From dope dealing to hope dealing. That’s how I roll now.
Everyone knows at least one still unrecovering addict of some sort.
Statistically, 12 is the number of addicts you’ll know closely in your lifetime, probably more.
Some will make it over the addiction hump and sadly, some will be buried under it.
But addiction isn’t going anywhere. There’s too much money to be made from it.
The real question is: who do you become when you’re around them?
That depends on a number of variables and your life experiences. So to bring the question closer to home: who are you called to be around them?
Is there any moral or spiritual imperative that supersedes the common and reflexive human emotions of hate, disgust, or mistrust?
I’ll be first to suggest against wholly trusting an addict.
Addiction 101 clearly teaches that manipulation and lies are the tools along their pathways that lead to using.
However, to maintain hope for all people, we have to believe that all people are redeemable and worthy redemption en route to getting clean.
That means we addicts need chances at becoming what once and one hundred times in our lives we always wanted to be: clean and sober.
Like “normal” folks, addicts struggle every single day to be better people, with some more successful than others. They are the fortunate few surrounded by people of compassion.
A people of compassion is our calling. The people of the Second Chance just as we, ourselves, were given.