So the other day my daughter sent me a picture of an old friend of mine who passed away a few years ago that she happened upon at a friends house and I have had them memories of how our friendship ended and second guessing the stance I took. This friend was like family to me, he was like a little brother. I hired him to work for me running heavy equipment and he was a very talented operator. He had some serious addiction problems that I enabled and covered for at work for a couple years, letting him sleep off the night before in my truck or fixing the mess ups after hours. He became a fixture in our home for dinner through the week and we would drag him out of bed to attend church with us on Sundays. The dinners became fewer and fewer and finding at home on Sunday morning became non existent. I would sit and talk with him for hours and hours about what he wanted for his life and and how important it was to me that he clean up but those talks fell on deaf ears. FInally it got to that point that happens in so many addicts lives.... I told him that I could no longer enable him and that I wouldnt deal with or be his excuse. A week later I fired him for not showing up to work and we ended up in a huge fight because he thought I was trying to bully him into getting sober.... maybe I was now that I think about it. We said some pretty angry and shitty things to each other that day and I told him to stay out of me and my families lives until he got his shit together. That was the last time I saw my friend because a couple months later he was found dead of a heroin overdose in a shooting den in Longmont. Going to his funeral with everything we left unresolved hurt so much. Seeing the daughter he left behind and knowing that she would grow up constantly wondering why... To this day I question how I handled things with my friend and his addiction. Who was I to rub his nose in his addiction and push him out of our lives? Would he be alive today if I had just been there for him? This is probably one of the heaviest things I carry around in this 100 pound sack of regrets. I miss you my friend and Im sorry.
Posted on: Wed, 02 Apr 2014 18:48:18 +0000
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