I am the child of an addict. Addiction literally runs in my blood.
Statistically, I am three to five times more likely to become one myself.
If we take a look at exactly how likely I am to become one, it’s pretty high. Let’s start on my mother’s side. My mother is a prescription drug addict, and her mother was one as well, and so was her mother, and so on. If we take a look at my father’s side, both his mom and dad and their parents were alcoholics, and all are dying from it. But what makes my father’s side different is that he is, in fact, not a statistic. He is not an addict. In fact, he is a successful writer, public speaker, disability advocate, and so much more.
You’re probably asking yourself why I am emphasizing that. Well, you see, he ended a pattern; stopped it right in its tracks. He ended his family’s legacy of alcoholism. And, you see, now it’s my turn. While I grew up with a mother until I was 12, she was only physically there. Emotionally and mentally, she was long gone. I not only lost her to the disease that takes over one generation at a time, but she lost the battle herself. But you see, I have decided that the battle ends here.
I refuse to be a statistic. I refuse to follow the pattern of a disease that has taken my ancestors by storm.
It ends here.
I have the power to end a long-time struggle. It is my decision to live a drug and alcohol-free life.
Whether it be addiction or something else in your life, you need to realize that your background and your history do not define who you are and who you are capable of being. You can choose to do and see the good despite what is expected of you. Many people are defined as a statistic, when in reality, they are much more than that. Just the other day, I had to interview a fellow peer for a project. While talking, we ended up on the subject of education, and how both of us are the first or second person in our family to go on to pursue a higher education. For my peer, he was the first one, as the rest of his family either didn’t graduate high school or dropped out of college during the first few semesters. He confined in me that it’s a struggle for him to pursue this education when the rest of his family could care less. I told him about my own situation, and that he is in control of his future. We ourselves determine and create our own paths.
I personally decided, after witnessing firsthand what addiction can do, to carve myself a path of higher education, friends and family, and a healthy, drug free life. I decided to take what was thought to be my own fate and turn it around. My path currently includes attending college with a major in psychology. I hope to later achieve a Masters in counseling to become a drug and alcohol addictions counselor, to help others see that they too can change their own fate.
