Back when I was lost, I started to date a guy that a friend knew. My friend said he was a hard worker, he worked in the coal mine as a contractor with him and in his opinion, he was really nice. He showed up at my parents bar while I was working and we did hit it off. He was really nice! It started out pretty good but something was telling me there was something off. The phone conversations weren't very long and he didn't seem very interested, but the in person experiences we had out weighed those conversations. I met his family and friends and I fell in love with them. I already had plans to go to Mexico on a trip with my girl friends so when I was shipping out, my mom invited him to stay at my place until I returned home. This is where things started to get a little crazy. While I was gone, he won my mom over by painting my whole apartment. Which was kinda weird to me since we had only been dating a short while. I was also wondering why he didn't go to work that week. When I returned, the red flags continued. Once he took off in my car for about four hours leaving me at his parents house. When he finally returned, he had a crazy "story" that made me question him. I first thought it was another woman because he wasn't really affectionate. He showered me with words and did things for me but that was it. He won everyone over by doing chores or odd jobs for them. He was always there to help me stock coolers at the bar when I worked. That is why my parents liked him, he was always around to help. The leaving with my car started to become a thing everytime I was at his parents place and usually he'd borrow it while I was sleeping and was back before I woke up. I started to notice cash was missing from my wallet and the bank had called because checks were written out to cash quite often. Checks that I hadn't written. Two months in and I was questioning everything. When I would ask around, anyone that I spoke to said he was very nice but would steal from you. I finally got up the nerve to confront him, only to find out he had a problem with pills. I guess this was an on going thing for years. My inner detective was watching everything he did and things were starting to add up. After speaking to a girlfriend of mine who understood addiction, I was pretty certain he wasn't on pills but heroin. I had experienced the highs, lows and even a withdraw episode. That was very scary! I decided to go to his parents for help. I loved both of them but they kinda closed their eyes when it came to him and his addiction. I found out that he had stolen and sold so many of their personal items that they had just given up on things changing. I wasn't going to sit around and let this continue. I found a doctor who would help get him on meds to help get him off the hard stuff. I went to his parents to help pay for it because I couldn't afford it. Probably because he had stolen my money. The only condition they had was that I was to hold on to the cash until we got there. We went to the appointment and I was told by him that I couldn't go in. I was dumb and handed him the cash to pay. Why not, he seemed like he wanted the help and where could he go but into see the doctor. I was wrong, somehow he ended up with the cash to buy more drugs. After this episode and after six months of trying to help him, he pushed me away. I was devistated! Even though I knew it was the best thing that could happen, I was hurt that he chose the drugs. I did continue to try and reach out to him, but he always avoided me. After all this, I learned that he had stolen hundreds of dollars from my parents register, he had stolen guns and tools and many cases of beer from them. He had stolen many valuables I had. I had old coins, $1, $2 and $5 bills that were worth more because they were silver certificates. I also had a game my grandma had given me with a $20 bill in it, I saved that for emergency cash but it was gone. There could have been so much more stolen, but none of us kept a list. I know it doesn't sound like much, but it wasn't his to take. It was more about the trust being broken. We all trusted him and he had taken advantage of all of us. I could care less that he hurt me but he stole from my parents. I had to tell my self that I tried my best to help him and he had to be ready to make that change for himself. I did struggle for awhile and it probably still sticks with me that he didn't choose me. I pray that he has chose himself and that he found God to help him.

Just another daily dose of T.