I Am Your Disease (The Many Faces of Addiction)

Five years ago while searching the internet for information on drug addiction, I came across a compelling record by Heiko Ganzer, Lcsw, Casac, of Phoenix Psychotherapy, called "I Am Your Disease." This record tells in horrifying detail, why drug addicted people cannot Just Say No.

Heiko has taken the comments from many drug abusers and packaged them all together into one "voice." The result is I Am Your Disease by the Anonymous Addict. This is a truly bone-chilling record of just what drug addiction is, how the drugs hijack the brain and take over the whole mind and body.

Drug For Addiction

I lost my own wonderful, popular son to the disease of addiction. While searching for answers to the unanswerable inquire of "Why, Why my child? Why couldn't my child overcome his addiction?," I found the I Am Your Disease narrative. This record unmistakably hit home. It explained to me the fundamental reckon why it is so hard for addicted people to overcome what I call the Addiction Monster.

I placed Heiko's email on the internet and started a correspondence with him and within a short time, our book I Am Your Disease (The Many Faces of Addiction) became a reality. The book is much more than just that one narrative, although that record is a must read and an very necessary expanding to the book. The book also contains snippets of essays by 8th grade students. What they have to say about peer pressure will shock you.

I gathered stories, 39 of them, and together with mine, there are a total of 40 stories told by parents in their own heartbreaking words, what a child's death due to an "unacceptable" disease does to them. The effects are lifelong and devastating. When a child dies, your own time to come dies with them. Gone are the dreams of grandchildren from your costly child. There will be so many prominent occasions left uncelebrated. Whether it's your child's graduation from school or college, or their marriage, or any one of a hundred human experiences, these will be denied you and will leave you with the What Ifs. What if we had not moved, what if we had not divorced, what if....the list goes on. Every parent will find themselves riddled with misplaced guilt.

Guilt is a big part of losing a child. We feel guilty for surviving our own child. This goes against the natural order of life. Parents are not supposed to outlive their children.

It's heartbreaking sufficient to lose a child for any reason, but when your child dies from drug addiction, the parents are dealt a duplicate whammy. We have to claim with our child's death but also have to put up with the comments from the "not in my family" people and also the "well had they been raised better, their child would never have turned to drugs" people.

My husband and I raised two boys, both in the same loving, nurturing atmosphere. Yet one child turned to drugs and one didn't. There is an addiction gene and it definitely plays a part in Whether or not a child becomes addicted. But there are many, many factors in play that lead to this devastating disease and science has shown that addiction is a brain disease. It is a chronic, recurring disease that can be treated with medication If the addicted someone will strictly adhere to the program.

At one time in my lifetime, cancer was spoken of in hushed terms. Thankfully those days are gone. Now it's time to bring Addiction out of the closet and recognize it for the brain disease that it is. We also have to stop blaming the someone for being addicted. Most addicted people start down this path when they are young. Young people make mistakes. We all make mistakes. I challenge any of the readers of this record to say that you've never made a mistake in your life. Drugs, however, if you're prone to addiction, will result you long after your first hit of cocaine, long after that first glorious high that now compels you to seek more of that feeling.

As my son once told me, "Mom, nobody wakes up one day and decides to be an addict." The smoker unmistakably doesn't determine to be a lung cancer sufferer and the sugar cravers don't determine to have diabetes. Nobody thinks it will happen to them.

If you're reading this, it tells me that you have a strong interest in addiction, perhaps because you or someone in your house or circle of friends is suffering from addiction. I want you to know that you are not alone. Read the book. It will help you to understand your addicted child, what they go straight through and how much they suffer from their disease. Addicted people need understanding and compassion, not punishment.

I Am Your Disease (The Many Faces of Addiction)