The other day I was reading, and a statement in a book arrested my attention. It was in the story of a young woman named Celia. Celia lived in an area that is the epicenter of the extremes of addiction. The kind of place that no one wants to see. The place where all our attempts to tidy up addiction and how it works fail. The place where human beings express what makes them more God-like than anything else, love. Celia lives, at least at the time the book was written at the Portland. It is there where all our theories about addiction fall short. The place is Vancouver’s Portland Hotel Society. The work that the Portland Hotel Society does will challenge you, and perhaps anger you, but it is a place where deeply marginalized people can experience what Carl Rogers, an American Psychologist, called “unconditional acceptance.”

Celia was an addict whose life had completely spun out of control. Alone, pregnant, broken from years of drug use. In this paragraph, her nurse was thinking out loud when she said, “How different her life might have been.” That stopped me cold that morning as I read it, it’s a true statement. So much is lost when we lose someone to addiction, we lose all that could have been.

“Addiction is an attempt at self-repair that fails” is what Phillip Flores tells us. I think he is right. Others have said it this way, “Addiction is what happens when a certain experience meets a certain need.”

I often wonder how different Laurens’s life would have been if her deep inner pain had not collided with the dark deception of heroin. Heroin lies! It tells the user that only it can give them what they need.  In the post “A New Perspective on an Old Problem,” I try to illustrate the truth that we must to understand about addiction of any kind. The object of our addiction is giving us something that is fulfilling and that something has nothing to do with pleasure.

One of the last conversations I had with LaLa (my daughter Lauren) was about how different Laurens’s life might have been. It was the night before she passed away. Think about that statement for a moment. I was encouraging her about her plans to go to St. Vincent’s College for radiology. She was very excited about that, and so where her mom and I. You can read more about her plans in “Brighter Days” and  “The Best Year Ever.”  I think she would have done very well and it may have been a big game-changer for her. I wish she had the courage at that moment to tell me, “Dad, please help me. I am struggling with cravings.” Who knows where we would be now?

“How different her life would have been” is a place we can stay for a while, but we can’t stay there long, it’s not healthy.

Since the moment Nereida (LaLa’s best friend and mom), Evan (LaLa’s A1 from Day 1), and I discovered Lauren was addicted to heroin, we experienced lots of important and meaningful moments. Many of them were very positive and intimate; we are grateful we had them with her. Some were very painful. Sadly that’s the territory of living in the chaos of addiction and mental health. Today, in my selfishness, as strange as it sounds,  I would take one of the painful days, but that’s my selfishness, I know the toll on her would not be fair, even if it were so I could hold her one more time.

The gift we had of spending 377 days more with Lauren was precious to us. It gave answers that without would leave us completely devasted today and without hope. That gift is an outcome of the great gift of Christmas Christ. We are very grateful for that.

The post called “Your Gonna Miss This” reminds us that every day and every moment we have with someone we love is a gift, even if that moment is not perfect.

The night before our daughter left this world for a perfect pain-free world, we discussed her drug use because we suspected that she had used drugs that day. Lauren and I talked about several things and we ended the conversation in a positive tone. As she walked away, I could see that she was heavy with guilt and shame. I wish I had thought of calling her back just to hold her and tell her I loved her. I did go into her room that night to kiss her goodnight and encourage her, doing that would have just would have been another special gift for both of us.

Chances are you are going to do your best to have a perfect Christmas with family and friends this year, and chances are it will not be perfect. That is okay, but remember, Christmas and every day, that each moment we get to be with people we love is a great gift. Use it well.

Merry Christmas

This weeks featured image is by Brooke Shaden, it is called “To Lift Her Up”