People telling me I'm judgy as fuck about addiction, and I guess I am.

I've seen too many people in my extended family choose drugs over their own kids, and push away any attempts to help them.

It's hard not to be judgy when you know a five year old who was left to watch over two younger brothers and beg for food because her mom was always on heroin. And then you watch that trauma continue as she grows up and mom doesn't call anymore, even for Christmas or birthdays.

Hard to watch your cousin abandon her kid on birth because it would interfere with her drug using lifestyle. To watch her throw away a job and subsidized apartment to go back to dealing crack. To see my parents enable it by paying for her to have a place to live.

I understand, intellectually, that addiction is terribly hard and a disease. But at some point I feel like you need to make a good faith effort to try and stay clean, or at least functioning. Accept help when it's offered. Don't fuck over your own kids for drugs.

My grandfather was an alcoholic, my brother has been revived at least twice by Narcan. My cousin has arrest warrants in at least two states and my parents want me to take over her trust fund to funnel her money to continue that lifestyle when they die.

I have a really hard time with drugs and addiction, I'll admit it. Mostly because I've seen and been a part of the trauma that results. That shit doesn't stay with the drug user. It has ripple effects of trauma that travel through a family.

I'm a person who has struggled with my mental health. And I have days when it seems like too much. But in the end I keep going and keep trying to get better because I owe that to my kids and the people who love me.

If you're addicted to drugs and people repeatedly reach out and try to help you only to have you refuse, even as you're hurting those around you? Yeah, hard to not be somewhat judgy, at least for me.

And, for the record, I wasn't dissing Joe Biden or Donald Trump for not drinking alcohol. I was making a joke about the "who would you rather have a beer with" political test being stupid. Anyone who chooses to become sober for any reason is A-okay in my books.

I do Dry January every year mostly as a check on myself. Am I getting too reliant on alcohol? It helps me cut back and reassess. I haven't chosen to continue on to the rest of the year, but maybe I will one day.

Anyway, sorry for the rant. It's been a week.