I had to confront my older sister this week; she is addicted to prescription painkillers and, though a member of AA (supposedly), she's started drinking again.
I hate the way alcohol and drugs ruin a person's personality. I had to set limits with her because she left an abusive message for my daughter (she leaves these kind of messages a lot), and because I discovered she was saying a lot of things about me behind my back to family members, including my children and my elderly father. In my letter, I told her that I loved her and that I was really afraid she had gotten addicted to painkillers and that the addiction was changing her personality and making it hard for me to have a relationship with her. I urged her to get into detox and I said I really did want to have a relationship with her, but that it was really difficult right now because of her addiction. This was hard for me, and I certainly didn't think she'd just jump up and say, "Oh, yes, I'm addicted! You're right!" Still, she's called my younger sister twice this weeked, and my dad. They've also tried to put limits on what she does (she's been saying nothing but bad things about me and my kids, and Mr. Strega), but I can't do their boundaries for them.
I do love my sister. She helped me a lot when I was a single parent (if you call it "help"--I was terrified every time I had to ask her for money with a car repair, or for school clothes for my kids, because she treated me like shit with every dime she gave). I do bless her for this, though, because it spurred me to go to graduate school and get my MFA so I could be independent from her (similar to women going to school or getting job training because of an abusive husband). I began to have panic attacks when listening to her ramblings when she was high, and so had to limit my calls to her, or my studies and home life would suffer.
I realize she became addicted because of legitimate health problems, but what's she's like now is so far from the sister I knew that I can't be close to her anymore, until she gets treatment. She acts like my mother, and I can't handle it--the abuse, the backbiting, the lies, the need to have everyone pay obeisance to her. I am not enslaved and I will not take orders from a bottle of Oxycontin. And that is the truth as I know and see it, for today.
