A thought

So the last week and a half my half has not been that eventful since I haven’t started my job yet, so my days are filled with me working out, reading, and watching a lot of new TV shows. I have dived into one show that is really interesting, it is called, “Intervention,” on A&E. It basically follows one or two individuals that struggle with addiction with either drugs or something else. Probably for most people this show would be depressing or hard to watch but I find it very interesting and while I am watching I am learning a lot of how people come to these rock-bottom stages of their lives. I have a huge heart for helping people even they are projected on a TV screen.

What I have noticed is something that is kind of common sense on the surface but if you look deeper it has some profound qualities. In each one of the addiction cases shown on the program, they all have troubled backgrounds some way revolving around their parents. Either their parents were neglecting, overprotecting, divorced, abusive, unloving, or addicts themselves. These troubled upbringings caused wounds that they could not deal with so they medicated with drugs, alcohol, or binging. These substances or actions they did were an unhealthy effort to try to mask the pain they felt in their wound. Since the core of the problem was with there parents they became lost, for that is the normal source of comfort for most of us. I couldn’t imagine growing up in a world where I had no authority figure to cling to as I learned about the world. I could imagine a sense of bitterness growing in me.

Basically what I learned is not all but most addicts have a background of pain in some way or another, and that they run to drugs to reduce the bad feelings. As a man who some day wishes to become a father, it makes me step back and think how crucial a role a father plays in the upbringing of a child.