The Making of an Addict

Brian was a little boy, lost in the world with parents that were more focused on partying and their addictions than they were this little being that they brought into this world.

He lived with his grandparents mostly during his younger days. His grandparents kept him involved in sports and other activities. He learned a lot of values during this time of his life but there was a huge void in his life, that no child wants to experience--his parents, his siblings.

He grew up close with his cousin that was the same age as him. They would play together and hang out while his cousin's parents were at work. They did everything together, except at the end of the day his cousin would go home, to his family, with his sister, his mom, and his dad, and Brian was left at home, with his grandparents. As any child would feel, they could not understand why his parents were not there, why didn't they want to take care of him? They lived right around the corner with his brothers. Classmates had their parents, cousins had their parents, his brothers had their parents, so why couldn't he? This plagued him to no end, eventually he started acting out and doing everything he could to go be with his parents.

I am not exactly sure how old he was when he moved in with his mom and dad. I have heard that he was 9 and also that he was 11, I don't know, he's not here for me to ask, to confirm the age. I wish I had asked these questions while he was alive, but I was more focused on giving him a better life than dwelling on his past.

When he moved in with his dad, he got to have his own apartment, according to his aunt, where he was virtually unsupervised and free to do as he pleased. Surprisingly, he was not out of control at the beginning. For several years he would get himself up and clean to school every single day. Waking up at 5am to exercise, he was really big in boxing, and then would clean the house from the parties his parents would have from the night before, and then walk himself to school. He excelled in school, always on the honor roll, A's and B's consistently, never so much as a C.

Brian took on this roll as a child thinking that he could somehow "fix" his family, save them and make them be "normal". He would consistently clean the house and continued trying to be this well mannered child. The Wright family had a name in Norwood, OH and for those of you that do not know where Norwood is, it is a city inside Cincinnati. They were known for drinking, drugs, and violence. Brian, however, was always different.

After he passed I had so many people opening up to me and telling me the Brian that they all knew. He was always so polite and well mannered. He was very timid around people, knowing his family did not have the best name, and yet everyone loved him, they welcomed him in their home, when no one would allow the rest of the family around. Brian was well liked, and respected.

His life was not easy being with his parents. They rarely had food in the house, most of their money went to drugs and alcohol, so Brian made do with anything he could find, sometimes not eating at all. He would clean consistently after all the grown ups would make messes from parties, and broken household items. His parents would fight consistently, and they would become extremely violent, more than one occasion he would see his dad beating his mom up and he would sit on the stairs and cry. At one point his dad even pulled a gun out on his mom. His mom, would turn a lot of her violence and anger toward Brian, and he would suffer from her abuse. Eventually his mom left one day and he did not see her for almost two years. Brian was hurt to discover she lived only a block behind him, and yet never came to see him. He would always recall one story when he saw her at a gas station and she hurried up and got in the car and sped off so she would not have to talk to him.

His brother who was older than he was would also make Brian a subject of bullying. If Brian ever lost a fight boxing, his brother would make sure he endured the consequences of losing. They had a lot of battles, and everyone of them Brian would lose. His brother was already doing drugs, drinking, and selling drugs for money. He would consistently tell Brian he needed to learn how to earn his keep and tried pushing Brian to sell drugs to provide for the family. At first Brian resisted...

One day after he had broken his femur bone the doctors had prescribed him pain medications, and after his parents had stole all the medications he had enough. He watched as they spent every dime they had on drugs, and he was tired of starving, tired of living in a dirty broken down house. He decided that if his parents were going to spend every dime they had on drugs he was going to get that back.

Shortly after he healed he began selling pot. It was not too long before he was making a lot of money, and moving large quantities of pot. In the beginning he would not smoke it or have anything to do with it. He would sell and the money he would get he began to use to fix up the house he was living in. He became addicted to making money. Eventually he began smoking pot and drinking with his friends and family. You have to realize that it truly is a different environment, this life style, his parents became proud of him, and so did his brother. He began to finally feel as though he fit in, and belonged somewhere in the world.

Unfortunately, in time, that began to expand, with drugs comes women, and at 14 and 15 years old your hormones begin to take over anyway. He began working with strippers, that started asking for cocaine, instead of pot, so he expanded a little into this market. When you start growing this big, and cocaine and pot are not enough, heroin eventually gets introduced. He was not a big heroin dealer, or even cocaine dealer, his priority was marijuana, however he did get introduced to heroin and pain pills and grew an addiction.

He knew he was in trouble when he got hooked on opioids. He even tried to get himself completely off at one point by escaping to his grandfathers farm and detoxing himself to clean up and straighten up.

Brian became his families caregivers. He spent most of the money he earned on repairing his grandfathers house. I would always hear stories on him dragging in dry wall, cabinets, doors. He completely remodeled the interior of the house as a teenager. Two different times he used the money to save their house from foreclosure.

Brian also had this thing for "project people", if he found someone, especially girls, that were mistreated, or not taken care of he had this insane nobility to try and save them. I could go into several details about girls but I will stick with one example. She was not taken care of, her parents were always buying off from Brian so he took her under his wing. They never had shampoo, body wash, or even toilet paper. The girl had no education, due to her parents not making her go to school let alone excel in school. He took her in and made sure she was showering and clean everyday, and even tutored her teaching her to read and basic math. She was not the only one he felt the need to save, there have been plenty of girls not too far different from this one. Then to top it off he would shower the girls with gifts, and especially gold jewelry.

The only thing Brian ever bought for himself was his mustang. He didn't have it long before he wrecked it but that was the only thing he ever bought himself and carried with pride. After wrecking it he was so devastated he had no desire to get another vehicle after that. He thought it was something he deserved for being so selfish and flashy with his money.

Even though he was accepted into this family, and this life style, he also started to feel more alone, like he still did not fit. So he set off in a mission to become a father, at such a young age, he just wanted a purpose, thinking a baby would make him happy. It took several years before he successfully had a child, after attempts with three different girls. One girl had become a long time girlfriend that was on again off again, she had endured several miscarriages and during one of their breaks he had gotten another girl pregnant, and it was a successful pregnancy. His main girlfriend was none to thrilled, as you could imagine, eventually he ended up getting her pregnant as well. He ended up having two children by the time he was 19.

Little did he know that him and his family was being watched for several years. Brian had been the subject of an investigation since he was 16. They continued to build a case against him wanting to get him at 18 so he could be tried as an adult, so they sat back and watched and continued to build their case. Shortly after he had turned 18 the police raided his house. They used flash grenades, that resulted in him having a broken nose and they tore through the house. It was during his trial that he became a father both times.

While he was in prison he had 2 1/2 years to reflect on his life and the person he was as well as the person he wanted to become. He knew he never wanted to go back to prison, and he knew he did not want to raise his children in this environment. He was thrilled to discover the mother of his second child had already left the area away from the drugs and the violence. Through consistent communication with her, he had decided he wanted to get his oldest child out of the area and give her a better chance.

Upon his release, he discovered the mother of his first child was in prison for drug charges, and her grandmother begged Brian to get the little girl out of Cincinnati and to take care of her. Brian had also discovered that the $20,000 he had hidden from the raid, his mother had already utilized all that money, so he had nothing when he got out. So with the help of his daughter's great grandmother bought him a bus ticket to take him and his daughter away from Cincinnati and out of Ohio, and that is how he began his life in a little old town in Wyoming.

I was not apart of Brian's life during these early years, I am basing this tale off from the stories he told me, as well as his friends and family.

I also don't want you all to look and think that his family, or the people that surrounded him were bad people either. This story is not to make other addicts look bad. You have to realize that every addict started somewhere. Somewhere in their life when they were clean, they were different. They too have a story to tell on how they became addicts. No addict wants to become an addict. I love his family very much! I also can attest to the fact that drugs CHANGE people.

As my stories continue you will see the good in my husband as well as the bad. I have no intention of only portraying my husband in glorified light. He was a great man, but he also had not so great moments. I need to help you all understand that drugs change who a person is, addiction is an evil monster and once it grabs ahold of you it's not as easy as one thinks to stop. It's not as easy to choose between right and wrong. It's about acceptance.