By Tina Unsell Seamon 
I miss the way my little brother used to be before drug addiction consumed his life.
When I think of drug addiction, I can now picture in my mind the image of my younger brother.
Like he’s the poster boy for drug addiction.
It’s not the image I once remembered.
It’s not the brother I remember.
The one who was so full of life.
The one who was such an enthusiastic hard worker.
One who took pride in a hard day’s work.
The successful one.
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The one who was a jokester.
The one who could build anything and had the makings of a professional carpenter.
The one who would come to the rescue of anyone who needed help.
The one with a generous and kind heart.
The one who enjoyed fishing.
The one who loved living life to the fullest.
The one who had so many dreams to accomplish.
The one who became a born-again Christian and would sit for hours and share with everyone he met the joy of knowing Christ.
Now the image, the picture, the reality I now see, that my entire family sees, is one of someone who has lost his way.
One who has stepped out of the light and into the darkness.
One who has sunk so far into the pit of hell he can’t find a way of climbing out of it.
One who has lost everything he worked for.
His career.
His home.
His car.
His possessions.
His money.
His first marriage.
His hopes of ever having a family and children of his own.
And even,
His hygiene.
His teeth.
His hair.
His health.
His sanity.
His peace.
His relationship with the family.
His relationship with Christ.
Even his mind has been affected by the evil existence of drug addiction.
He becomes a completely different person when he gets high. Someone I don’t even recognize. He becomes aggressively angry. He begins cursing out God and anyone in his path, abusing himself, and destroying things.
It’s heartbreaking to witness his pain and suffering and not know what to do to help him.
Drug addiction has taken away so much. It destroys anything and everything in its path.
Daily life for him has become all about finding ways to get money to buy drugs so both he and his wife can get high.
That’s the part I have never understood. He divorced his first wife because he wanted to marry the woman he had an affair with, who also happens to be a drug addict.
They currently live with my mother and they are quickly driving her into an early grave.
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You see our mother is an enabler. That is like literally giving the drugs to them herself. She doesn’t realize that’s what she is doing because in her eyes she sees it differently. She thinks she is protecting my brother by not making him leave her home. It’s extremely difficult for her because she sometimes calls crying, and I can hear my brother in the background screaming at her. My mother has even told me she wishes she would die. That she would be free from watching my bother suffer and from her enduring pain.
As a mother, I understand wanting to protect your child at all costs by giving him a warm and safe place to sleep at night, food to eat, and all the necessities.
What she doesn’t realize is that as long as she provides for him, he will never get to the place where he realizes he needs help.
Sometimes it takes getting to the lowest, deepest, and darkest level in addiction before one can accept the reality that they need professional help.
When someone is a drug addict, the worst thing they need is an enabler.
What is a mother to do?
My brother has been caught shoplifting and has even been arrested. He has pawned all his belongings and also my mother’s belongings. He’s even stolen her debit and credit cards. He has done all this and even more. That’s what a drug addict will do just to get their fix. They will do just about anything just to get that high.
My brother is a hard worker. He always has been. But now instead of using the money he makes after a hard day’s labor for things like providing a roof over his head, utilities, rent, food, etc., he spends every penny on drugs.
He will often find under-the-table paying jobs. When he does, he will work all day, get paid usually on the same day after the work is completed, then go buy drugs, and by nightfall, he is broke again.
Then he will get up the next day and do it all over again. Because the high is so important. It is more important than anything else. Getting high is the daily goal.
It’s devastating to watch and to feel so helpless.
My brother and his wife have overdosed countless times in my mother’s home. They both should be dead. It has happened so many times the paramedics know my mother’s address so well they are fully equipped and set into action as soon as they arrive. It has only been by the mercy of God they have arrived in time to save them.
I fear that eventually, the paramedics will not make it in time, and my brother will be lost forever.
I pray every single day my brother will find a way out of the darkness. The deep pit and unrelinquishing grasp that Satan has on him.
I pray for his salvation.
I pray for his soul.
Satan will stop at nothing. He has already stolen more than I could have ever imagined was possible from my brother and my family.
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The enemy is unrelenting and has used the devastation of drug addiction to enslave and take possession of all he once was.
I will not stop praying, believing, and trusting in God for healing and restoration upon my brother’s life and that of our family.
As long as he still has breath, there is still hope.
I’ll continue to fight for my brother and his wife.
I will fight for his healing. I will fight for his recovery.
I will fight in prayer. I will fight by the sword of the spirit, the Word of Almighty God.
Whatever it takes I will stand in the gap and fight for my brother, no matter what.
The one thing I fear most for my brother is the unbearable thought of my brother losing his soul for all eternity.
He has lived this hell of drug addiction for over six years now on this earth, I can’t even begin to imagine such suffering for eternity.
I miss the way my little brother used to be before drug addiction consumed his life.
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