Harm Reduction – Opiate Nation

Recovery Communities

(Translation into most languages at tab to the right)

What is a recovery community and what should it look like?

The answer to these questions is not simple – real solutions to real problems rarely are.

To recover means to return to a normal state of health or strength. When someone is injured in an accident or undergone surgery, they usually recover in hospital for a period of time where they can receive the special medical care that is required to keep them alive. If the injury or illness was severe or life-threatening, after hospitalization they would be moved to a rehabilitation facility where they receive appropriate and specialized care and therapy as they convalesce – they wouldn’t just go home. Convalescing is the recovery process of returning to health.

Recovery can also refer to the process of regaining possession or control of something lost or stolen. In a real sense, those who have become addicted to a substance or damaging behavior have had something stolen. That’s not a cop-out if we consider what happens to a person’s brain when addiction takes over. The chemical changes that take place in the brain steadily decrease the individual’s original ability to think clearly and make logical choices. Especially with substances, I consider that capacity to have been stolen.

What Would They Say?

(Short topical blog based on Opiate Nation – translation into most languages in tab on right.)

August 2^nd is the seventh anniversary of our son’s death. JL died of a heroin overdose in the early morning hours of that Saturday in 2014. He was 25 years old.

In 2020 alone, 93,000 people died of drug overdoses in the USA – hundreds of thousands more worldwide. Millions in the past few decades. These were beloved daughters, sons, partners, parents, friends, relatives. I think I can confidently say they did not want to be addicted and if they could have turned back the clock to the time before they began using drugs, they would have.

OPIATE NATION WINS NATIONAL INDIE EXCELLENCE® AWARD

With so much distress in the world with the Covid-19 Pandemic, especially the effects it is having on the weakest and vulnerable members of our societies, I have hesitated to announce a personal accomplishment. Yet, my hope is that as Opiate Nation gains more visibility, it will get into the hands of people who could be most encouraged and benefit from our story.

I am a member of a group of 35,000 women called “The Addict’s Mom” on Facebook. I confess, I rarely read the posts because it is so depressing: Story after story of mom’s who have been holding out for years to see their daughter or son released from the hell-hold of addiction to drugs, only to then post that “…today I lost my daughter/son…can someone tell me how I will survive this?” It is for these mom’s and dad’s and siblings and friends that we wrote Opiate Nation, but one of the stipulations of being a member of the group is no self-promotion. So I hope that, with more visibility and more reviews and re-posts on social media, our book will get to these most desperate of people.

Choosing to Look Away: Pain avoidance

In these weeks of living life in a new way with the Coronavirus pandemic, I have found myself doing something I am not normally inclined to do: choosing to look away from the ongoing Opioid Epidemic. Sadly, it has been easy to do. John and I arrived in Melbourne in March on the last flight from LAX allowing non-residents into Australia. When we planned our trip in January to be here for the completion and delivery of our new Tiny Home, Covid-19 was barely in the news.

After our 14-day quarantine, and during our first few weeks here, we were supposed to speak at two events which were cancelled. When the meetings switched over to Zoom, we were then able to share the story of Opiate Nation. It was well received and appreciated, as it brought to light pitfalls and vulnerabilities that parents and their children face in the 21st century. Since then, we have been busy setting up our new home, arranging installations, and finding furniture and appliances. We are thankful and feel blessed to be able to be here with our daughter and family – and to be in a country where the leaders have been honest and proactive, where the government has a wide social safety net and comprehensive health care for everyone, and where the public is almost uniformly willing to trust and follow their stipulations.

Meanwhile, in the back of my mind, I have continued to think about people struggling with addiction and wondering what their lives are like during these times that are challenging – even for the rest of us. With the restrictions to help slow the spread of the virus, many rehab and recovery programs are now not an option. For those who have had jobs, many of which are hourly-wage or temporary positions, they may now be unemployed. If they are taking medication as part of their harm reduction/medication assisted treatment, how will they pay for it?

JUST SAY “NO” TO FAILED DRUG POLICIES

I recently returned from Australia and began to connect with the addiction community there via several agencies and their newsletters and articles. One very thoughtful article published by Family Drug Support Australia (FDS) is excerpted here. Written by an emergency room physician who is on the front line with overdose victims, he is also a parent who is concerned for his children’s future unless drug policies in Australia change sooner rather than later. There, as in the US, bureaucrats spend years discussing options for change while people die in the tens of thousands. However, from people I’ve spoken with there and from all I’ve read, they are ahead of us in some significant areas. May we all learn from each other. Continue reading “JUST SAY “NO” TO FAILED DRUG POLICIES”

Spring: New Life?

Spring is the season of regeneration, new life, hope. The time of year when the whole earth seems excited to be alive after being dormant all winter. For those who celebrate Easter, the season begins with introspection through prayer and repentance. As we reflect on our life and behaviors that are destructive to ourselves and our relationships, we hope to shed them like the husk of a seed when it is buried in the ground. We expectantly wait for the transformation that happens deep inside that will spring up as new life, like the sprout from a seed. Yet, as it pushes up through the crusty ground, the process of transformation is not without struggle.
This is what those who are living with addiction hope for when they go to AA meetings and enter recovery programs: as they surrender control, they’re hoping for a total change from agony and depression into a new life.

People, Places, Things is a play about addiction and wearing masks by British playwright Duncan MacMillan and director Jeremy Harren. It opened to rave reviews. In an interview with NPR the creators share that at the center of the play is the 12-step process. It shows that for those who have trouble with AA and surrendering to God perhaps it is easier to understand it as acknowledging that you can’t have control over life. We are all powerless over People, Places, Things. It is literally one day at a time. They visited a recovery center in London to get insights for the play. And as one of the actors said after witnessing the daily life-and-death struggle that addicts fight:

“One day at a time. And Life has to win every single day.
Death has to only win once.”

In Tracey Mitchell’s blog (http://traceyh415.blogspot.com/2018/03/) she shares about a young person she has been corresponding with since 2013 and the cycles of opioid addiction and attempted recovery he went through repeatedly. He voiced his utter frustration: “It’s so insane how this drug has taken hold over me.” Tracey heard from him a few more times and then nothing: “I don’t know all the details. I just know I could have written this story. This was my story. Except I did not die at 25. I didn’t need to worry about fentanyl (in the late 1990’s). I got off everything at 27. I consider myself lucky…No one should ever have to die alone like this.”

Yes, no one, especially a young person, should have to die having failed to experience a new beginning – after so much effort at turning over control and hoping for a normal life. But, with the purity of heroin in America having risen sharply in the last 15 years, and fentanyl now mixed in unbeknownst to users, the physical addiction is beyond comprehension. For those who are overdosing and dying in record numbers, they had no intention that their next use would be their last. This was what happened to our 25-yr-old son. Whatever he bought and used was more potent than what he was expecting and accustomed to. He died alone, with the needle still in his vein. Death only had to win once.

Prevention is the best way to stop these needless deaths. But once addiction to opioids has taken control, harm reduction with a solid 12-Step program is the best way to help addicts emerge from the darkness and be able to have a truly new life.