Your Addiction Changed You, But I Still Love You

If there is one thing I you remember after each hit you take, it is how much I love you. As I watch this drug destroy you and everyone around you, I start to crumble. I wonder where you have gone. Every part of me wants to give up on you, but the memories of us linger in my mind, and I want nothing more than my best friend back. It’s strange to think there was a time you were normal—I’ve been dancing with the devil for so long I’ve almost forgotten. But I still love you.

I wish I knew the way your mind thinks, but I’m starting to understand why it’s called the devil’s drug—because only the coldest people can do the things you have done and say the things you have said. When we lost you to meth, everyone lost something. I lost my sister the keeper of my secrets. Your children lost a mother, your husband lost a wife, and our parents lost their daughter. I guess a part of me will always feel like you’ll never be back—not really, anyway. Your brain is dying and your once funny humor has been taken over by selfies that only show a shell of who you once were. I wonder if you even notice all the changes that your body is going through. Your Facebook is flooded with quotes from all hours of the night. The thoughts in your brain are your new reality, and each day and night bleeds into the next. But I still love you.

The monsters in your mind are making you think we are conspiring against you. But we are rooting for you. I know that you know this, because in the midst of the poison leaving your body, you tell me you know how wrong it all is. We are hoping you see a glimpse of light in the darkness that surrounds you before it completely consumes you. I hate that I can’t stand the person that you are because I remember the person that you were. Truth be told, I do not understand addiction. I don’t understand how you can lose everything and not give a damn about a single person around you but crave the feeling of meth coursing through your veins. I DO NOT UNDERSTAND IT. You don’t understand just how badly I want to, though. Because I still love you.

I remember you used to say that you didn’t have an addictive trait, so it wouldn’t happen to you. I wonder if you knew that this is where you’d be. Would you still use that excuse? Between the sadness of losing you over these last couple years, there has been so much anger, and it makes me so infuriated that you even hold that power over me. But I still love you.

You say addiction is hard. I wish you knew how damn hard it is to love you. To love the addict, I should say, because I don’t love you. I love who you used to be, and I have to have hope that the person you once were will come back one day. One day when your family means more than getting your next fix. So sister, I will continue to love the person you once were. I will fight all the monsters away and relentlessly search for my sister and pray to God that when I reach her, she is still there, waiting for someone to save herw because she knew there was someone who would always still love her.