My sister

I'm pretty sure I have titled another blog entry with this same title. Probably because I have written about her before. Lisa has been arrested again. My heart is so heavy and so very sad. I can't even begin to imagine the demons that must be on her back. I know in my heart that jail is not the place for her.

Lisa is an addict. She tries to obtain prescription drugs illegally to support her habit. How is that a crime to anyone but herself? She needs to be sent somewhere to get better. To be taught how to stay better and then be given the tools she needs to stay clean. I realize that Lisa needs to own up to her addiction and take responsibility for getting and staying clean. But when an addiction is as bad as Lisa's she needs more help than just rehab.

I don't know what the answer is. I wish I did. I've had pretty much no contact with her since December of 2008. She has tried to call a few times but I just haven't been receptive. It's too painful. The sad fact is that I knew Lisa would relapse. I tried to help when she lived with me. I tried to find her help to stay clean. But Lisa had to want the help. Lisa had to take the help. And I'm not sure she even knew how to take the help. So to save myself I cut all ties to her. It's been 24 YEARS of dealing with Lisa and her addiction. At some point I had to say enough is enough. I love my sister. I still do. I just couldn't let myself get hurt again. And I couldn't let my children see her falling deeper and deeper into her addiction.

Now my heart hurts. It hurts for her. It hurts for the possibility of what that beautiful, intelligent woman COULD have become. All the possibilities that were at her feet as a young woman just starting out. We (my family) knew the type of woman Lisa could have been. And my heart aches for the loss of all that potential.

I do not view my sister as a stupid person.

I view her as someone so lost in such a horrible disease that she can't seem to see her way out of it. Addicts recover everyday. They stay clean. But they have to make the CHOICE to do that. And sometimes that choice is too hard to see through the addiction. I know first hand what that is like. You have to choose to get better. You have to choose to want to stay better. I battle with my depression daily. I can feel myself slip sometimes. I have been to the bottom and don't ever want to go there again. So the moment I feel myself slipping I get back to the doctor and get help. Perhaps Lisa can't see when she is going down. Perhaps all she sees is wanting to FEEL better. And that pill she swallows makes her feel better. Even if only temporarily. The trick is NOT to put the pill in your mouth in the first place. Because once you swallow, you're finished.

I don't know what the outcome of this latest arrest will be. I do know that she is in jail on a $25,000 full cash bond. My guess is that she will have to serve out her original sentence (the one she was on parole for). Then whatever charges this brings will be added on to that. This is her fourth time. I suspect the judge will not be kind.

So maybe, just maybe, when you are saying you're prayers, you could put a little one in for Lisa.

A prayer that she might one day find her way out of this horrible disease.