the agony of raw addiction

Intervention on A&E 

Last night after deciding to iron a basket of clothes aging away in my laundry room, I turned on the tube for company. Flicking through the listings I happened upon A&E Intervention. I figured ironing would take some time, so one show works fine. It’s not casual watching. This is the one reality TV shows that is brutally real, not contrived. How can anyone make-up or hide the agony of raw addiction?  I watched knowing this. I will watch it again as a reminder of the delicate balance in life between sanity and insanity. I am not a glutton for punishment; I knew this would hit me emotionally.

You see, I seek knowledge about addiction. A major portion of the population is either is an addict or suffers with one. I dare to say everyone has some form or shape of it in life. If we don’t learn the disease, sin whatever you want to call it we can’t be triumphant turning our broken lives around and helping others.

In this episode I watched Rob. . Rob an alcoholic, is a talented musician now fallen singing his sorrows into bottles and aiming his shots at everyone else around him. I saw his family stoically put up with that, blaming everyone but themselves. It was powerful and I did cry

I think confronting the addict is right, how they handle it works. In this case, Intervention appeared and liberated the captives with honest direct consequence. I cried again when the older brother, straight living son at last hugged the prodigal son. I identified with the mother who never dreamed her son would find himself this way. After his family laid the boundaries down, he went to rehabilitation willingly.

All the while I ask myself, why do some people avoid pain, hurts and wounds with the wrong cure? Where is the root of avoidance and when is point of no return? This work of Intervention gives hope. My sadness lies in the fact that most people won’t have this advantage or can afford the facilities it takes to get well.

I also watched following episode called Ashley, which I will write about in my next post. Meanwhile, watch it for yourself, click Ashley. In my life are many who are addicts or recovering. I myself am an adult child of an alcoholic, along with siblings and my own kids, so it's not strange that I write this blog. I still cry out for the ones not addicted, but who stand on the circle dance of those who are. This then is the other side of addictions - addicshun.