They were so patient, warm and loving towards her. I was outwardly emotional but inside I wanted to take her by the arm, shake her out of the state she was in. I wanted to yell at her," What do you think you are doing!! Don't you know you are better than this, you are more than this drug is letting you be, you don't need this shit!"
I knew though that she needed to be free from this hell before I could tell her those things. I took her to my house for a few hours just to be with her. I was torn about going against her wishes and telling her father (my brother)that she was going to detox.
I was thankful that she trusted me enough to ask her teachers to call me but her parents needed to know. After, a few hours I sat her down and told her that we couldn't do it alone and that we had to tell her parents. She had two choices. I would either sit with her while she talked to her dad or she could listen in to my conversation with him, while I tried to explain what was happening.
She didn't want to talk to bim. I spoke with him and she listened to her daddy tell her, his only child, that he loved her and that whenever she wanted to talk he would be there. He would be at Detox every day supporting her through it. It broke my heart.
Before I took her to the ADULT detox in Burnaby, I started to recognized traces of my eldest neice in her joke telling and funny accents. She still had a sadness behind her hollow eyes and her now 90lb frame walked with an addicts shuffle.
The detox center took her as an emergency case, thankfully, but how could I leave a 16 year old with all these grown men and women? I hugged her so hard after checking in with her and told her that I would be back the next day. It was then that I felt I was able to break down in front of her and tell her how much I loved her and the rest of her family loves her. I told her that I was proud of her for talking about it, something she doesn't do, ever is talk about issues.
I left and cried for 3 hours straight. Her time in detox ended after 8 days, she joined AA and NA, she relapsed and the last thing I heard was that she is currently clean. Unfortunatly, a few weeks after she went to detox I moved to the Island.
She was crushed, as I was, that I couldn't physically be there for her like I had been, thankfully, on that dreadful day I got her call. It's a new school year and I hope to God it is a more successful one for her and for the other youth that struggle with this terrible addiction.
There needs to be more education in schools, more information for parents and teachers and additional treatment centers for youth. We need to work together as human beings, to abolish this epidemic.
