For some reason I have known a fair number of alcoholics and drug addicts in my life. By drugs I don’t necessarily mean crack or heroin addicts, though I have known them too, but prescription drug addicts, the kind that can hide their habit a little more easily behind the facade of middle class bliss.In truth, because I have watched so many people go down this road, and in further truth because the impact of this kind of addiction has directly impacted me and continues to impact me, I am writing a little bit out of frustration.I have heard that most addicts won’t go for help on their own and my own sample study bears this out. Nobody I have ever known has willingly said “Hey I need help” and then spends years in rehab and with therapists trying to unravel the damage that somewhere along the line has been done. From an outsiders point of view the frustration and anger you feel at people close to you in these situations as  you watch them suck the life out of everybody around them including yourself, is equal to the empathy  you feel for anyone you see who endures endless suffering and pain. It truly is like watching a puppy getting beaten. And your instinct is to do everything you can to stop it and to stop that person from suffering. But after years of wishing, and trying you give up and you just stand by as  you get drawn into the drama and horror of this kind of pain. Unless of course you decide you can’t take it anymore. Even talking about this makes me tired. You want to scream and shake them by the collar and scream hard and loud and say “get help. Get some fucking help. Help yourself. You make me sick. I love you. I hate you. Get fucking better.” And they look at you pathetically. Because they can’t. It disgusts you. It angers you. It makes you want to force them to do something. In the end all you have is this volcano of emotions. But addicts and alcoholics by their very nature are selfish. Their own pain consumes them so much there’s no room to consider what they do to their families. And if they do their shame drives them further into addiction. So what do you do? I don’t have any answers. I don’t think they want to hurt the people around them but their illness is too big for them and too big for everybody. So. Do you leave them to themselves to die slowly? Do you confront them? Do you walk away? Answers anyone?