What if? The Ripple Effects of Addiction

Kristina Hawk writes about a sibling's addiction...

My sister and I grew up in the same home, with the same loving and supportive family, and the same middle-class opportunities.  We grew up dancing in our Mom’s dance recitals, twirling batons, marching in summertime parades all over Ohio, catching fireflies, and wading in the creek.  She should be 60 years old, about to retire, and soaking up the joys of her adult children and grandchildren.  But she died of a prescription drug overdose in 2003, at the age of 46.  What started as a beautiful life ended as a life filled with self-imposed loneliness in a filthy apartment in another state, estranged from her family, married to a man who was incarcerated for his seventh domestic violence charge. 

I was working in Columbus when I got the call from my father who had received a call from a police department in West Virginia.  My father said, simply, “Your sister is dead.  Your Mom is swimming and will be home in about an hour.”  I hung up and raced home, trying to get there before she did so I could be the one to deliver the news to my Mom in a slightly less direct way.  The rest of that day is a blur, but my husband packed up a few days of clothes for me and we headed to West Virginia to talk to the police and retrieve my sister’s personal belongings.

For as long as I live, I will never be able to un-see the condition of her apartment.  At first I told the detective that this must be a mistake.  This couldn’t be where my sister would live.  Clothes were strewn everywhere, the living conditions were dirty, and most heart-wrenching of all – there were no photos around of her family.  I found a backpack with her legal papers in it and bags of letters to and from her jailed husband.  I found a Bible with highlighting, a potted plant, and a wind chime.   We carried those things to the Jeep in a driving rain dotted by lightning.  I read the letters, every one of them, on the way home, sobbing.  At some point we chucked them into a dumpster because I was never going to let my family read those letters. 

  

We held a small funeral service on a beautiful summer day in July.  Since then, we all have battled our “what ifs,” but that was not the end of my family’s dance with addiction.

The ripple effects of my sister’s addiction- the addiction that caused her to leave her four precious young children and start off on a tour of bad relationships, bad jobs, and bad friends, that would be her final spiral- were not over.  Not surprisingly, growing up with a mother who is an addict has profound effects on the addict’s children.  Of her four children, one died in an unrelated motorcycle accident. Her second oldest son has struggled with addiction his entire adult life and is often lost to our family. Her oldest son has battled addiction and is in recovery with a beautiful family of his own, and her only daughter is struggling.   As their aunt, their grief crushes me, as I love them fiercely.

My parents, mostly my Mom, will never “get over” losing their daughter.  They were taken on an unplanned painful journey that began when my sister was in middle school. That journey included the dull ache of knowing a child is lost, the agonizing fear of your child’s dangerous friends, the searing guilt of knowing you can’t help, and the intense sorrow of loss.  As my sister’s only sibling and a Mom myself now, I cannot even begin to imagine the “what ifs” my parents think about daily.   I have struggled with my own guilt.  Her addiction has been with me my entire life.   I was there when she arrived home drunk or drugged up, throwing things around, screaming at my parents, lying to them, stealing from them, threatening them. I was there when she was unstable and unpredictable around her children. I was there when she left her husband and her children broken. Did I help her enough? Could we have done more?  What if I had tried one more time?  Would she still be alive?  Would her children be faring better? These are questions that no one can answer, but it doesn’t stop family who are left behind from spinning those questions on sleepless nights. 

We are coming up on the 14^th anniversary of her death on July 20.  In some ways, time has healed some of the wounds from that day.  But in many ways, watching some of her children struggle makes those wounds as fresh as the day she left us.   She had so many wonderful qualities.  She could make me laugh until it hurt, but she could also make me cry until it hurt.   As with most families who have been touched by addiction, I try to focus on the good memories, and try hard to stop with the “what ifs.” 

If you or someone you love is battling addiction, my oldest nephew is proof that you can recover and reclaim your life.   It’s not easy, but there is another way.  For help, please call the Muskingum Area Mental Health and Recovery Services Board at (740) 454-8557. 

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Kristina Hawk is an attorney for the Ohio Fourth District Court of Appeals and co-chair of On The Same Page Muskingum.  She is a graduate of Ohio University and the University of Cincinnati College of Law.  She is also the owner of Kristina Hawk Consulting, LLC, a grant writing and fundraising consulting firm.   Kristina serves on the Board of Trustees of Eastside Community Ministry, an ecumenical ministry seeking to help people transform their lives.  She has served as President of the Ohio Justice Alliance for Community Corrections and as the President of the Muskingum Area Mental Health and Recovery Services Board, where she helped shape policy, administer funds to public behavioral health agencies, and advocate for behavioral health clients.   She and her husband are the parents of two young children who keep them on their toes.