A Family’s Perspective: Battling Addiction – Part 2

In Part 1, I discussed trauma my sister endured which led to our discovering the truth about her life as an addict.

Over the next four months, we saw my sister only a couple of times. Between my work schedule and her desire to hide her life from the family, we were only permitted to visits when it was convenient for her. There was hope she was coping with the after affects of the trauma she endured months prior, however, she possess a masters degree in the art of covering up her feelings and needs. That was also an effect of the Rx cocktail she was on – it aided her in numbing herself from reality.

I had since separated from my spouse. It wasn’t a hard decision seeing his many forms of abuse – when he was actually home – were taking toll on me: mind, body and spirit. I finally realized this man would never love me as much as the drugs he refused to admit he abused, despite my finding them on our property. There was no desire on his part to get help, or go to marriage counseling so I tried it alone. When I did, I was advised to leave the marriage for my own safety. (Yes, a Christian counselor who actually didn’t condone staying in an abusive marriage.)

About a month after the separation occurred and things were looking up in life, I received a message that would send me into a state of shock for some time to come. It was late on a Friday afternoon that my sister’s long ago, ex boyfriend contacted me via Facebook telling me to call him, stating it was urgent. I was at work but since it seemed like an emergency, told him to text me instead. He stated my sister had been arrested the day before and was not being released unless someone paid her bail. I asked about the charges. He stated she had been driving and was pulled over for crossing the middle line, in her truck they found a substantial amount of heroin and methanphetamines (meth).

Her charges were not only possession but also trafficking and DUI. I had to figure out how to break this news to our mother. I can tell you however that God works in mysterious ways. Before I left my marriage and this incident, I felt led to get involved with street ministry and outreach. The city in which I live is overburdened with heroin and meth addiction plus sex trafficking. Many deaths were occurring and something inside me wanted to reach the women on the street who were trapped in this madness, with the one thing that could save them: God’s love.

We were terrified to learn my sister was caught up in something so dark and dangerous. I spent a lot of time in the weeks to follow, while she locked-up, on my face before God praying for his direction and wisdom. Most of all that He would reach into that jail cell and take away her desire for the drug. Not only drugs also the lifestyle that comes along with it. We received information about my sister’s life from her “friends” (including the ex-boyfriend who contacted me) that as her family were difficult to hear.

A week or so after my sister’s arrest, our mother, a cousin my sister was close to and I drove to visit her in a small, disgusting country jail. I nearly fainted upon entering the detention area of the building from the mold and my heart breaking in two. How? How could my beautiful little sister allow this to become her life? Knowing what I do about addiction, especially heroin and meth, I was determined to keep her away from it so she could detox. If that had to happen in jail, so be it. I told people who weren’t family, whom she might call to bail her out, to stay out of it – this was a family decision!

Word of my conversations apparently reached my sister, even in jail. She wasn’t happy to see us but came to the heavy glass and metal partition, hesitated but picked up the old fashioned phone anyway. I was first in line to speak but before I could open my mouth, she laid into me about leaving her in jail. She would not look at me. I aked her to look at me, and there it was again, staring at me in a murderous fashion: the demon of addiction.

It was not my sister shut up in that nasty jail it was her addiction and it was livid! As far as I was concerned, it could stay there until they let her out. I believed this was best because I love my sister. The arrest was the beginning of a battle between the Lord and dark principalities to save my sister’s life.

Stacey Louiso lives for, and tries to love everyone wholly by constantly studying the heart of, Jesus Christ. In gratitude for transforming her life back into one that is pleasing and usable to God, she walks toward virtue, praying to embody a woman after God’s own heart! Her gratitude is due to being delivered from several decades of many types of abuse and victimization, as well as physical, emotional and mental health issues.