DEALING WITH KIN ON HEROIN

DEAREST Drug-Curious Readers:

We're still talking about Ol' Devil Heroin this week, because the letters
I've been getting are so dadburned interesting. "Carl" of last week was a
huge hit, with his complex, unapologetic, dope-from-the-user's-corner
sermon; many others wrote in disbelief that a non-moralistic view of smack
could ever be read in a "family" newspaper, and were very grateful.

So far I have received no mail from furious uber-Christian reactionary
anti-drug zealots barking up my tree, and no death threats from the
ignorant super-conservative stone-crazy contingent, which is quite remarkable.

Hi Cintra: I understand Carl's point. My sister says the same thing. But
after years of wanting to feel and feeling and her brilliant self wanting
to ease the pain of her world and hating to be bored, her body and brain
are paying the price of meth, heroin, tranqs, alcohol, cigarettes and now
methadone.

First there were all the reasons why she kept going from job to job and
moving a lot. Unless she needed money, she told me it's her choice and butt
out. Then she said she didn't want to work. Then she couldn't. Even if she
continues to get disability the rest of her life, she will need someone to
physically care for her; she can barely do it now and she's only 47 years old.

Disability and / or Social Security, welfare are really not enough to take
care of my sister's physical and administrative needs. Unless she goes
homeless or dies pretty young, if we don't just refuse, it will fall to my
brother and me. Her kids are trying to undo their childhood. I've spend a
lot of time at Alanon and CODA.

I grieve for her, I weep with compassion for her, I can't help her, I hate
her, I love her, I'm confused about it, I pity her, I'm enraged with her. .
. . It's certainly not boring. Did I say I miss her? She was so funny and
warm and loving AND she was my sister. I say was because I'm grieving her
and yet she's still here, but she's not here.

Am I selfish? Are her kids selfish? Were our parents selfish to want her
healthy? I realize we shouldn't live our lives for others, and she
shouldn't for us, of course. Then does that mean when she is so sick she
can't deposit her Social Security and buy her food and pay her rent I
should not take care of her and let her die homeless? Thanks for your
column. - Jacqueline

Dearest Jaqueline: Thank you for your thoughtful letter, which poses the
most interesting argument about the freedom to abuse drugs: what to do when
addicts, for whatever "understandable" reasons of self-medication and
pleasure / pain seeking, become so screwed up that they become the
responsibility of other people who are too decent to make them live in the
shambles of the life they destroyed for themselves.

So many families are cursed with an incorrigible fiend that they are too
humanistic and loving and guilt-rattled to let drown in their own disgrace,
and the system provides no adequate last-resort resources for those like
your sister.

Bad addicts invariably, at a certain point, get stranded on whatever island
where their last bridge was burned. At this point, they tend to sink
steadily, taking down with them anyone dear enough to be near, out of
abject flailing and desperation, or simply being too far gone to have any
idea what kind of dreadful impositions and unforgivable breaches of peace
they are foisting on anyone who still cares about them.

Is it selfish to not intervene, if you are a close relative? Is it OK for
such a failed person, who exercised no power over his or her need to
self-indulge, to diminish your quality of life by shuffling the burden of
themselves off on you, inadvertently or otherwise? Only a saint could take
on such a tall and largely thankless task without serious qualms and
resentment.

Everyone works hard to be OK in this life, and some have arrived at
semi-comfortable states where survival isn't a constant Sisyphean battle.
To then be saddled with the weight of a hapless ingrate is insulting to the
OK person's progress.

I know of single mothers who have spent their entire retirement funds
constantly bailing out drug-kippered children and their children; it really
takes its toll on the rest of the family dynamic when the 40-year-old
mother of your grandchildren keeps selling the TV for crack.

My advice to sensitive and caring people who are faced with such an arduous
spectre: Get the fallen relative all the help that can be provided, in
someplace other than your own house. Such chaotic elements will
gravitationally suck all your energy and food and cash and good-will
permanently away. Stick them in homes, shelters, hostels; anywhere they
won't drag your life down with them. A black hole out in space is a lot
easier to deal with than one that is always festering on your couch,
sucking all your sanity away from the world of light. Selah. OK, let's talk
about something else. Please illustrate your moral torpor and send it to:
Write to: CINTRA WILSON FEELS YOUR PAIN, San Francisco Examiner, P.O. Box
7260, San Francisco, CA 94120, or e-mail the Psychic Supergenius at
zintra@aol.com

©1998 San Francisco Examiner Page B 17

Checked-by: Mike Gogulski