Can a drug addict ever change?
August 12th, 2010
My sister is a drug addict. She is 36 and has done drugs since she was about 14. She has been in and out of rehab. She stopped doing illegal drugs and now has a doctor that gives her Soma and Lorcet 10 ever 2 weeks like clockwork. She has a 12 year old daughter that just got out of a behavior hospital for kids because of the way her mother has treated her for her entire life. Her son just turned 18 and spent his 17th year locked up in a place for youth offenders for doing and selling drugs. Is there anything in the world that can be done to put a stop to my half-sister? Oh, by the way, she OD’d tonight and she didn’t die.
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There is nothing you can do to change her-nobody can.
When and if she wants to quit is the only way.
Yes we can. I’ve got 1 yr. clean after being a major meth head. I must say that I needed a nudge from a judge, but I’m cool now. I hit a meeting once a week instead of a meth pipe every hour or so.
Give her confidence building pats on the back when she does good. We lack self esteem and confidence.
To answer your first question, yes I do think drug addict can change. With proper rehab and support, they can overcome their addiction. I think your half sister might be under a lot of stress. She needs to get back on track with her life. Take the children off her hands for now. Isolate them from there mother. When she gets her act back together (comes off addiction, becomes a proper person again) then allow them to reunite. If she really love and care for her kids, she would quit doing drugs.
only she can change herself, she has to want it for herself though not because she wants to make others happy, it will be hard and take alot of will power, and support from family and friends but it can be done
i come from a family of addicts and alcoholics and i can say from experience that although we continually try to help, there’s really nothing that can be done FOR them. if they refuse to change on their own you are just causing yourself heartache and beating your head against a brick wall if you allow yourself to feel responsible in any way.
Ofcourse she can change, its never too late to quit.
You can make a good girl bad, but never a bad girl good. This is generally true for all humans, regardless of gender. Why? lets look at it like this:
At one point, every person had some innocence. They had to do bad things in order to rid themselves of that innocence in that area. For example murder. Not everyone is a murderer, and the hardest murder to commit is your first. But… once you do that, and break that threshold, the second, third, forth, and so on will be so much easier to repeat. This is the same with drugs. Before the first use, it would’ve been much easier to say NO. but after breaking that threshold, and hitting the pipe, needle, or whatever for the first time, its hard to say no the second time. and it gets harder and harder to say no, until a traumatic life experience pervades the thought of drug use. This is usually only temporary, and only permanent for those who are lucky. Remember this, Once a crack fiend, always a crack fiend. Sorry to break it down so harsh, but thats the way drugs work.
Ive had a lot of friends that were users and I noticed one important fact that most “clean” people never look at. People rarely try a drug if their life feels content. No matter how “normal” her home life may have been, I’ll bet you can look hard and find something that pushed her towards this desire to alter her perception and escape. I have struggled with an anxiety disorder my whole life which had pushed me to drink too much in the past. What she needs is a rock. not crack but a person in her life that will be there for her cuz she’ll always struggle with it, but without help she’s more likely to fail. But it almost sounds like that’s what you want. It really sounds like you’ve written her off. Maybe you can look at yourself in the mirror and ask if you were really there for her when she needed help.
that’s sad when there are kids who are involved sorry to say but the day she realize wa she doing to herself and her kids it will be to late someone is going to have to have an intervention with her and try to get her to notice who she hurting and how she hurting everyone also have her talk about why she get high wa feeling inside her make her wan to get high hope she realize befor her life is over good luck
A person can always change. Unfortunately, it must come from within. All the doctors, therapists, cops, judges, and yourself can’t do anything to make her change. All you can do is to be there for her.
I’m sorry :(
My mom is a living example that drug addicts can kick the habit. She missed me growing up because of those evil things.
However, it is true that she is the only one with the power to change for the better. Patience and love are paramount in these sorts of circumstances.
Yes, I do think they can change, but they have to want to quit, and admit that they have a problem in the first place. I think the best way to quit is to get out of the environment you’re use to, because then if you move somewhere new where those drugs aren’t around and where there’s not a lot of people trying to do them, and also where you wouldn’t know where to get them if you wanted them than I think you would focus more on getting your life back to gather and getting to a happy point where you wouldn’t be as weak to relapse or start doing them again.
I also think that therapy would help.
I hope this was helpful to you.
its a great Lie,.,.,i don’ t think any body lived so long while using those dangerous drugs
She has to change in order to quit doing drugs. That requires an effort of will on her part.
she sound like she has a mental issue that is being neglected or improperly treated.
maybe she has been self-medicating all this time.
she is definately an unfit parent, and should NOT have custody of her children.
if the 12 year old daughter is now living with her, you should forget about helping the 36 year old and help the child, by contacting the Department of Children’s services AKA child protective services in your area.
yes. It’s all about the willingness to change.