If every person had a defining day in their life when they first realized that the world is unfair, mine would be November 3, 2010.

I was playing on the computer in the basement when my dad came home from work and called me and my sisters upstairs into the living room. I already knew what was happening, but the naive, eleven-year-old me didn’t want to accept it. I will never forget that moment and how I felt when my dad told us that my aunt had died earlier that afternoon, after battling alcoholism for years.

For me, that was the moment when everything changed.

Before that, I thought that people, especially the people I loved and cared about, were invincible. Never mind the fact that my mom had been telling me for months that her baby sister was too far gone to recover, never mind the fact that she had already been pulled off of any machines she had been on in the hospital. In my mind, death just wasn’t an option. I thought that there must be a miracle coming, something that was gonna save her. I had a romanticized view of her addiction that prevailed even through the months that she came to live with my family, through the last time I saw her, when she left my sisters and I sobbing in our driveway as she drove away because she just couldn’t handle the idea of attending AA and not having any access to alcohol. It had to get better, right?

The truth of the matter is that addiction doesn’t have that silver lining or happy ending that I was desperately trying to search for. It’s messy, destructive, and painful for everyone involved. It tears relationships apart. But the thing that took me a really long time to realize, and the thing you've got to understand if you have a loved one battling an addiction, is that who they are and who their addiction is making them become, are two different people. They love you, and they care about you, but the alcohol doesn’t give a damn. Recognizing the fact that their addiction is literally controlling their mind and their actions is the only way you’re gonna make it through without harboring resentment towards the people you love and without blaming yourself. They need love and support, and you can give that to them. But that isn't enough to save them. The only thing that can truly help them is something you have no control over: whether or not they want to be helped.

It’s a choice. And as much as it hurts, you don’t have any say in that choice. And a lot of times the

real them doesn't have any say in that choice either. Every thought and every action is being driven by their brain telling them they can't live without whatever it is their addiction is. It's messed up, and it isn't fair. But that's life. So if someone you love is battling an addiction, I'm begging you to try, with everything in you, to remember them for who they really are. Remember the good days where you were laughing and having fun, not the times you were crying because you just couldn't understand how someone you love could value a substance more than they valued you. Do everything you can to take care of them, but don't forget to take care of yourself too. Lean on others, and please remember that it's not your fault.

Christine, I love and miss you with every ounce of my being. Thank you for the good days.

06.17.1970-11.03.2010