Grief is not a sign of weakness nor a lack of faith. It is the price of love.

It has been almost 11 years now since addiction ended my son Jason's life. I still grieve everyday for my son. I may not look like it when you see me out somewhere. That is because I learned that I have to put on my "normal" face in public not because it is best for me. But because you want to see the old person I use to be.

Well, I am not the old friend or co-worker you use to know. I am a completely different person. My grief makes you uncomfortable so you avoid talking about my son. You won't mention his name anymore or talk about fond memories of the past. Somehow my pain has become all about you.

My son's birthdays come and go, his Heaven date comes and goes and I spend the whole day wondering if anyone will remember only to acknowledge at the end of the day that as I suspected no one remembered his life. No one remembered his handsome face, his cheshire cat grin. Or that he was brilliant, loyal and kind. All you remember is that he died after taking LSD.

If I mention my son to any of you all you remember is he was an addict. Just some young guy who chose to use drugs. So he got what he deserved. Right? Why feel any sympathy for me or empathy for him because he did it to himself.

You couldn't be more wrong. The only bad choice someone makes is to self-medicate their pain a few times not knowing that in their genes lies a deadly disease just waiting for the switch to be flipped on.

It is amazing to me that in this day and age people are still ignorant about the disease of addiction. Most doctors don't understand that addiction is a disease. Thousands of treatment centers realized one thing... that there is a fortune to be made out there and they prey on parents like me who are watching their kids slowly killing themselves and can not stop.

I am the founder of www.angelsofaddiction.com and I began Angels of Addiction because I needed someone to help me with this horrible journey through grief but found that no one cared about my grief because my son was an addict. Not even other bereaved parents had sympathy for me. Their kids were perfect and didn't deserve to die.

Their so called safe "Compassionate" place to come for support was cruel, thoughtless, and just a pity party with a higher archy. Over the years I have heard the same story from countless grieving parents of addicts desparate for someone to reach out to them in their struggle to survive the loss of their child.

Do us a favor, if you can't say anything nice then don't say anything at all. I don't want to hear that he is at peace now or that he is in a better place - he is in a grave. Dead is not better. Save the religious cliches. They are not comforting. My God doesn't kill children for any reason.

I don't want to hear that God needed him because I needed him more. Don't tell me I should be moving on or it has been way too long for me to still be grieving for my only son. I will grieve for Jason until the moment of my own passing.

A piece of my soul is missing and none of your ill advice or useless sayings is going to make my pain go away. All I need from you is for you to listen if I need to talk about him or my grief. Allow me to miss my son and say his name so I know that he hasn't been forgotten. He died but he was not erased from history or my heart.

We have become a society of disposable people. There is no mourning period anymore like in the old days when you wore black for a year. We are expected to "move on" once the funeral is over. We are told we need mental health treatment because we are still grieving the loss of our child.

I had my son for 23 years. For 23 yrs. I worried about him, loved him, protected him and society thinks that in two weeks I should be over the loss of him.

What has happened in our society that life is so disposable? Where did our true compassion for all life disappear?