One of the saddest stories I have ever heard (friend's 28 Y/O daughter)

[DemoTex]

She grew up Baptist, but her mother converted when L___ was about twelve. That was when she rebelled. She dropped out of Catholic high school in Atlanta over a decade ago. That lead to years of drugs (including heroin), alcohol, prostitution, and - recently - riding the rails.

I have a scar on my left little finger where her baby swing's spring crank let go suddenly and spun wildly, lacerating my knuckle. I bit my lip and kept swinging her, because she was the most beautiful child I had ever seen. We were at the beach in the early 1980s. Her dad is my best friend. He and his new wife spent last weekend with us and he told me the latest.

I saw L___ about five years ago at her dad's house in Atlanta (with his new wife) for Christmas. I knew of her problematic past. But she looked great. She was engaging and funny (and very, very beautiful). She has beat it, I thought. Not so, I find out.

L__ is in end-stage liver failure. She also has Hep-C. My friend tells me she lies about her identity (giving names and SSNs of family and friends) to get treatment at Grady and Piedmont in Atlanta. Her liver swelling and abdominal fluid is so bad that she looks full-term pregnant. She goes in and gets the fluid drained, a little treatment, and then hits the streets again. She drinks vodka all day and shoots up at night. She loves to show the scars on her legs that she has accumulated from riding boxcars. Her liver function is 10%.

I hope L___ dies soon. That is what she wants, I think. In the words of Ford Madox Ford (The Good Soldier), "This is the saddest story I have ever heard."

The song I hope to hear at L___'s funeral:

Epitaph: Black and Blue
By Kris Kristofferson

Her close friends have gathered.
Lord, ain’t it a shame
Grieving together
Sharing the blame.
But when she was dying
Lord, we let her down.
There’s no use cryin’
It can’t help her now.

The party’s all over
Drink up and go home.
It’s too late to love her
And leave her alone.

Just say she was someone
Lord, so far from home
Whose life was so lonesome
She died all alone
Who dreamed pretty dreams
That never came true
Lord, why was she born
So black and blue?
Oh, why was she born
So black and blue?

The end should be soon now. So sad ... so black and blue.

[MadMaddie]

1. Another American tragedy.....

so sad....so very sad....

[seabeyond]

2. i hear your story demotex n/t

[liberalhistorian]

3. One of the hardest things in life to accept

is when someone you know and love, family or friend, is self-destructing by choice and there's nothing, ultimately, that you can do to stop it. You can do everything you can to help them, but they are the ones who have to make the actual choice to quit their self-destructive behavior and get help. It's such a helpless, hopeless feeling to have to stand by and watch them kill themselves and knowing they're doing it by choice and there's nothing you can do about it. How is your friend handling it?

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

4. You nailed it, LH.

Fast or slow, if they really have their mind set on doing it, there is little that you can do to stop it.

Tex, old friend, may something lighten your heart. This is a heavy burden to bear.

[DemoTex]

7. Thanks dear friends.

In our minds, she is dead. In our hearts, she will never die.
Mac

[Bobbieo]

8. I watched my daughter die of alcoholic cirrhosis a few years ago.

It was very sad. Even worse, knowing there was no way I could stop her death!

[ellenfl]

5. amen. eom

[radwriter0555]

18. I don't believe addiction is a choice, it's a disease... a horrible

disease every bit as bad as the ones that rot the body, it's just a conduit.

And.... as a disease, it should be treated and not punished. Putting drug users and addicts in jail solves nothing, it merely makes the pain worse and their "home remedies" that more fatalistic.

I don't put down drug and alcohol addicts. I truly feel for the pain they're going through. It's horrible to stand by and watch loved ones succumb to their self-imposed ravages... and far too often so much worse for everyone involved.

I've watched a few friends overcome lifelong addictions... and I've seen a few friends die from those addictions. It's pretty awful. I don't judge them, I recognize the power their addictions have over them and hope they have to strength to battle the demons and emerge victorious.

[misanthrope]

20. Sometimes it's not so hard...

...depending on the case. I've know quite a few addicts in my time. Some struggle valiantly against their demons, some don't.

I have one friend in mind who is always tussling with his alcoholism. Most of the time he wins, other times he doesn't. But still, he honestly tries.

I know another fellow with whom I was once good friends. He doesn't struggle with his alcoholism, though. He embraces it, romanticizes it and wallows in it. He also tries his best to drag others to his level including corrupting "recovering alcoholics." He's fully aware of the situation, but is so narcissistic and selfish he cares not what he does to himself or others.

I admire the efforts of the first fellow and have written off the second after years of trying to tolerate him.

I was once an addict. Tobacco was my monkey. However, it wasn't the drug's fault, nor some matter of genetics. It was mine. I made the decision to pick up the cigarettes and light them. I realized that if I had the power to make the mistake, I also had the power to correct it. It was in my hands and no one else's and I was not powerless.

[MannyGoldstein]

6. May God Show Mercy To All of Us

Such a sad story. Such a waste of vitality. My heart is with you all.

I just came in from a long walk; I like to walk a few miles when I can, and watch people.

Over the past few years I've noticed signs of a growing nihilism amongst those under 30. The brightness is gone from so many eyes that should be bright with hope for a fantastic future.

I've thought about this a lot. My conclusion is that they, in fact, have no reason to have hope for the future - and that is why their inner light goes dim so early.

In 1970, a young adult could count on a family leading a good middle-class existence on a single full-time salary. Today, even two full-time jobs can't hack it. Jobs are fleeing the country. The Rich get richer, the middle class gets fucked. The Republicans and the DLC will pass any law for the highest bidder, and permit the destruction of hundreds of thousands of lives in Iraq over the raging lies of a raging psycho, elected by raging idiots.

What's to hope for? A magic spell to make everything right? The bottle and the needle are as close to this kind of magic as most can get.

God help us. We sure don't seem to be inclined to help ourselves.

[sendero]

9. I'm starting to..

... notice the differences between generations also, and the trend is solidly downward.

The cynicism I worked hard for comes easy to the younger generations. It's pretty sad to see.

[Truthiness Inspector]

10. I am so sorry.

Somehow her spark got extinguished, and who knows what demons she was running from. It's difficult to see this with any human being, but infinitely harder when it is someone you love.

[shadowknows69]

11. I lost a good friend and former college roomate to this

she was only 26. Peace always Mary Jo.

[TomInTib]

12. Damn, Mac...

damn.

As I have grown older, I have begun to understand the pain I put people through in the same way as has L.

But I didn't die, I just kept on torturing them. Never listened, never cared - just broke their everlovin' hearts.
Time after time.

And now that I have grown old, I have seen darling, charming children - friends of my sons - turn into the same kind of monster that I was. And nothing really helped.

May God speed L off of this earthly coil.

Her parents are indeed fortunate to have you.

[DemoTex]

13. And, Tom, we are indeed fortunate to have you.

Thanks for you insight. Thanks for being here .. with it all together.

Mac

[TomInTib]

14. Thanks, buddy...

You would not believe the horrors I visited upon those who loved me the most.

Well, maybe you would.

Just typing this has brought me to tears.

Those were some fine, faithful folks who stuck with me during my journeys through my on private Hells.

Oh, man, the hopes and dreams that I just ripped apart, lit on fire and pissed on. I can never be forgiven, but...

I will spend the rest of my days attempting to pay it all back to the World at Large.

[cdsilv]

15. Somtimes there is no alternative?

I watched my cousin walk this same road, and have trod upon it at times myself....


As someone who has chosen to walk upon the scattered shards of addiction with bare feet, I feel compelled to respond.

There is no justification for self-destruction, except to say that is a personal decision. If you can't keep living here, you've got to go somewhere else.

I, as someone who was trying to escape the feelings of failure and pain associated with my inability to please my spouse and live up to my expectations of myself as a father turned to alcohol to 'numb' my despair and found that it was really self-destructive, I looked to other means.

However, the only legal outlet is alcohol. I believe it should be outlawed in the same fashion as Marijuana - can't trust a subset of society with it, can't trust anybody. Same thing with tobacco.

We either have personal freedom or we don't.

If you believe in outlawing those substances that allow us to defer pain, big pharma will give us something to defer pain for a price - its already legal and will kill you just as fast as illegal drugs - see acetaminophen.

Yes, I wanted to escape feeling the responsibility for my failures. If you call providing for my family while being a functional alcoholic a failure. Sue me if you don't like it - I have nothing, so get in line.

Oh, that we, as a society were able to use other means. Such as Marijuana (MJ), NO it does not lead to other drugs.

That is a myth.

What is not a myth is that the powers that be have told us that using MJ would cause us to grow tails, third eyes, and make us rape anything with a hole.

Guess what? When the above did not happen, we figured out that we HAD BEEN LIED TO BY THE POWERS THAT BE!.

This deception by the Gov't is so corrosive on other fronts that it must be fully addressed elsewhere, by others.

Nonetheless, I assumed that everything else they said was bullshit. That is where using more powerful, destructive drugs comes from - not that MJ is a gateway, but that it indicated to me that the gov't was lying to me while taking my money. So I could use coke, heroin, designer drugs with impunity - that is not the case. MJ is the only somewhat harmless drug I've ever experienced. Even MJ does have its after-effects.

Nonetheless, I am guilty of not wanting to accept life on life's terms.

How many of us do that?

The real truth is that if some corporation that makes political contributions cannot make money from producing a thing, that thing will be outlawed by the polticians who receive money from the corporations. Ever heard of the electric car, trollies in evey major US city, or the water carburaetor?

Therefore, any naturally occurring plant or animal or anything that does not put dollars into a corporation will be legislated to extinction so that the corps can make money. End of discussion.

We the people are the only force that can stop this, Unfortunately, we have TV....

[TomInTib]

16. My problem wasn't drugs...

my problem was me.

Your points are well made.

We all take our weapons and load them with what we will.

I loaded mine with drugs and selfishness.

And I haven't stopped or even slowed down.

And those that suffered me the most are mostly gone.

But, damn, I have the best view from my veranda.

Life goes on.

[Skittles]

17. my guess

she rebelled after horrific sexual abuse; you can almost count on it

[pitohui]

19. i dunno skittles

i lost a friend about a year ago to hep-c and it seems her lifestyle choices were the cause but there was no sexual abuse to my knowledge, unfortunately i suspect she was an undiagnosed manic depressive (bipolar)

[kineneb]

21. "dual diagnosis"

drug abuse (self medication) caused by (often undiagnosed) mental illness, often bipolar disorder...seen it 'way too often...slow suicide by drugs, by those who find life too painful...

the others just outright kill themselves, like my goddaughter's father... again, untreated mental problems... I worry about her (age 17), with her diagnosis of bipolar disorder...