A cautionary tale: One of my neighbors has been having addiction issues

[Fumesucker]

A couple I know down the road are having problems, the wife is addicted to pain meds she started on and still uses for back pain. But that's not the cautionary tale part.

A couple of months ago I was close to getting home and about to pull into "the home stretch" so to speak when my neighbor runs the stop sign coming out of our neighborhood right in front of me, if I had been thirty feet further on her car would have t-boned me and I probably wouldn't be posting this right now. I knew she had been having addiction issues at the time and assumed she was high so after she backed up to the stop sign I drove around her and waved a bit and kept on my way home, I don't think she even recognized me. The next day after reflecting on what to do I told her husband about the incident, not trying to cause problems but because I would want someone to tell me if I were in that situation and I thought the wife needed to not be on the road if she is driving high.

Fast forward to a couple of days ago, I was talking to the husband who told me his wife has been back in the hospital, this time for seizures. What got my attention about his tale is that her family was in the hospital room blaming him for leaving her at home to go to work when she was having a seizure. The doctor was also present for this and told the wife's family very strongly that the husband was not at fault, her seizures and their aftermath even to a trained professional were difficult to distinguish from being spaced out on pain meds and to a casual observer they were basically identical.

With this latest information I have come to wish that when I saw the wife run the stop sign I had stopped next to her and asked her if she was OK, I now think she probably had a seizure or was in the aftermath of one rather than being high.

My cautionary point is this; even people who get high on drugs sometimes have other problems that can easily be confused with the effect of a drug, be careful what you assume about people and the reasons they might be exhibiting unusual behavior.