From dope dealing to hope dealing.
That’s how I roll now and have for a dozen years or more.
But every one of you knows at least one still unrecovering addict of some sort. Statistically, the number is 12 addicts you’ll know closely in your lifetime, probably more. Some of them will make it over the addiction hump and some will sadly be buried under it. But addiction isn’t going anywhere. There’s too much money to be made from it.
The question is: who do you become around them? That depends on any number of variables and life experiences. So let’s bring that question closer to home: who are you called to be around them? Is there any moral or spiritual imperative that supersedes the reflexive human emotions of hate, disgust, or mistrust?
Now I’ll be first to suggest against wholly trusting an addict.
Addiction 101 clearly taught us that manipulation and lies are the divine pathways that gets us to using.
However, if we believe in all people, we have to believe that all people are redeemable and worthy of that redemption en route to getting clean. That means we need a chance at becoming what once in our lives we always wanted to be: clean and sober.
Whether one or a dozen addicts in your life, we are each struggling every single day to be better people. Some are more successful than others.
And I suspect they are the fortunate few surrounded by people of compassion. The people of the Second Chance.
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