Posted on 05/22/2018 8:27:51 AM PDT by OneVike
On May 1, Jason Bigelow’s body was discovered in an abandoned house near High Point. He had been missing from his Asheboro home for a week, and while the autopsy results are still pending, his wife, Anna, has no doubt what the cause of death was.
On April 30, the day before he was found, she posted this on Facebook in one angry, anguished burst:
Jason and Anna’s story begins at Appalachian State University where they were students. One day in the library, he walked up to the pretty co-ed, teasing her that she needed to leave because she was “distracting him and he wasn’t getting any work done.” From there, Jason pursued her romantically, and while she was at first reluctant, soon found herself falling in love.
“My husband is missing and no one has heard from him in 6 days. Even in his darkest of times he would have not gone that long without communication. It’s hard to know what to feel, stricken with fear, paralyzed with worry.
“Addiction, it’s the one word no one wants to talk about, like a dark secret, but it’s destroyed so many lives. To be honest I’m not mad at Jason. If anything I’m mad at the community who looked at him so differently because of his addictions and faults. I feel like God’s grace has never run out on him, but our grace ran out for him. People think here we go again, or it’s another relapse, or if he loved his family then why couldn’t he just quit. I will say this, I have never once doubted Jason’s love for me or the kids.
“Addiction is like a dark cloud that comes in and consumes you, takes away your ability to make a choice and torments your soul. I apologize for my brutal honesty, but maybe that’s what this town needs, not small talks, pretend smiles and bull****. But truth, our struggles, our weaknesses.”
(Excerpt) Read more at courier-tribune.com ...
I’m very sorry.
I hope we find better ways to help kids who don’t seem to fit in to this rather outmoded education/raising kids method. It’s never going to get better if we keep forcing both parents out of the home. Institutions are notorious for not allowing outside the box kids to thrive.
My youngest has some signs of that too, guessing your brother had some adhd style traits and your mom saw his weaknesses and tried to over protect him and none of it ever got to the source, helped him find a good way to live, more than cope. You know? I spend a lot of time with differently abled people and there needs to be room for all of us on this planet. We do all fit in. We were created to.
Sad tale and so recent. I’m really sorry. I bet he is sorry now to have stressed you all out for all those years.
That is a valid point, IronJack.
I am one of those fortunate people. When a sign of addiction hits, I force myself to stop the thing. I think re addiction I got good genes. (I allow my addiction to 90%+ dark chocolate as I don’t see any harm).
I disagree with that characterization as an overall blanket.
I make special accommodation for various instances which I view as exceptions.
It was not uncommon for men wounded in battle and facing long, arduous surgery and rehab, to become addicted to morphine and other painkillers, or alcohol. They often had no real choice and became addicts out of a degree of necessity, as sometimes similarly happens to the minority of people who become addicted when they are prescribed pain killers for various injuries, surgeries, and other types of chronic debilitating conditions.
It sometimes happens because the addictive drug is far preferable to the pain of the injury, until the drug takes over their lives completely.
Who could blame them?
As for the “opioid epidemic”, when you read the obituaries and look at the pictures, there is largely a common theme. Most are young, recreational drug users who got in over their heads. These aren’t teenagers who had knee surgery due to a soccer injury and got prescribed pain medication that they abused.
Because they may have become addicted recreationally does not mean we cannot feel compassion for them, but it also doesn’t mean we give them a free pass.
An addict is an addict and it does not matter what path they chose to become an addict.
It could be from an injury, it could be by recreation, but in the end they are all the same.
That may be true, in just the same way a person who died hitting a tree or another car head on because they were driving drunk, and a person who died of incurable cancer are both dead.
They are both dead, but we don’t view them the same way, and we shouldn’t.
In the same light, I cannot view an addict with a painful, disabling injury in the same light I view a recreational user who got addicted because he popped an oxycontin into his mouth every time he got bored and wanted to feel something different.
I can feel compassion for both, but do not view them the same way.
How noble of her. Chemically inducing euphoria had nothing to do with it. Ok, give her an award and redirect your contempt.</s>
The responsibility shifting excuses drug addicts come up with are clever but transparent.
“I can feel compassion for both, but do not view them the same way.”
Your compassion is counter productive.
If you were to sit in a drug/alcohol addiction group session, the best indicator of if a member of that group will use again is when that person says “I only got addicted because of my injury (or some other medical condition) and therefore I am not responsible for my addition.”
When a member of the group says that, or says they are better than the addicts who used drugs recreationally, you know they are going to use again.
It’s all about personal responsibility and when one begins to blame anything but themselves, they are going to continue abusing drugs.
You don’t know what you are talking about, but that’s normal for “normies,” as we refer to them in AA.
If you can control your drinking, by choice, you are Not an alcoholic. That’s the definition. Same goes for drugs.
“We alcoholics are men and women who have lost the ability to control our drinking.”
Page 30, Alcoholics Anonymous
If you ain’t one of us, you don’t know what it’s like. It’s hell on earth.
“You don’t know what you are talking about, but that’s normal for “normies,” as we refer to them in AA.”
So, in AA your perform some sort of medical intervention??
OF course not. You talk someone out of it. That’s CHOICE!
:)
Finding a power greater than ourselves is essential for alcoholics and addicts to remain sober and clean. But it doesn’t have to be Jesus. We get to choose our own version of a higher power.
I’m living proof it works.
Plenty of people in Asia get and got sober by finding a higher power outside of Christianiy. Budhists get sober. Muslims get sober. Outside of Christianity.
I work with others addicted to drinking and drugs pretty much every day. And I’m a recovered addict and alcoholic. Been a few years now.
And I’m not Christian. Used to be, though, and that did not get me sober. I tried, desperately. For many, many years.
Get educated on recovery programs that work long term. Talk to people who HAVE recovered, and stay that way for years.
There’s all kinds of bs out there, spread by folks who are not addicts or alcoholics. Unless you are one of us, you don’t know.
For us, it became not-a-choice before we were aware. There is no feeling like wanting to stop, and not being able to. It’s horrific. You don’t want to live, but can’t die.
Take a step back from your pronouncements. You don’t know anything about it.
How is going to the liquor store and downing that bottle of liquor not a choice?
How is shooting heroin in your arm not a choice?
Or multiplication for that matter? LOL
“How is going to the liquor store and downing that bottle of liquor not a choice?
How is shooting heroin in your arm not a choice?”
If it WAS a choice, we wouldn’t be alcoholics/addicts. That’s the definition. I didn’t invent it. Google it. YOU have a choice. WE don’t, in active addiction (drink or drugs). It’s hard for most people to comprehend, but that’s the truth.
If you can’t understand, that’s normal. But it is the truth. And it is devestating to experience it yourself. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. Not even Obama or Hillary.
It’s hell on earth. Wanting desperately, with all your heart, mind, body, and soul, to quit. And you can’t. I could write 1000 words on the methods I tried, to quit. A dozen churches. Naltraxone. Antabuse. Etc. Etc. Years and years. Psychiatrists. Psychologists. Etc. You name it, I tried it. And I’m just a garden variety former drunk. There are thousands and thousands out there, and hundreds I call friends.
And a lot of deaths. So many deaths.
More disappear than sober up. Vastly more. You find out later they stood in front of a train, went off the bridge, or died in the Mcdonalds bathroom with a needle still stuck in their arm. Or went to prison. Etc. So many. God, so many.
Before I got sober, I HAD to drink. Say that to an alcoholic, and you’ll get nods of agreement.
To anyone else, it’s almost impossible to understand. But until you do, you can’t help one of us. And in fact, you’ll probably hurt.
Everything in life is a choice.
In my family life, my personal life and my professional life, I have been up and close with people that are addicts.
I do get it, but it takes active decision making to use drugs and to not to use drugs.
Addicts are not victims.
And as for the couple in this story, they are criminal thugs.
I’m very sorry to hear about your brother. Addiction is a terrible thing. I’ll keep him and you all in my prayers.
Thank you. My brother’s experience was terrible and was dreadful for us all.
I think you’re right. ADHD and maybe some undiagnosed mental illness (which honestly, runs through my mom’s branch of the family tree).
Our mother is very pushy and overbearing to us all. Very controlling. Genuinely thinks she is in charge of everyone and I can see how it can be damaging to a person. I think my brother’s problems made him more susceptible to this.
My brother had a good family support system so he would have never been alone and abandoned. Lots of problems that he should have tackled head on. In retrospect, he retreated to highs relatively early in life and that left a tremendous mark and influenced his adulthood.
My brother made lots of decisions that put him on that path. He was nasty and hostile to me in particular. He’d routinely go through my stuff, my computer, my emails, whenever he had access. If I ever slipped up and left money around, he’d steal some.
It was so reliable that I knew to keep my money close to me at all times, but every time that I slipped up he’d steal from me. That showed me that he would constantly go through my stuff whenever had had a chance. If I left money unattended, there was literally over a 90% chance he’d steal some.
I remember being amazed at how matter of factly and casually he’d have to have checked for money in order to steal from it so reliably.
He was very closed. Didn’t talk much. Walked around almost in a daze. I have guilt for not doing more. I confess that he was so nasty, hostile, and so difficult to reach that I’d checked out. There’s the vague sense that I should have done more but intellectually, I can’t think of anything I could have done because he was so negative towards me.
Thanks for the kind words. His experience is a terrible thing for himself and for all of us. I wish no one would endure it.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.