I listened with sadness as my friend told me about her nephew’s addiction. He told her recently that he would rather lose both his legs than give up heroin. While he may state it more boldly than most people, the heroin epidemic has enslaved so many of our sons and daughters who no longer care about anything other than using heroin.

“Well, here it goes; my testimony is only because of Christ and Him dying for me and the lost and sick in the world. It is only because of God’s grace and my yielding and obeying Him that I have been able to stand and testify.

“You mean I am supposed to be thankful for my child being in addiction?  I am to thank God that they are destroying their lives and our hearts in the process?  All the darkness and ugliness that has taken them over – even for that?”

It is so much easier to thank God in spite of the circumstances, to rise above, so to speak, and thank Him for keeping us through the pain and heartache.  It is a whole different thing to thank Him for the situation and the ripping, shredding, violently consuming agony we are experiencing.

This is not easy to read but it will help those of us who are parents of children in addiction to understand more clearly the terrible choices that threatens the very life of our child.

I NEED To Get High.

I’m your child, or spouse, or friend.
But I’ve changed.
I don’t care about you.
Not in the way you want me to.
I care about getting high.
I WANT to get high.
I will do ANYTHING to get high.
I LOVE getting high.
I NEED to get high..
and I will step over you to do it.

Happy are those who are strong in the Lord, who set their minds on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. When they walk through the Valley of Weeping (Baca), it will become a place of refreshing springs, where pools of blessing collect after the rains! (Psalm 84: 5-6 NLT)

I often feel as if the Valley of Weeping is where I live, not somewhere I am just passing through.  The pain of destructive marriages and of children in addiction has been a part of my life for a long time. The pain of watching my husband suffer for the past 5 years with a debilitating and deadly disease drills into me every day.