Ted Cruz's mother and father were at the debate last week. Notice that she has his jacket on.
Posted on 11/06/2015 7:36:00 AM PST by Isara
It’s not often that Ted Cruz struggles with his words. But during an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper, the GOP presidential candidate spoke about his half-sister’s struggle with addiction, and their family’s inability to save her.
Cruz told Tapper that following her parents’ divorce, his sister Miriam became angry and turned to drugs:
“Her whole life she lived basically as an angry teenager. She was sort of frozen emotionally as a rebellious teenager … She struggled her whole life with drug and alcohol addiction.”
In the Texas Senator’s book, A Time for Truth, Cruz recalled his sister’s struggle, writing:
“I sometimes found it hard to reconcile the bright, fun and charismatic sister I adored with the person who would lie to me without hesitation and who stole money from her teenage brother to feed her various addictions[.]”
After detailing his experience of trying to retrieve his sister from a crackhouse, Cruz went on to explain how his sister, Miriam, wouldn’t budge.
“She was just angry. She wouldn’t change, and with an addict you can’t make them change if they’re unwilling to get treatment, if they’re unwilling to walk a different path.”
Cruz’s addiction discussion comes hot on the heels of several other candidates addressing the issue, as well. After Chris Christie’s candid town hall video was viewed over 5 million times, Carly Fiorina and Jeb Bush also shared their personal family connections to addiction.
They can’t because it happens to be true. This is Ted Cruz we are talking about here.
It is true that AA and NA are free and available to anyone who wants it and it works for many, but sometimes alcoholics and addicts need to detox and rehab for a time, especially for those who have dual diagnosis such as severe depression or those who are bi-polar- they may also need medications and therapy for underlying issues – something that AA or NA can’t give them.
But unless you have a really good health insurance plan that covers in patient addition treatment at at least 80%, most are way too expensive for most – a 7 day detox is expensive but a 60-90 day rehab, even if covered by insurance, is way too expensive for most. At best they usually get is 48 hour psych hold but only if they were arrested for a DUI and or are suicidal or a threat to others.
True story. I was good friends with a woman I knew from AA and Al-Anon. She had been sober for over 15 years, had been very active in AA and sponsored many, helped many, but she relapsed after her very painfull divorce. Unknown to me, her family, other friends and her work, she was drinking heavily but was still functioning enough that no one really knew. She had also started to have increasing thoughts of committing suicide.
One day on a weekend, she developed a very severe tooth abscess with a high fever and went to the ER because the pain had become unbearable and her dentist didn’t have emergency or weekend hours.
While there, especially after her blood test came back positive for alcohol and that she also had a very high BP, she told, finally confessed to the ER doc about her relapse, her heavy drinking and her increasing thoughts of committing suicide and asked him if he could help her – and this was difficult for her to do but she was desperate for help and even asked the ER doc if she could get a psyche consult.
And what did he do?
After telling her to “well just don’t drink anymoreâ€, he gave her a prescription for lithium to help with any withdrawal symptoms, and an antibiotic and then also Percocet for the tooth pain, telling her to follow up with a dentist on Monday and then sent her home.
After getting home, she called several rehab centers but none could take her right away as they had no available beds or they were not covered under her insurance plan and some, many wanted thousands of dollars up front. She called her former AA sponsor and she only told her that she should just pray and go to a meeting.
Very despondent, two days later after going to work and then to the dentist who gave her an Rx for Oxycodon, even after she told him that she was an alcoholic and suffered from depression, she downed two bottles of wine, all of the lithium and all of the Percocet, half of Oxycodon along with another Rx for a muscle relaxer she’d been given for lower back pain several months earlier. The only reason she didn’t die was that she emailed a rambling email to a close relative, not exactly a suicide letter but disturbing enough that her relative tried to call her and after she didn’t answer, called 9-11 and drove to her house. She was taken by ambulance to an ER and diagnosed with a drug OD and was then sent to a psyche ward for a 48 hour hold, but with no real treatment or any follow up plan after her release except for and Rx for anti-depression meds.
She was fortunate to recover and get back to AA and also find a good psychiatrist and then a therapist specializing in dual diagnosis to treat her alcoholism and her depression and a new AA sponsor who had been what she’d been through, but a lot, way too many are not so fortunate.
We as a society and sadly a lot of medical professionals do not do a very go job of knowing how to treat alcoholics and drug addicts even when they do ask for help.
I think it helps to humanize them and show that they understand what people go through. And that’s a big part of LIV mental processing - does the candidate understand my life? The Dems are automatically assumed to be human - the R’s have to work at it.
Thank you for the info. I didn’t know any of that. It seems the divorce that damaged the sister occurred when the sister was 7 or younger.
In addition to the info you were given it wasn’t until 2005 that Rafael Bienvenido Cruz
decided to become a US Citizen. He arrived in 1957, college, married with two daughters,
divorced, remarried, moved to Canada where Ted was born, became Canadian citizen,
moved back the states, divorced again and got his US citizenship in 2005.
Interesting life and experiences.
Divorced again? From Ted’s mother? That doesn’t jibe with the solid family man/Christian that he is portrayed as. Not that it affects Ted or my opinion of his values, but I was under the impression that his Dad, who is clearly a great conservative, had changed after going back to the church.
Divorced again? From Ted’s mother?
******************
Cruz’s mother, Rafael chuckles, played more of a good-cop role. Though they are now divorced,
he says his son has a similarly close relationship with her, just without the political
element. “I live outside Dallas, but she lives in the same high-rise condo complex as him in
Houston,†he says. “She loves taking the elevator to see her granddaughters, and he
appreciates that.â€
Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/356934/rise-rafael-cruz-robert-costa
Cleaning up the previous post of the apostrophe/quote errors
****************
Cruz’s mother, Rafael chuckles, played more of a good-cop role. Though they are now divorced,
he says his son has a similarly close relationship with her, just without the political
element. “I live outside Dallas, but she lives in the same high-rise condo complex as him in
Houston,” he says. “She loves taking the elevator to see her granddaughters, and he
appreciates that.”
There are lots of stories like this lady’s but there are a lot more where the addict threatens suicide as an intimidation tactic.
There was one in my family. He threatened suicide with calls in the middle of the night to his mother.This went on for years.
He died of natural causes at 70.
.
.
Ted Cruz's mother and father were at the debate last week. Notice that she has his jacket on.
Thanks. I hope they make it to the White House to visit their son’s home someday.
With all due respect I’ve been around addicts and alcoholics for well over 2 decades and have never once known even one to be turned away from a 30 day dry out/rehab program.
Many if not most of these people have very little money and no insurance.
Or say the story about his sister is fake to get the sympathy vote..
Got a brother hooked on crack and heroin.
Yes, experienced it personally with my brother.
Have another brother who is a alcoholic.
It puts a terrible burden and pain on the rest of the family in which they are oblivious to it.
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