IT’S TIME, JUDY
BY JUDY & ZACH
I don’t honestly know why it’s taken me so long to write about it, but I think the time has come to tell my story. Perhaps I needed some time to pass so I could gain some perspective on it all. More likely, I’m done reading the news about the tragedies occurring on a near-daily basis. I think those of us who know the real score need to speak up and get the message out of how to combat the ‘war on drugs’ from the front line. The long and short of it is that my perfect son Zach was born in May 1991, spent his youth living what my husband and I often referred to as a “Norman Rockwell” childhood, was diagnosed with opiate dependency in January 2012, caused enough pain and anguish to have us question whether or not to throw him out of the house and out of our lives, and, yet, he has been living a clean and sober life since April 7, 2013. What happened in between is sadly very well known to those of us who have been visited by the nightmarish hell on earth known as addiction. With fascinatingly little variation, it’s pretty much always the same storyline. What does vary is how fast on that line the addicted loved one progresses, and at what point, that loved one either overdoses or by some miracle, says “enough” and starts the journey on the road to recovery. This story is about those of you who think you or your loved one is immune to the scourge of this illness . Trust me this is most certainly not the case.
Let’s start there. Sure, addiction to illegal drugs and (legal) alcohol can’t occur unless the individual actually chooses to take those drugs or drink that alcohol. We make ourselves feel safer because there is a “choice” involved. But I dare anyone to admit that you never did just that. Never chose to experiment in high school or college, never “just once tried” a particular drug or drank alcohol. And that’s the thing. This disease is a physical disease; one of a genetic predisposition that causes an “addiction pathway” to light up. And once it’s lit, it can’t be shut off. What’s more, the pathway affects parts of the brain that have the awful effect of hijacking the individual’s moral compass. So while most of us can walk away from our experimentation with drugs or alcohol, someone who is pre- disposed to addiction cannot. Repeat: CANNOT. They are now biologically “hooked”. They crave the drug. They have to have it. The choice is gone. They can’t think of anything else but how to get more, no matter what that means. Let me ask: When someone is diagnosed with diabetes, is your first thought “Well, you chose to consume the amount of sugar that would cause this”? I didn’t think so. So much for choice. In my storyline, my delicious boy stole money from us. He emptied my jewelry box of nearly all the jewelry I had from my mother, who had died when I was 13 years old.
JUDY’S STORY
HOLA SOBER | MADRID
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