If I could talk to any one person

The other day in a men’s prayer meeting I attend, someone mentioned that game people often play inviting you to answer the question: If you could have a conversation with one individual in history, who would that be? I have heard of this before but always had great difficulty narrowing down the field. There are just too many possibilities and choices.

Presented with the question now, the answer is quite easy: my daughter.

Of course, I cannot speak with her, but if I could talk with LaLa one more time, I wondered what would I say?

It wasn’t the easiest question to answer. My response would be obviously affected by whether I was talking to her before the fateful events of July 6^th, 2017, or after.

If it were after she passed away, the most important thing I would want to tell her was that I was not angry with her. I would want her to know that although I am deeply saddened, as I know my wife and son are, by the great loss our family has experienced. Truthfully, that heartache is a result of poor choices Lauren made in the last twenty-four hours of her life. Notwithstanding, I am not blaming her, I am not mad at her.

It would be important to have her understand that I realized she was constantly battling with a mind that had been ambushed by heroin. A mind that was already under the heavy stress of extreme anxiety and the impact of anorexia. I would explain that I understand that although God had done some amazing things in her life in the last month of her life. Well, at least that is where what He had been doing became overwhelmingly obvious. I understood that she was still being torn in many directions because of her addiction and mental health issues. That’s one of the things that is really hard for the loved ones of an addicted person. We often get trapped in the cycle of asking, “Why are they doing this to us?” They may at times be doing some very hurtful and illogical things, but the lions share of times, their intention is not to do it to those that care about them. They’re stuck. Of course, understanding this does not mean that they should not experience the natural consequences of their actions.

That’s the big problem in treating severe addiction, it is an extremely complicated disorder that involves many elements. Lauren once made an interesting observation when responding to an article dealing with the reasons for addiction. She acknowledged that of course, she made the choice to do drugs, and, I suppose continue to use them, but she did not make the choice to become addicted. You can understand more about how Lauren ended up addicted to heroin in the five-minute video “How did my daughter end up on heroin.” It also exposes the process of how, seemingly, unrelated issues can spiral out of control in someone’s life to end in severe addiction. In the video I explain exactly where Lauren did come to the place when she realized she was addicted. She tried very hard to stop using drugs. Her mistake was that she tried it alone. Two books that address the incredible complexity of addiction and the new information we are learning every day are “Hijacked Brains: The Experience and Science of Chronic Addiction by Henrietta Robin Barnes”, and “Unbroken Brain by Maia Szalavitz”. These books not only address the issue of how drug use will physiologically change the brain and its fundamental functions, sometimes very quickly, but also give deep insight into the complexities of addiction, helping us see what it feels like to have a brain that has been hijacked by drugs and mental health. Another important consideration when talking about the complexity of addiction is something we used to talk about a lot, especially in the church world, but not so much anymore. It is the formation and power of habit. This is important as reflected in a quote from the book “Addiction and Virtue: Beyond the Models of Disease and Choice” in which the author Kent Dunnington says “…the category of habit provides a way of thinking about addiction that avoids the disease/choice dichotomy.”  Understanding the power of habit indeed gives us deeper insight into treating and at least understanding addiction.

I am not mad at Lauren for what happened. Honestly, I just miss her.

If it were before Lauren passed away, I would tell her, one more time, how very much I believe in her. I would hold her hands, look in her eyes and tell her “Honey, together, with Gods help, we can beat this. Please, don’t give up. Keep fighting. We have so much more of life to live.”

If you love someone struggling with addiction. Say what you want to say to them now, not angrily or in the heat of the most recent crisis. Instead talk to them so they can see behind your words, how important they are to you, and how incredibly great your love is for them.

The final day of Lauren’s life – seeing those words in print still invokes a great sense of shock and disbelief in the deepest recesses of my heart – my day got away from me, I never got the chance to text Lauren like I always did. I wish I had. I really thought I would see her when I got home.

This weeks featured image is from one of my two favorite conceptual photographers. Jennifer Throreson (Hudson) the image is called “Transgression” from her Baptism Collection