I never knew a person you loved could have such a negative impact on your life. We grew up together, played together, had sleepovers together, did everything together. Little did I know that in just a few short years she would destroy our lives. My family took in my cousin when things got bad. We thought that maybe she just needed a stable household, a break from her mother. They never seemed to get along. She had been struggling with bi-personality disorder afterall. However, when she moved in things just got worse. The lies were endless. It became obvious that my cousin was shooting up. We took to her to rehab after rehab, but she just would play the system to get out and get back on drugs. For awhile she had us fooled, but we learned that taking her to rehab was just wasting our money. After four years of struggling with the addiction in the family, we had to let go. This was one of the hardest things I had ever done. I remember crying about it a lot on my bedroom floor, feeling so helpless. I know the addiction took a hard toll on her mother, my aunt, and my grandma too. It reached a point where it was just a matter of time before the drugs would take her life. The person we knew was gone, but her body was still here.

One dark night at around three thirty in the morning, we got a call from a paramedic. My cousin was on her last breath. They had found her passed out near the water under the St. Charles bridge, obviously high. The paramedics who arrived on scene had already given her two narcan shots and she still wasn’t back. Her body temperature was too low and they didn’t think she would make it through the night. We went to the hospital to get the chance to say goodbye.

As much as we thought we were saying goodbye, we weren’t. The next morning, her body temperature was up, she was breathing, and had miraculously made a full recovery. I remember when she opened her eyes for the first time. It was like I could breathe again. From the moment my family and I walked into the hospital, I had been playing an act, pretending things were fine. When the truth was, I don’t know what I would do without my cousin. As much as I wanted to hate her for all the things she had put my family through, I couldn’t. Things were different when she woke up this time, she actually wanted to help herself. After a few days stay in the hospital, she had done her own research, and checked herself into a christian rehab facility. Usually she would stay in a facility for two months and then be back on drugs after a week of being out. However, this time she stayed in a newfound Teen Challenge facility for over a year.

I never understood why she was so lucky. So many addicts die of overdose everyday, but no matter how many times my cousin tried, she never did. I didn’t know why that was for so long, but now I do. After three years of sobriety, she is studying to become a behavioral therapist for those who struggled with mental health and addiction, just like she did. She has also brought multiple individuals to christ, including her mother/my aunt. God worked wonders in her life, and now she is taking something negative and turning it into a positive.