The Simple Truth of Addiction
The truth is the truth – it should be that simple.
It IS that simple.
We invest a lot of time and energy making it complicated.
I was raised in a house where it was okay to smoke and okay to drink. Maybe it wasn’t okay, but it wasn’t stopped. I watched as many of the people around me struggled with addictions at one level or another.
My dad taught me early in life that there were dangers to drinking. He warned of the hook that it could get in you – the hook he had watched snag so many around him. My dad never drank around me when I was growing up. He never enjoyed a glass of wine at the holiday dinner. He showed the way he wanted me to grow. My dad lived more words than he spoke.
I have tried to live a similar life in my home as my boys have grown up around me. It is a struggle – you want to teach a better way without driving the youth in the house the other direction.
My good friend, Stacey, has watched the struggle in her own home – a struggle that seems to never end when it is one faced by a child of our own. Kendra Smith was inspired by her struggle (or maybe it was more that she was outraged by the lack of understanding from the adults around her).
As long as our kids are watching people they consider mentors out whooping it up on the weekends, and back to business on Monday, we’re going have a drug problem.” – Kendra Smith
I have a responsibility to live in a way that speaks more than words. The people around me, and especially the ones that I have the responsibility to steward, will not hear nearly as well as they will see. What they see, they will reflect, and too often in blazing ways.
It is simple. Live a life that reflects what I want the lives around me to reflect.
Be blessed,
