A letter to drug addiction

To the Editor:

I am a thirty five year old divorced father of three who now resides in South Paris, Maine.

I grew up in Poland and had a loving family; I started smoking pot at nine years old.

My school work suffered because of this and I became distant toward family and the few friends that I did have. I continued to smoke pot through my teenage years, and when I turned 17 I got married.

I was expecting a kid, a little girl who was born just a few days after I turned 18...she was beautiful.

You would think that I would have grown up becoming a father, but I didn’t. I continued to smoke pot and two years later I became a father again, this time to two gorgeous girls. Again I couldn’t grow up.

I was married for seven years total and at the age of 24 I got divorced and for the rest of that year I was in and out of relationships – all of which ended because of my drug abuse.

I couldn’t stop smoking and didn’t care what anyone told me, I knew it all. As a result I stopped seeing my daughters who were now six and four and whenever someone mentioned them and why I wasn’t there for them I would come up with a lame excuse and leave.

At 25 I was introduced to Percocet – a pain killer and that’s where my life spiraled out of control.

I started to give up on everything in life including myself, the point of no return. I did things that normal people would say was insane and they were right.

Now I am 35 years old and just got out of a rehab, where I spent my birthday realizing the stupid things that I have done because of my drug abuse. While I was in rehab I was given an assignment: To write a goodbye letter to my addiction which I did and here it is.

It is addressed to my mistress in white:

I am here writing this letter to you because I no longer want or need you in my life. I always thought that I would never leave you, because you have always been there for me. It was only for the bad times in my life, when I thought it was for the good you turned out for the worst.

You blinded me with your cunning ways, and I now know how deceptive you really are and how much chaos that you can cause, and just how naive I really was. I had never given it much thought before now, but because of you I have lost more in life than I have gotten out of it.

I was so young when you found me, I believed what you were offering me was a life that no one else would have. In 25 years I have been stupid, suicidal, senseless and very reckless! Because of you I have lost time, money, relationships, family but most of all my life.

You made me lose respect not only for myself, but the respect of my family and friends. Thru all of my losses and destruction, I blamed all the wrong people and things that were causing my demise. I should have been blaming myself and you, the root of my evil! I thought that I knew everything there was to know about life, but what did I really know? I was so young.

I didn’t even know how it should be lived and little did I know what you were planning for me. It has taken me a very long time to see what you were doing to me; you were causing me so much pain, hate and discontent. You caused me to lie, cheat, steal and to hurt the ones that mean the most to me.

As I sit here writing this thinking and wishing that I could take back all the things that I have ever done wrong in and with my life, but I can’t do that...it will never happen thanks to you.

For a long time I kept thinking that I could control you, and little did I know that you were controlling me, controlling how I would turn out. How could I not see where you were taking me? I finally took off the blinders that you gave me and told me to wear and for the first time I opened my eyes up, and all I could see was a giant tornado approaching.

It was huge and coming at me fast, blowing everything in my life around turning it all upside down and leaving it in shambles. I didn’t know how I was going to rebuild this mess that I called a life. My foundation had been broken. I was about to lose all that was left – my wife, houses, cars, family and most of all my dignity.

To some people this might not be much, but to me it means everything. I am not proud of the things that you made me do nor impressed. You gave me nothing but lies and false hope saying that you would take care of me. Well you were taking care of me alright, taking away the things in my life and in my heart that I should have treasured and protected with my life, everything that you could get your sleazy grip on.

And for that I will never forgive nor forget. I can only hope and pray that one day with the help of my new caretaker that I call god that I can feel at peace in my head, heart and soul. I am going to put and end to this chapter in my life and close the book, I am done with the devil, and I will no longer do his bidding.

I am going to open a new book that starts out fresh, fresh with blank pages. Pages that I can write out one day at a time. I can only hope that it’s not too late. For saying all of this I am going to end this letter to you with “I wish nothing more for you than death, that’s what you wanted from me.”

I hope that what I wrote will maybe help someone that might be going down the road that I have been down.

Christopher Morgan

South Paris

LISA

What is in bold/italic hsould NOT be bold but ITALIC only. Thanks.