The Family Stone, Er, Addict

The Family Stone, er, Addict.

The Family Stone in actuality, is about a family of misfits. For myself, I am talking about one particular misfit in the family. The resident crackhead, my sister.

Rang-dang-diggidy-dang-a-dang-diggidy-dang-a-dang-diggidy-dang-a-

White Lines. . .vision dreams of passion (going through my mind)
and all the while I think of you (pipeline)
a very strange reaction (yours to unwind) the more I see, the more I do
Something of a phenomenon, telling your body to come along
Cause white lines - blow away..

My sister has had on and off problems with drugs for the past 15 years. She is very easily influenced and, on request, will jump off the top of the Empire State Building if you ask her to.

We have not particularly been concerned about her being on drugs for long periods of time. Let me qualify my statements when I say that. We DO NOT like the fact that she gets blazed up from time to time; however, my sister has always been a very scary/timid person. You come up behind her and she'll scream louder than a white chick in a horror movie. Because of that, she has always went on short term crack binges. "S" doesn't like to be hungry or cold. She was never one of the more long term addicts, a la New Jack City "I was Prom Queen of King High. . .This is beneath me!"

That's not to say that a rose by any other name, is just as sweet. A crack addict is a crack addict. And addict is a strong word for me, I don't think anything is an addiction, I full on believe they are chronic habit pattern that cannot be broken, but that's another blog.

Back to the lecture at hand. Again, we have never been concerned with her being on binges for long periods of time. When I say binges, that means to us disappearing acts. Which for her, were never longer than three or four days because as mentioned above, she doesn't like to be cold or hungry. Of course, we know the dabbling triggers the binges, so we are not uneducation in the pattern of substance abuse.

AND, the pattern is. . .she would come back begging anyone in the family stone chain:

• Her children's father
• My father
• My mother
• Her friends
• My aunts and uncles

You see I am nowhere in the equation, she quit asking me things long ago. And she's always got a new crocodile tear story. She claims that she shouldn't be allowed to have a car and job at the same time because that triggers her drug binges (S has no clue with personal responsibility how the heasy do you choose between a car and a job - deal with the issue!) I don't mean to keep getting off track, but as for her being gone for short periods of time, that is a distant memory.

No one in this family has seen hide nor hare of my sister in over three years.

I knowwhatchathinkin - No, she is not dead. We haven't SEEN her, but she does call periodically. (We don't talk at all, I can only pray for her)

This is a woman that has four children (21, 15, 12, and 8). The last three live with their father, and the oldest lives with mines. Every holiday, I have to stand guard by the 15 year old, because she gets really sensitive around the holidays because of course, her mother is conspicuously absent.

I'm going to try to wrap this up, but my sister has begged, borrowed, and stolen from just about every family member of memory. She is currently living in Las Vegas (we know this because of the periodic 702 area code hang ups we get, as well as the "Hi kids" letters she sends to her children indicate), working at Walgreen's. This is a woman that has held jobs with the city, county, and government. She types 85 words a minute.

Walgreen's must be her day job, though, because her phone voice mail sounds like her name is Peaches and she's offering more than three for a dollar tic tacs at the corner.

Question of the day? You or someone you know has a resident family addict? What kind of beg borrow and steal drama have they put folks through? Disappearing acts, even?

And if you don't then you are in good company and where do you live so I can move there.