"No one brings dinner when your daughter is an addict": the sick loving the sick

From Lauren RE Larkin:

..The article’s title is eye-catching: No one brings dinner when your daughter is an addict. Essentially, the author writes about how his family’s fridge and freezer overflowed with meals when his wife was diagnosed with breast cancer. Visits, cards, well-wishes, and meals upon meals upon meals flooded their home. His wife recovered and the meals waned to a full stop.

He picks the story up years later. Another tragedy hits their family. But unlike the first one, this tragedy is addiction (drugs and alcohol). His daughter is being consumed by addiction. This time, though, the only thing that’s overflowing is silence. No visits, cards, well-wishes, and no meals. None. The family is under strain again, but no one reaches out to help them.

I’m left asking why?

But I know why.

Their community is silent because addiction is still seen as our fault. Consciously or not, addiction is still that thing that causes us to shake our heads in disappointment, whisper a condescending “That’s a shame…”, and run through our mental list of judgments: the parents must have done something wrong…obviously she made a bad choice…I can’t believe that any rational person would let that happen to themselves…tsk tsk tsk. So, if this was something that should have been (and could have been) avoided, then it makes sense that help was withheld. Help is only for those who are real victims, and an addict isn’t a real victim. Those who have been in accidents or diagnosed with a terminal disease are real victims because they didn’t ask for this, while the addict obviously brought their troubles on themselves.

But that’s an ugly lie.

....We are the sick loving the sick.  link