My hometown is full of drug addicts and I really wish that that wasn't the case, but it is. In a town with a population of5,000, basically everyone knows everyone. News gets around fast. Most of my life, I have lived with my grandmother, so people didn't really know my parents. As I've gotten older, more and more people have started to know who my parents are and what I come from. This last week, people in town were sharing an article about how my uncle got arrested for felony drug charges. I figure it is time for me to speak out: I am the daughter of addicts.

My mom has been in jail for drugs a few times, and my dad has been in prison. My whole life I was scared to touch even alcohol in fear I would turn out just like them. Fear was burned into my head because I saw what the drugs did.

Drugs don't just destroy the addicts life but also the lives of everyone around them. They play the victim when times get hard and people have to leave before they get hurt.

I lost most contact with my parents years ago due to all of the decisions in life they made. I'm lucky I had the option to because of my living with my grandparents. Ever since I was a little girl, my parents would be in and out of my life. Every time I'd get used to them being gone, they would come back. Every time I got used to them being around, they would get up and leave. That takes a drastic emotional toll on a child. By the time I was 16, I decided it was best to just shut them out and quit trying.

So many of my birthdays were missed, so many important life moments. It tore my heart apart. I have a big heart and am quick to forgive so when I say that I had lost all contact, it took all the strength I had.

Addiction is a disease. I understand. But it eventually comes down to the choice of whether to get help and stick with it or just to fall back down into the black abyss. I wish that my parents would own up to their mistakes and get help. I wish they would quit acting like victims of the disease and go get help.

When my brother's dad died a few years back due to alcohol poisoning, it was all I could think about. That could have been my dad. It could have been our mom. It could have been a member of my family found in that ditch. And every day I live knowing that if they get sucked back low enough into that abyss, it could still be them.

There's a lot of things I wish I could change. I wish that the drugs didn't matter as much as the kids. I wish that when I told my mother something, she would have listened. I wish that I had a perfect, normal life. I wish my mom was the model parent she wants everyone to wish she was. I wish they would have stopped the drugs after I was born and helped me grow and learn.

There are many things I wish, but the reality is that this is my life. My parents were drug addicts and are still fighting it. I went most of my life without one or the other in it. But I am not an addict. I saw what happened to them and chose the other path. I am not a victim of addiction. I have managed to stay away from it all, despite growing up in a town where you buy basically anything right down the road. If there's one good thing that came out of growing up with addict parents, it was not becoming an addict myself. For that, I will thank you always.