Addiction

      

ADDICTION is defined as:

" 1.  a compulsive, chronic, physiological, or psychological need for a habit-forming substance, behavior, or activity having harmful physical, psychological, or social effects and typically causing well-defined symptoms (such as anxiety, irritability, tremors, or nausea) upon withdrawal or abstinence: the state of being addicted

2.   a strong inclination to do, use, or indulge in something repeatedly"  (www.merriam-webster.com)
     There are several forms of addiction and some people feel that one addiction may not be as "harmful" as another due to the idea of how the addiction can harm a person's body physically, psychologically, or might hurt others.  
     There are several forms of addiction: drugs, alcohol, gambling, food, sex, etc.  How or why does one become addicted?  Basically, the want or craving a person has is due to the chemical imbalance in the brain called dopamine.  This is a "good" feeling a person feels when they do or an action and the person always wants or craves that "good" feeling.  The feeding the addiction allows a person's brain to NOT feel the uncomfortableness they may be feeling.  Feeding that addiction gives the person a "calm" in their life.  DNA (family genes) is also a factor in whether or not a person may be prone to addiction or may have an addictive personality.  Addictions that come from genetics may be present in every generation of a family member i.e., father to daughter, daughter to grandson, etc. or the addiction gene may skip a generation such as father to granddaughter.   
    With my Mom, I believe she did have the gene which made her addicted.  It may be the gene from my Great Grandfather on my Mom's side.  From what I have been told by my Grandma is that my Great Grandpa Ciupka was a "drunk" he would drink and then become very mean to his wife and kids.  But, as I got older and my Grandpa got older and as I put two-and-two together I can see how maybe it would have come from his genes also.  My Grandpa had a very bad back and had surgeries for his back, he also had a terrible time with his hands and pain in his hands which turned into what is now called "trigger finger" I think he also had Rheumatoid arthritis.  As he aged I would see and hear that he "needed" pain medication such as Norco.  But again, growing up he never drank too much, take too much aspirin.  But I do know his pain was very real and maybe he did want to suppress the pain.  
     As I may have said in a different post, my Mom broke her back in gymnastics when she was young and of course given pain meds.  And she also was pained with no longer being the "baby" of the family after my Aunt Angie was born.  For 11 years she was the "baby".  All attention on Susie.  Just from those two examples of what happened to my Mom, a person can now see how a person who is genetically prone to having an addiction will become an addict.  I am sure she was thinking "What can make me feel better both physically and emotionally with the changes that have all-of-the-sudden popped up in my life?  Pain meds take the physical pain I have in my back away and the "stronger" stuff will take the emotional pain away."  Right?  
     In the 60s and 70s, when my Mom was in her pre-teen and teen years, there may not have been as much science or studies where people would have known about addition.  Or spoke about addiction even though during the Hippie era drugs were big.  Now-a-days  you can find out what you want to know about anything by just looking it up on the intranet.  Back then, and still now, "addicts are bad people, they are dirty, they are trouble makers" they were embarrassing.  I mean when you think about it, there was actually Cocaine in Coke!  
     I found out not too long ago while speaking to my Grandma, the first time my Mom was involved with drugs was when she came home from the park at 12 years old via Police escort due to having possession of marijuana.  Now, the subject of marijuana (weed) use  and weed being an "gateway" drug which can lead to harder drugs, which can easily kill a person, and then eventually become a terrible addiction is often a subject of disagreement or maybe even controversary.  Some folks who utilize weed as a "social" drug such as social drinkers do not look or have the urge to have a "better" high and move on to harder drugs such as crack, cocaine, meth, opiods, or heroin.  I smoked weed a few times when I was young and never had the feeling of wanting more.  In fact I didn't really enjoy the way it made me feel or how it altered my thinking.  BUT, I truly believe if a person has to smoke weed when they wake up, need it when they go to work, or need it when they end the day every day the person is addicted to marijuana.  That is what I think.
    I don't know what stages my Mom went from using pills or weed to fulfill that "good" feeling it gave her to the harder drugs. I don't know if she went in stages from weed to coke to crack to whatever.  I do know that she and the men she was with throughout the years were following or chasing the drugs. I don't know who introduced or how she was introduced to heroin or even how a person would think sticking a needle in your arm to get high was OK.  I don't know what age she was.  But she did.  And I remember exactly when she was a full blown addict and when she was maybe, just maybe at her lowest.   

     

The Windy Road-Long Rapids

      I want to say I was around 11 or 12? Again, I try to keep my memories in order but sometimes when thinking about them, I cannot really remember my age or what order they occurred.  I think sometimes I combined the memories also.  My Mom came home again and of course with another man (I think?).  To tell you the truth, the amount of times my Mom has come and gone from our house throughout the years by hitch-hiking from Michigan to Arizona or California is actually incredible.  It is incredible because it is a long way to walk and hitch a ride and it is incredible that she didn't show up dead.  I am sure some things may have happened, or someone tried to do something bad to her throughout her many hitch-hiking adventures.  But again, with her little spurts of violence (downright crazy violence) I am not fully sure someone would actually do something to her. Plus she was very strong.  So if someone tried, they would probably get a good fight. This man that showed up this time was not allowed to stay at our house, I think my Grandparents really didn't like this one.   He was tall, skinny, with dark skin and bushy curly hair.  

     This part is a little confusing for me so I know it may be confusing for you...When I speak about the men she came home with, a lot of these moments were when I was  9, 10, or maybe 11.  When I put two and two together, I truly think it was during the time she was with my sibling's Dad.   I know she spent a lot of time during that 3-year span in Michigan in the Lansing area.   She came home to Alpena more often during this time span to visit. Plus she had Tess in Arizona and a picture of the two of them while in California.....Therefore, they traveled to and from California and maybe a few pit-spots in Phoenix because they did know some friends, not-so-good friends in Phoenix.  

     Anyhow, she was home, and she did not have a man with her but she did come home with a man, not sure where he went.  During the visit, the man was arrested. For what?  I did not know. This is what my memory serves me. I do remember someone was picked up because she was very off, very nervous (she usually acted pretty nervous but I am not sure if it was withdrawal or not).  During her visit, my Mom, my Aunt Angie, Grandma, and I were driving home from town.  My Grandma drove a butter yellow Chevy Impala.  You know the ones that had a full seat in front so three people could sit in the front seat? That is the car we were driving home in.  My Mom sat in the back seat with me.  My Grandma was driving and my Aunt was on the passenger side. My Grandma drove fast..." like a bat-outta-hell" my Grandpa usually would say, down the Long Rapids road.  It felt like it was fast back then and it was a windy two-lane road surrounded by woods.  We didn't have to wear seat belts so the windiness would make the ride home a little more adventurous!  If I could take you to the Long Rapids road, I would be able to tell you exactly where this happened.  As we were driving, we see a man walking down the road on the dirt shoulder and as soon as we starting approaching him, which was pretty quickly because my Grandma drove fast, my Mom leans into the window and follows him with her head as we pass him.  I can see this happening to this day.  It was sunny, with so much green in the trees.  We were all happy.  

We all knew who that man was, even I knew that feeling of "uh, oh".

     We got home, probably about 20 minutes after we got home my Mom says she wants to go to the corner store.  The Male's store.... everyone went to the Male's store to pick up this or that and kids would ride their bikes there to get candy or pop.  She grabbed my Grandma's bike (it was a cruiser style of bike, reminded me of the bike the lady rode at the beginning of the Wizard of Oz), no one could stop her because she was a grown woman and she was going to do what she wanted to do one way or another. Now, I had no idea my Mom was such an athlete to be able to #1 ride a bike, and #2 ride the single-speed bike to the store.  Now I do know though that she did have the endurance, she was always able to walk several miles to hitch a ride to-and-from the West Coast!

      An hour later, my Mom never returned.  My Grandpa went to the store to see where she was.  No Susie.  My Grandpa drove around a little bit in the direction it would take her to leave our area and leave Alpena....No one on foot anywhere.   There were only two directions to leave and the next main roads to get out of Alpena and from the house we lived in was a good 10-15 miles away!  Gone....and the man my Mom found so interesting walking on the road....gone..... disappeared.  We couldn't figure out how they even hitched a ride that quickly out of the area we lived!  We lived in the country, folks stuck to themselves in our area and wouldn't think of picking someone they didn't know especially picking up a hitch-hiker.  Gone......Again.....  My Grandpa went back to the store a day or so later and asked Mr. Male if he had seen a bike and Mr. Male said there was one underneath the Thunderbay River overpass bridge right by the store.  It was still there, no one took it.  My Grandpa brought it home and it looked as though nothing happened.  A few days after my Mom calls us from Phoenix.  Whatever she brought with her this trip she didn't take with her.  Only maybe a purse which she would have taken to actually buy something at the store if she took that.  

**   About 2 weeks ago I spoke to my Grandma about how she felt about my blog.  She brought up this memory also and told me what she remembered:  She said one day my Mom told my Grandma that her back was hurting her and she needed to go to the doctor.  (Remember she had a bad back due to her gymnastics accident when she was a kid, and always thought she needed the pain pills....or that was her excuse)  From what my Grandma remembers, she and the man went to a doctor and when the doctor left the exam room they stole a prescription pad.  They wrote out prescriptions for whatever they were trying to get and then tried to get the so-called prescription filled at one of the local pharmacies.  Well, long story short...they got caught and put in Jail.  "The man" had someone bail him out and of course, my Mom got out. I think when he was walking down the road he may have been coming to find her.