”Everybody can see it.Every body knows, and I think talked about it. Like you can see the way he acts and he as gone to a very unhealthy .."

Description

Audio 6min 28 seconds
Interviewer: Edin
Interviewed: Chris
Edin “Is their a person misusing drugs in your family?”
Chris ”A person misusing drugs in my family right now is my cousin Jason”
Edin ”For how long have you known that he has misused drugs?”
Chris ”I mean I have been aware of him smoking weed since he was like 11 0r 12, but hard drugs started coming when he was about 17 to 18 years old when reality started to hit.”
Edin ”did they ever lie about their addiction to any of their family members?”
Chris ”yeah and he still do”
Edin ”Did you or anyone else in your family ever see him misuse drugs or in action of it?
Chris-“In action yeah, I saw him misuse it and he wanted make sure nobody else was coming so he can misuse it, I was kinda of his lookout sometimes.”
Edin-“So you was his lil lookout?”
Chris-“yes because He did not want the family to see what he was doing”
Edin-“What were your thoughts when you first found out?”
Chris-“ I was hella surprised because we always said, as they always smoked weed,(talking about his cousin and older siblings) so they were all like we not gonna touch hard drugs because its gonna fuck us up and get addicted then he was in it he started taking hard drugs so I was so I was surprised as fuck. ”
Edin ”Have any other family members found out about it uo to this day?”
Chris ”Everybody can see it.Every body knows, and I think talked about it. Like you can see the way he acts and he as gone to a very unhealthy skinny”
Edin ”What were their first thought when they started to see these changes within him.”
Chris ”uhm a lot of people started to distinct themselves, I noticed that a lot. Some like me and my brother a lot of the younger people wanted to help and gave him alternative like have him move in and help him go back to school.”
Edin ”Did they ever still from the family for his addiction?”
Chris ”No he never stole from anyone but he did ask for money a lot.’
Edin” because of the overall drug use or for how often he asked money did that changed the family views on him?
Chris ”Yeah because he does not only use drugs but he always be on the street doing dumb things, and at the same time whenever there is money missing they assume it is him or someone else in the family who uses drugs they always assume he did it”
Edin ”What would you say that was the biggest affected that his addiction had on your family”
Chris ”Uhmm ill say… How close we were. He was always around before he would just pop out help clean and just hang out, but now its just like him drifting away that distancing thing”
Edin ”So it affect you relationship with him”
Chris ”well yeah because he was kinda like.. doing his own thing, you know how you are more around people who do the same things as you do?”
Edin ”yeah, how did you deal with tis situation of seeing your cousin going through addiction or actually seeing this problem evolve within him?”
Chris”uhm.. I always tried to talk to him give him alternative give him words of inspiration, you know just to get him in the right track and kinda show him that there is another way, and there only so much words can do. Plus I now he was using drugs because he felt very alone I did try to hangout with him as much as possible, but at the same time that was hard because I had my own things to do l like school”
Edin”was there ever any conflicts, arguments, fights that happened because of the addiction or ever bring up the topic of what he was going through”
Chris”Uhm you see the thing with my family we really don’t bring uo stuff like that. We just .. well we just act instead of talking about it, so if they feel as someone is misusing drugs and they don’t like it they just like I said earlier just distance themselves and just wont hang out with the person has much which kinda adds to the loneliness that he felt.
Edin “if they were to keep going through this route or go through the addiction again would you help him again or would you do something different to help him out?”
Chris ”right now it is very hard to help him as I am in college knows and I am even further than him. If he were going through that again I don’t know but My point is I know the route of why he misused drugs its because he was so lonely so I want to hangout with him as much as possible”

Participants

• inestroe
  

Interview By

• inestroe