I was with a friend at the ER today that went bc she was having pain in her kidneys. She has a family history of kidney disease and she is an alcoholic. Her father and sister passed away due to complications of their alcohol use. Her boyfriend, whom I consider to be my brother, and I had spoke the day before that he was very worried about her bc she had cried to him yesterday ab how Alcoholism has taken hold of her, and how she knew she was going to die like her dad. He asked me \\"Sis how do I make her see that there are reasons for her to live, that there is more to life than just her drinking?\\" I told him to tell her and show her the good things she has going on in her life. She had pulled what she calls a \\"Full on drunk\\" this weekend and given herself alcohol poisoning. After our talk I started thinking about during the worst of my addiction I too have been just as hopeless and brought up my addiction being the death of me! At the ER when the boys (my brother and my boyfriend) had stepped out to smoke a cigarette I got a chance to talk to her one on one and then she said something that got the hamster in my head running in his wheel just as fast as he could! She said \\" I hope they don't tell me something stupid like , Drink Less or when you drink that much drink more water....or better yet, just quit drinking.\\" \\"They don't realize that there is so much more to it than just giving up drinking all together.\\" My mind latched on to that statement, and on the way home I started discussing what I felt like that statement meant, and how I could correlate it to my addiction. To me behind every addict there has been some kind of trauma or life changing event that we wanted to forget, that we wanted to push as far as we possibly could to the very back of our mind, and we either started using to forget that memory, or we discovered that when we used it made the memories more tolerable to live with. I have chosen to call this the WHY of addiction. To explain the definition of the WHY of addiction I have decided to give a very personal example from my life that I have only discussed with 3 very close friends and 1 therapist! But I hope these personal experiences can help you the reader( if you are the addict or the loved one or friend of an addict) understand that getting clean or sober is more complex than just quitting! So here goes my story\uD83D\uDE35 From the ages of 4 to 10 I was molested by 2 of my cousins. They were my aunt's sons, my mom's nephews, my first cousins. While sitting in sex ed in 5th grade, I began to realize why the things my cousins made me do to them and what they did to me felt so WRONG, so dirty, so BAD! So I confided in my best friend, and with her help I went to my parents with this awful knowledge and told them what had been done to me for 6 years. We talked for 3 hours, with lots of crying, questions, hugs, and together we came up with a plan! They were going to talk to my aunt first to give her a heads up, and then they were going to deal with them! Well in the early hours of the following morning our phone rang, it was my uncle and he was asking my mom to hurry to the hospital bc the youngest cousin(my favorite cousin before all this) had overdosed by taking a whole bottle of Tylenol. His organs were beginning to shut down and he had slipped into a coma....The previous nights big talk was put on hold....3 days later my cousin died, and so did any talk of the conversation we had had 4 days before. At the age of 10 I didn't know what I should do, so I did what my parents had done and never talked about it. At age 14 I was put into therapy for an attempted suicide, during my therapy I discussed being molested. When my mom and I had group therapy and I brought it up, my mom told my therapist with me sitting right there, that she believed I made it up for attention and that I was a liar! No matter my age I still can not fathom how the 1 person I KNEW loved me unconditionally, that I believed would always be there for me, and always believe in me, called me a liar! Luckily I start therapy soon, and this is something I hope to begin dealing with, and I hope this WHY for my addiction I am able to finally find some closure and peace of mind. My 2nd WHY moment dealt with the abuse, both menatlly and physically I succumbed to from my 1st husband. The physical violence wasnt everyday, but the emotional abuse was constant, 24/7/365. I didn't get punched everyday but I had several split lips, I had been back handed more than I could count, loaded guns held to my head, and one time he did hit me in the face, and he fractured my eye socket! I went to my second cousin's funeral, yes the other cousin who molested me! He died instantly of a heart attack at the age of 37,I was 22. *continued in part 2*

I didn't realize I would have so much to say! Without further adue I will finish Part1!--I went to his funeral with the left side of my face under 2 inches of costume make-up to try to hide the fact that the left side of my face was severely bruised, my left eye was almsot swollen shut, my orbital socket was fractured the night before the funeral by my husband. I wore sunglasses inside and outside of the funeral, but anyone who looked at me long enough could definitely see that my face wasn't right! My parents had dicorced when I was 11, so my dad wasn't present, I only went bc I loved my aunt and she was buring another child before her time. My heart ached for her, but the 10 year old molested child that still lived in my head felt like justice was served, and karma had come full circle. After the funeral I went to my aunt's house, and my mother finally pulled me aside to ask ab my face. I cried as I told her, I won't lie I was so shaken up about the night before, I wanted some love and nurturing from my mom! I had never been hit like that before, closed fist, directly in my face, never...I hadn't dealt with any part of it tbh. Well my mother said how mad she was about it, but she had to tend to my aunt bc my aunt was understandably distraught! My brother who was 20 at the time saw my face and got angry. Angry enough that he called my dad to inform him about it. He was going to put my husband in his place....before the broken face I had had handfuls of split lips my brother had seen afterwards, or the bruises left on my arms from where I was grabbed. After the fractured face all 3 of my family memebers, mother, father, brother had either heard ab or seen the physical damage and scars my husband had left on my body. He did this damage for 8 years. Not 1 time did anyone ever stand up for me, try to protect me, make him hurt for hurting me! You could say that my self worth has been tremendously affected by these 2 events and how my family supported me through these events. These will be 2 major things I will finally find a way to deal with that doesn't involve masking the hurt and pain caused by these events by using again. I know I need a coping mechanism that will not only give me understanding and closure, but a way to do that and stay clean! These 2 reasons might not be the precise reasons why I began using drugs, but these event mixed with some other's and I can see why I want to forget my past and the terrible things that took place! The statement \\"There is so much more than just stopping, and getting over it\\" is defined in each addicts story. If you want to help an addict \\"get over\\" their addiction, be someone they can talk to and help them sort through their life and find their WHY! It might be the right key to unlock the door to their desire for recovery. I am 36 and it has taken me since I was 10 to sort through and realize my WHY, and since I was 22 to find the other WHY! It may take time to discover your own WHY, or your loved ones WHY. Some may not want to look that deep into their addiction yet, unfortunately some may never want to. I hope that this may help you understand addiction a little better, and see that is can be so much more complex that just quitting! Just remember showing an addict that you care, that you are willing to listen and help them sort through the madness that consumes them, you are validating to that addict that they are worth the time and effort. That their personal traumas and those feelings still matter bc WE matter! Sometimes just knowing that we are still loved and vaulued goes a long way! Stay Safe and Blessed Be!