When Do You Intervene If Someone You Love Uses Drugs?
Eight people died and 30 were injured this week in a tragic California bus crash. The critically injured driver was arrested in his hospital bed on suspicion of driving while under the influence of drugs. According to his anguished mother, the 52-year-old driver had struggled with alcohol and drug abuse for years. Several times he had been convicted of drug charges and jailed. His parents were upset when the former truck driver recently got the job driving a charter bus to Sacramento casinos. They were uncomfortable with him driving human passengers, not cargo. “He wasn’t the best driver,” his mother told news reporters. “He knew we didn’t want him to drive.” They feared the worst and the worst happened.
It’s horrible enough to watch someone you love hurt himself with drugs. It’s painful to watch drugs eat away at his body and his mind, consuming the individual you love. It’s agonizing to live with a drug addict and see your family splinter apart under the stress of drug addiction. But at least it is your family, your pain. Because there is love, there is the opportunity to repair relationships and heal once your loved one undergoes treatment and recovers.
The destruction drug addiction causes within families is tragic, but when drug addiction moves outside the family and traumatizes unsuspecting strangers, it’s monstrous. It’s like handing the keys to a drunk driver. You know he shouldn’t be on the road. You know he’s not capable of driving safely. You don’t know if he’ll be able to stay in his lane or will veer off into a ditch or into a tree or, most tragic, into another car. What if the driver of that car is seriously injured or killed? What if there are children in the car? How will you feel knowing you might have helped avoid this tragedy if you had only kept hold of those keys? How will your loved one ever be able to forgive himself when he becomes sober?
Like alcoholics, drug abusers have lost the ability to think clearly. They see only the drug, not what it is doing to themselves or their family, not what it might do to innocent strangers. Because drug abusers have lost the ability to see the consequences of their actions, families must step in. They must intervene to save their loved one before something tragic happens from which there might be no recovery.
If someone you love is abusing drugs, call Transitions Recovery Center’s 24-hour crisis line and talk to an addiction specialist. Don’t wait for irreparable tragedy to strike. Help the person you love today.
