A Death Before Dying

A very sad column today on KGW.com, but one worth reading. The writer lost her cousin to a drug overdose when they were still teens and she writes about the experience. Some poignant excerpts:

"I am not an addict.

But try and love one, and then see if you can look me square in the eyes and tell me that you didn't get addicted to trying to fix them.

If you're lucky, they recover. If you're really lucky, you recover, too.

'What if you had to wake up every day and wonder if today was the day your family member was going to die?' will become a popular, not-so-rhetorical question.

Drug addiction has the largest ripple effect that I have ever witnessed firsthand.

It causes parents to outlive their children. It causes jail time and homelessness. It causes sisters to mourn their siblings. It causes nieces to never meet their aunts. It causes an absence before the exit.

You will see your loved one walking and talking, but the truth is, you will lose them far before they actually succumb to their demons; which, if they don't find recovery, is inevitable."

Her cousin died at 19 from a drug overdose. 

www.kgw.com/story/news/features/2015/10/14/lessons-i-learned-from-loving-a-drug-addict/73958870/