Feel To Blame For My Friends Problems

yesterday i found out that one of my friends was just admitted to rehab for heroin. and today i found out that another of my friends tried to commit suicide last night. another friend is in rehab for sleeping pills, 2 more had to drop out of school and go home to get help for oxy problems, and another 2 just got kicked out of school for poor grades related to oxy usage. i sold to my friends for 5 years and none of them touched anything harder than weed until i started to and convinced them how great they were. the friend in rehab for heroin even told me 3 weeks ago that he had injected heroin but said that it didnt feel that great. he had been with me every step of the way with my drug usage, and because i felt that i always knew what i was doing and that he said he didnt love the heroin, i didn't think there way anything to worry about. now he overdosed, lived, but is in rehab and i will never see him again. i am left with 2 good friends at school, and they never touch opiates. but i feel responsible for the problems of my other friends. i got them started, showed them how to abuse them, supplied their habits, profited off their habits, and now they are barely alive. my therapist says i cant feel responsible and that everyone made their own decisions, that if it wasn't me with oxy it would have been someone else with something else. but how can i not feel responsible?
How many times have you said to yourself and to others that it wasn't that bad, you could take it or leave it ...

There is a huge difference between the blame game and owning up to the depths ones addiction took them....You will not be able to change the past, and for a chance at the future you will have have to find a way to forgive yourself and to look at your part and make amends. Those around you will have to do the same make peace with the choices they made.

Surely you didn't go into this thinking hey I want to be an addict...
And surely you didn't maliciously force anyone to use...

I agree with your therapist, if someone wants to get high they will, for as much as you can't stop one, you can't make them either...

And on a personal note, I blame no one for my son's addiction...No one forced him to smoke pot, no one forced him to smoke crack, no one forced him to use oxy...he did this all one his own and for his reasons...whether they were justified or not in his own head. And he walked into each situation knowing full well what others around him were doing....Hmmm wonder what it was in him that didn't tell him to run to being with...

Focus on you now for your best chance...
How sad it is but then this is addiction, there will be no way to make it pretty.

And there is a bright side to all the insanity you are watching around....they all seem to be in places now with the truth out that will afford them some huge chances of their own to make it.

Take good care of you!












Zaki, sometimes it is tough to know where ur responsibility ends and someone elses begins. But in all my years and years of use - I have never, ever even considered the idea that it was someone elses fault I started using. No one ever put a gun to my head or hung around the playgtound when I was a kid trying to trick me. I tried what I tried and did what I did because I chose to. When I was a kid and got high on OTC cough meds then someone told me about - it was because I wanted to. When I boutht my first bag of H, it was not the sellers fault and it was not him who got me started it. Who I got it from was irrelevant - I wanted to try it or I wouldn't have.

At the same time it is good for u too accept legitimate responsibility, be sorry, ask God's forgiveness and learn to be a good person.
thank you. i ask God for forgiveness every day for my prior sins and particularly the ones that have aided the demise as others rather than just myself. i just hope i can help them somehow.
I just wanted to say that nobody ever force feed me pills. I took them knowing full well what could happen as I had family members that battled addiction for years. That is actually how I got into the drug game.
My mom and sister were addicted to pain pills . There was an ample supply of pills around me, so I had access without having to pill chase (atleast in the beginning...until there wasn't enough to supply all three of our habits.) I could so easily blame them for my addiction. Would I have started taking them if they didn't have them? I don't know, but odds are I would have. In any case, neither one of them made me take pills. I made the choice of my own accord. I definately do not blame them. I blame myself.

Make amends for what you feel responsible for and move past this. Concentrate on your own recovery. The past is in the past...can't change it, but you can take control of your present and future!
I dont believe it is your fault. We all make our own choices and we cant blame others for our choices.

God Bless....
Try to forgive yourself & LEARN from the past....Dont let the past own who you are today
mj
Hey Zaki,

Try looking at it this way:

If you had that much power to cause their problems then you should have the same amount of power to solve their problems. And if you have that much power, then you will be able to move mountains.

------> i ask God for forgiveness every day for my prior sins and particularly the ones that have aided the demise as others

just curious here brother, why do you ask God for forgiveness of the same thing everyday, don't you think he heard you the first time. Or don't you think that forgiveness has been granted yet.

or an even better one do you believe you were acting under free will, or where you addicted.

i have found that forgiveness is a process in where I relieve myself of the guilt...associted with and action I comitted while using my free will. I do this through the action of ammending. 1. I repent or turn away from the action, 2,I discover why in myself I would act this way, and 3,I repay for all demages. Somewhere during that process the guilt goes away. I have not found any other way to remove guilt.

And has it has been so brillantly pointed out over the years, you can not forgive shame. Now for me shame are all these negative feelings I feel about myself, for which I am not responsible..My dad's drinking,depression being poured out on me, my physical appearance, my insane actions under the obession to use. How horrible a person I am, How f***ed up my life is, How useless shot seems. These are thoughts called shame, some is very toxic and some is motivational, if you are plauged with toxic shame and you are not enjoying life..get help.

if you forgiveness than put in the work.

Love

QUOTE
just curious here brother, why do you ask God for forgiveness of the same thing everyday, don't you think he heard you the first time. Or don't you think that forgiveness has been granted yet.

Very interesting observation Deadhead. If indeed your HP is God (I'm assuming it is since you said you ask him for forgiveness) then you must believe that when you have asked him for forgiveness and are truly repenting then that's it. He forgave you then.

I do the same thing though...ask for forgiveness over and over for the same thing until I feel I've "proven" I am truly sorry. I think we do that more for ourselves because we do not feel worthy of forgiveness.