact that the issue is substance abuse is not always straightforward and easy. Imagine if you will that your son is abusing opiates. You have an inkling that this is occurring and you begin to question him about it. The first conversation results in a blow up where he vehemently denies it and then yells at you for even thinking that this could be the case. Now imagine that this occurs 30 to 40 more times. At what point does a person just get tired of arguing and give up. At what point do they result to questioning their own senses and their own logic as a means to continue to operate in their daily life and not totally breakdown.
While this last statement may sound like an over exaggeration, it is what loved ones of addicts are facing day in and day out all across the world. They wake up not knowing if there will be money missing, and if there is money missing some will even begin to question whether or not they had the money in the first place. They go to sleep at night not quite sure if their loved one is okay, and throughout the day they are plagued with a notion that something terrible is just around the corner.
Living under the domain of addiction is terrible for everyone involved, and so if you can relate to anything written above, please continue to read on, and understand that you are not alone in your struggle.
The information presented below is meant to help guide you through the mental twists that may have occurred due to your loved one’s addiction. It is meant to help unravel what it is really going on in your household, so that you can not only take care of yourself and begin to trust your senses again, but also possibly get your loved one the help they so desperately need. Below are the most common signs of opiate abuses and if you find that your loved one is exhibiting these signs of opiate abuse then it may be time to take action.
