Hi! My name is Amarah. Kids are important to me, and they’re important to Jesus, too.

In Matthew 18:10 (KJV), Jesus said, “Take heed that ye despise not (hurt or be mean to) one of these little ones; for I say unto you, that in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven.”

“Kids like me” are kids whose parents are drug addicts, and alcoholics; kids who have suffered, or who are suffering, abuse and neglect on multiple levels; and kids who are victims of bullying.

Hey kids like me! Kathy Suazo, Child Protection Supervisor, Alamosa County DHS, is my guest this month.

Thank you Amarah, for inviting me to join you in your column for the month of April. I came across a letter I believe speaks well to addiction and all whose lives it touches. If our children continue to be exposed to the environment of addiction without intervention they will suffer in ways many don’t understand. Credit goes to the anonymous author:

LOVING AN ADDICT

I’m not an addict, but try and love one; see if you can say you didn’t get addicted trying to fix them. If you’re lucky, they recover. If you’re really lucky, you recover.

Loving an addict can/will consume your every thought. Watching their physical deterioration and emotional detachment to everything will make you the most tired insomniac alive. You will stand in the doorway of their bedroom and plead that you “just want them back!”

If you watch your loved one disappear in front of your eyes long enough, you will begin to disappear, too.
Those not directly affected won’t understand your focus since your loved one doesn’t seem to care.
Don’t become angry; they don’t understand. You’ll catch yourself wishing you didn’t understand, too.

“What if you woke-up daily wondering, “Is today the day he/she is gonna die?” It will become a fixed, not-so-rhetorical question.

Addiction has become the largest ripple affect witnessed. It causes parents to outlive their children, arrest, incarceration, homelessness, hopelessness, sisters to mourn siblings, wives to feel/be unloved, nieces to never meet aunts/uncles, and children to be fatherless/motherless.

It causes absence before the exit.

You will see your loved one walking/talking, but you’ll lose them long before they succumb to their demons which, if they don’t find recovery is inevitable.

Addiction causes families to fear a ringing phone, a knock on the door, vague obituaries. “Died suddenly” has become obituary speak for “another person found dead from an overdose.” Drug addiction causes bedrooms and social media sites to become memorials.

It causes yesterdays to outnumber tomorrows. It causes things to break - like the law, trust, marriages, families, homes. Addiction causes statistics to rise, and knees to fall; praying is all one can do.

People pigeon-hole addicts. They call them trash, junkies, gamblers, addicts, criminals, which is hardly ever the truth. Addiction is an illness. Addicts have families and aspirations. Addiction doesn’t discriminate. It doesn’t care if you have a loving family, or broken-home. Addiction doesn’t care if one is religious, an A-student, a drop-out, or ethnicity. Addiction will prove that one decision/lapse in judgment will alter the course of many lives. Addiction doesn’t care.

But you care. You will learn to hate the addiction, but love the addict. You will learn to accept that you need to separate who the person was from who they have become.

It is not who uses, but the addict. It is not the person who steals to support their habit, but the addict. It is not the person who continually lies, but the addict. It is not the person who speaks obscenities at their family, but the addict. And yet, sadly, it is not the addict who dies-but the person.

Thank you, Miss Kathy! And, thank you for reading my column. Please send questions or comments to me in care of the Courier, [email protected] or write to me at Amarah’s Childrens Foundation “Kids Like Me” P.O. Box 354, Alamosa, CO 81101, or call (719) 480-4624, leave a message, and someone will return your call. If you know a kid like me, or parent who is an addict, or alcoholic, please tell him or her about “Amarah’s Corner, Kids Like Me” in the Valley Courier newspaper and tell them to contact me, or you can contact me on their behalf. And, if you know a kid like me, or parent, who does not have a Bible, but would like to have one, please, contact me and I will make sure he or she gets a Bible of their very own, “…and all the earth may know there is a God…” (1 Samuel 17:46, KJV).

My goal is to help kids like me, and I want to help their parents, too. Until next time, remember, Jesus Loves You, and JESUS IS LORD!