No Judgement Needed

Don’t bother judging an addict. Your judgements, your opinions are not needed. There is nothing you can say or feel about an addict that they already do not feel about themselves.

Go ahead, call them a junkie, call them lazy, call them weak… Be as demeaning as you possibly can toward someone battling addiction and I can guarantee you that they feel that way about themselves times 100!

They don’t need your criticism. The addict in them already feels your animosity. They feel animosity from everyone around them. Their worst critic, is themselves.

They don’t feel worthy of love from other people. They don’t feel worthy of a job, or a life outside of the world of drugs, and the people that surround them with the same low self-esteem. The only way they can even feel half way like a human being is by getting high. So they get high to feel normal, only to feel like a worthless piece of shit for getting high, for costing their family and friends, and most importantly, themselves.

What someone battling addiction needs is for someone to let them know that they are enough. That their life does count for something. You think by telling an addict they are going to die, effects them? What you don’t understand is that most addicts want to die. So don’t tell them they are going to die. Tell them you love them. Tell them the positive effects they have on your life and that they are someone.

An addict needs hope. They need love. Just like the rest of you, me, us… Everyone at some point in their life has felt so incredibly low about themselves, that they were not good enough for their jobs, their family, for love. Close your eyes and imagine that, that is your life every single day.

So why bother? You don’t believe in them, they don’t believe in themselves, so why bother even trying to get better?

Have you ever considered a different outlook? Have you ever thought to take a moment and tell an addict that they can become someone? Isn’t that what we tell our children? You can be whoever you want to be. So because they made a choice, allowed this illness to take over their lives, they suddenly have to be subjected to it and ridiculed for it the rest of their lives?

There is nothing wrong with showing compassion. There is nothing wrong with showing understanding. There is nothing wrong with loving and accepting an addict for what they are and help them believe who they can be.

Forgiveness. A pretty big word that we tend to not use often enough. An action to forgive those that hurt you, wronged you. Forgiving them for becoming someone you may not recognize now, but forgiving them, so they can become that person you knew and loved. They are still in there you know. It may be hidden right now, taken over by an evil battling within themselves. They are fighting to come out, come back to the surface, but they are scared… They are scared you won’t love them again. They are scared they won’t love themselves again. They are scared society will not accept them again.

Show them. Put out your hand, reach out and show them… Help them come back to the surface. It will not be easy. It will be difficult--they may mess up again, more than once. With enough faith and enough hope, and enough belief, they may just come out to stay. They may win this fight. They need your love. They need to love themselves. So give them what they want, give them what they need—and believe in them again, so that they can believe in themselves.You never know... You may just save a life.