Addiction Is a Demon No One Should Fight Alone

Today I learned that a man I had known for a long time had died.

We had known each other for almost ten years, although we were not close friends. We worked together in the same company almost from the very beginning. But, unlike me, he would disappear from our horizon from time to time, reappear for a season or two, and then disappear again.

The thing is that this guy (let’s call him Alex, though that wasn’t his real name, of course) had a very serious problem with drug addiction. All these years he kept fighting, but the master of puppets eventually won. Alex died from an overdose.

I don’t know how it all started. Alex never told me, and I never asked, believing that if he had wanted to, he would have told me himself. He was a completely ordinary man, nothing like all the stereotypical images of drug addicts as the scum of society, lowlifes, immoral people capable of any crime. He had a family, a wife and a daughter, whom he loved very much.

But he was constantly losing the battle against his demon.

That’s not to say he didn’t try. He fought as hard as he could: I know that at least three times, he was going through rehabilitation, coming out clean, and starting to work with us again. I remember helping him with the writing assignments they gave him at the rehab. Alex was always really bad at grammar. I worked with him on the same team more than once — he was a hard worker and quite a cheerful person.

But every time, he broke down again.

Eventually, his wife couldn’t take it anymore and filed for divorce. I think that was a real blow to him, but I can’t condemn her. My family has a rich and sad history of addiction dramas of its own, and I know what it’s like to live with someone whose life is being destroyed by chemical demons. Plus, I spent several years volunteering at psychological support for suicidal and addicted people, which weaned me off judging anyone.

Despite all my volunteer training, I once lacked that very drop of holiness to save a loved one. As it turns out, working with people you don't know, who have walked a path of despair and devastation, is not the same as seeing your loved one hurtling down the road of self-destruction toward imminent disaster. There is a substantial probability that, at some point, you will give up. The psychological defence mechanism just kicks in, and you build an impenetrable mental wall, only occasionally glancing over it at the battlefield.

Alex was trying to fight, but he lacked something. Maybe mental fortitude, or maybe the support of those around him. Now it’s hard to say; everyone has their own story and path, and Alex walked his path to the end.

Why am I telling this story? It is possible to dismiss it, as well as thousands of other similar stories, to say: ‘it’s all their fault, no one forced them, it was their own choice.’ But often, that unfortunate and stupid choice was made a long time ago, and a person carries the burden of the consequences for the rest of his life. And a lot of people cannot bear that burden, although they often try to get rid of it.

There must be genuine holiness in you to be able to see one's soul through the terrible stigmas of addiction and mental illness. But maybe it’s this bit of holiness that makes us human.

Let us not forget this.