The Addict

Hello everyone.

It was a cloudy but warm spring morning at the hospice.  I walked in and the cleaning lady was in the downstairs break room eating a biscuit with grape jelly.  Coffee was brewing and she said that she was making it.  She is a nice lady and works very hard.



The first patient I tried ti visit with was a middle aged white man with a beard and long black hair. The nurses said that he didn't have any family and that other volunteers were visiting with him.  When I walked in,  he was sitting up in bed, and I asked If he wanted a visit.  He said that he didn't know. He was coherent but he said that he was feeling "under the weather."  So, respecting his wishes I excused myself.

As I was walking down the hallway, I looked in a room and seen a lady with long graying hair looking at the books on the bookshelf.  I walked in and introduced myself as a volunteer. I asked if she wanted some company and she showed me a book in her hands called "God's promises."  She said that she didn't need any company because she was going to read this book.  I said, "Okay."  Then she started to talk!

The patient was asleep in bed, he had gray hair and gray goatee.  He was listed as being fifty-nine years old but looked much younger.  The lady said that she was his younger sister, but she looked much older then him!  She said that he was a lifelong alcoholic and drug addict.  Which explained why he was dying from Hepatitis C and AIDS!



She said that he had three children, twin boys that were autistic and another son that lies all of the time about who he is, something was wrong with him. One of the autistic boy was killed in a house fire not far from where I live.  The other autistic twin was sent to an orphanage.  The Patient wrecked every car he ever drove due to his drunkenness.  He was a hard worker and had a good job until they found cocaine in a random drug test.  It all started when he was ten years old when an uncle told him to sniff some glue.  That's when his addictive behavior started to rule his life and a father that continued to empower him by covering up his misdeeds.

He finally went to jail for beating up his seventy year old father.  The same father that had covered up for him all of his life.  While he was in jail he had found out that his drug addict ex-wife moved to Grapevine, TX and was living with another addict.  This new boyfriend strangled her to death.

Then she started to talk about their father whom she was very proud of.  Their father was in the navy during the Korean war.  He was an anti-aircraft gunner on the USS Enterprise.  She described how her father was going to throw away some old film, and when she took the film and had it developed, it showed priceless images.  All images of his naval service in Colorado with a group photo of his Navy buddies and pictures on board his ship. One picture was of them having a picnic on the flight line with their dates.  One was of his buddies around a car that they both chipped in to buy.  One was of their father sitting on a blister seat, an anti-aircraft gunners seat on the USS Enterprise.



She then talked about her life in my neck of the woods working and drinking in bars. She said that she didn't drink alcohol because of her older brother, but her aged look spoke the real truth.  Plus, I have never known a non-drinker to spend their lives in bar rooms.  Anyway, she bemoaned the fact that their father no longer had any money due to bailing out his son from jail, lawyers for being sued because his son ran into a pickup with two teenagers while he was drunk.

It was a interesting and a sad story that she told.  All because of addictive and sinful lifestyle all initiated by one evil man.  One evil deed was the seed of a lot of misery for so many people.  But all involved played their parts to keep it all going. The father who spent his life being an enabler and all of the other supporting cast.

Has anyone else heard of an addicted person in trouble?  Can you tell me about it in the comments section?

Brother Roop







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