Addiction and Collateral Damage Victims
Addiction Collateral Damage Victims
Drugs do not just affect the person who is addicted. They affect everyone around that person. They even affect perfect strangers. So who are the victims?
The victims include unborn children with mothers hooked on drugs. They often end up with congenital disabilities if they even survive the womb. If they survive, CPS is usually called in at the hospital because of a newborn coming into the world hooked on illicit drugs before he or she has ever drawn that first birth.
The victims include children of a closet alcoholic who spends all his or her time drinking instead of cheering on the child at a soccer or football game and misses Parent/Teacher night because, well, drinking comes first.
The victims include the neighbours who worry about their property values and going to the house next door, just feet away from their children. They wake up to arguments during the night, possibly even shootings over a drug deal that went wrong.
The victims include the parents who did their best to raise their children, always being there and never pushing their kids aside, only to be told how horrible they were as parents by an adult kid who uses drugs as an excuse to blame the world for his or her problems.
The victims include the students walking the halls of a school, or the people going to their jobs to make a living for their families, while someone reeking of alcoholic courage or doped up on prescription meds or illicit drugs decides to take out a large group of people, because of some paranoid notion that everyone is out to get him.
The victims include a family coming back from the movies or high schoolers returning from an out of town game and being hit head-on by a drunk driver who walked away unscratched—someone who might be a wonderful person except for their addiction.
The victims are all around us. They want to live free of fear. They don’t want drug offenders to hurt. They want them clean. Living a healthy, honest and drug-free life can make the world a better place for all of us. We owe it to the victims. We owe it to ourselves.
