Meth’s Madness
by Caylea J. Williams
Methamphetamine changes lives. It not only changes the life of the user, but also the lives of those around the user. I know this because my brother was an abuser of the drug and it changed my family’s and my whole life, in good and bad ways.
Meth is a dangerous drug. I have watched people make it and use it as their lives spiraled down. I was only 14 when I found out how much of an impact meth would have on my life.
One day in the summer of 2004 a phone call let me know that my brother was arrested by the police. This wasn’t like any other time, this was big! He was in the newspaper and on TV by the next day. It was only the beginning of a bad experience.
When my brother was younger, he was the normal mischievous boy. Before he got into meth he was always the comedian of the family, finding ways to make you laugh. He was energetic and fun to be around, coming up with something to do when my sisters and I were bored. Whether it was getting pulled in a sled by our dog or collecting buckets of salamanders, he always had something up his sleeve.
Good memories come along with bad ones. Once my brother started using meth, he would lie and steal from our family. But there is one time in particular that I will never forget. A couple of months before my brother was arrested, he called me up. He said his car had broken down at this old farm house and asked me to bring some tin foil to wire something together in his car. In the back of my mind I knew better than to believe him. But I wanted to be the hero, so I gave him the benefit of the doubt. I didn’t have my license and was not suppose to drive my new car yet, but I did it for him.
When I got there he was cooking “Rocket Fuel.” Brokenhearted, I sat there and watched him cook and smoke this stuff, with the tin foil I brought him. I was so
disappointed that he would con his I4-year old sister into helping him with his addiction. I couldn’t help but cry the whole way home. After my parents heard what he had done, they banned him from our house.
When he was arrested the summer of 2004, I knew things were going to be different, especially in the way the people in the small community I lived in looked at our family. Some of my little sister’s friends weren’t allowed to come over because of my brother. We were the talk of the town for a little while. I was embarrassed and ashamed of my brother at that time. After he became sober in the county jail, he was back to normal for a little while. He talked about getting better and changing his life around. When he was put in his permanent prison a few months later, he got worse again. It was like he was back on meth.
To this day my brother is still in prison. He was convicted in the summer of 2004 and is scheduled for release Sept. 19, 2011. He is slowly pushing my family away by sending mean letters and telling us that we are no longer his family because we can’t afford to go see him or send him money. Meth has completely changed not only my brother’s life, but our whole family as well. He is serving seven years in prison. That is seven years of missed holidays, birthdays, new births to the family, family barbecues, and seven years of memories that he is missing out on. It makes me angry and sad that he doesn’t seem to care.
Although my brother has made some bad decisions, we still love him very much.
In the three and a half years he has been in jail, our family is getting stronger. We realize now more than ever that family is all you have in the end. After all we have been through with my brother, we still accept him with open arms. We are missing a link in our family chain and hopefully someday my brother will come to his senses and fill that empty space once again.
Now instead of brushing the topic aside, I want to let others know how meth and
substance abuse can hurt families. My family and I made a huge mistake; we ignored his addiction. We should have done an intervention, but we were too scared of how he would react. Don’t make the same mistake. Look for the signs of drug or alcohol abuse such as irritability, anger, fatigue, agitation, anxiety, and depression. I can’t stress enough about how important it is to help the ones you love. They may not say it out loud, but they do want help. If you know someone who is a drug addict, get help. Even if you think that person will hate you forever, do an intervention or send them to treatment. At least you will be able to say you did everything you could, because that is something my family and I wish we could say.
My life has changed because of methamphetamine and my brother’s addiction has changed my family forever. It has scarred my family with bad memories. Every holiday and family function isn’t the same without my brother there. Sometimes I just stop and think “I really wish he was here.” In all of the mess, I try to look at things in a positive way. Meth may have hurt my family in many ways, but it has also made us stronger.