Families of addicts

This morning while watching the news there was a story, again, about Amy Winehouse and what her father said at her funeral.  He called her his angel or something like that.  From the couch Jon says, very sarcastically "Yeah, well Amy Winehouse was on crack!".  Jon tends to talk about the goings on of the world and he has very little knowledge of what is really happening.  He listens to me and Grant voice our opinion and will take them on as his own.  The old saying "You know not of what you speak" comes to mind.  Jon is just trying to be part of the conversation and prove that he's paying attention to world events and so on.  This morning though, this comment bothered me.  Jon didn't really know Laura well because by the time he was born she was well in to her addiction and I did what I needed to do to keep him safe and sheltered him from her.  So he didn't/doesn't know what we, as a family, went through with her addiction.  I turned the tv volume off and explained to him that no matter what Amy Winehouse's problems were she was still someone's daughter, sister and friend and all of those people still loved her.  Drugs didn't make her father love her any less.  Jon is just a kid and he doesn't understand.  I will sit down with him and talk some about Laura and what she went through.  I want him to understand that addicts don't just hurt themselves.  They hurt everyone who loves them.  Addiction doesn't just kill the addict, it kills a little of each family member too.  Laura was an addict but first and foremost, she was my sister and I love her.  Even in her deepest, darkest pit, I loved her.