Hope – Opiate Nation

Anne’s Story: Cultural Influences

(Thirty-fourth in a series of topical blogs based on chapter by chapter excerpts from Opiate Nation. Translation into most languages is available to the right.)

This week’s Story of Hope is from a young friend of ours, Anne (not her real name). Here are some excerpts from her story in Opiate Nation (5 min read):

I was eleven years old when I first experienced shooting heroin. Looking back, I can hardly believe it and I am so thankful to be alive, and to be sharing my story.

My boyfriend and I watched the movies Trainspotting and Requiem for a Dream and they really piqued our interest in drugs. The way it was portrayed in those movies made me think using heroin would be an amazing dream sequence, when in actuality, it made me violently ill. My boyfriend insisted we keep trying. He became obsessed with all drugs: ecstasy, LSD, cocaine, and various pills and so I tried them all.

Hank’s Story: Drinking Loneliness

(Thirty-third in a series of topical blogs based on chapter by chapter excerpts from Opiate Nation. Translation into most languages is available to the right.)

This week’s Story of Hope is from our son’s friend, Hank (not his real name). Here are some excerpts from his story in Opiate Nation (5 min read):

I grew up in a loving home – the youngest of seven kids in a Catholic family. Although there are no alcoholics in my immediate family, my mother’s side of the family consists of proud Irish New Yorkers where alcoholism runs rampant. I experienced my first drunk at the age of 13.

The Vortex of Shame

(Twenty-third in a series of topical blogs based on chapter by chapter excerpts from Opiate Nation. Translation into most languages is available to the right.)

For generations, the combination of personal shame and public stigma has produced tremendous obstacles to addressing the problem of alcoholism and drug addiction in America. Addiction stigma prevents too many people from getting the help they need. –Hazelden-Betty Ford Institute for Recovery

Historically, the word shame was used interchangeably with guilt – the appropriate pang of conscience that followed doing something wrong. In reality, there is an important distinction between shame and guilt. Shame is about who you think you are; guilt is about what you have done.

Stigmas are linked to shame. In the Greek and Latin worlds, a stigma was a mark or brand, especially for a slave, identifying them as “inferior.” Later, it became known as a mark or stain we can’t see with our eyes: social stigmas that are based on perceivable characteristics, associated with certain behaviors that distinguish a person from other members of society. They convey disapproval and disgrace.

Hopes & Dreams

(Twenty-first in a series of topical blogs based on chapter by chapter excerpts from Opiate Nation. Translation into most languages is available to the right.)

I know how men in exile feed on dreams of hope.

–Aeschylus, Agamemnon

After our son’s death from overdose, John and I truly felt like “men in exile,” forced into separation from our son, banished from each other’s’ lives. We are not just on different continents, but in different worlds, different dimensions. And hope? Any hope would have been just that—a dream, a mirage.

His untimely death took all hope of a sober and content son in this life away. Lost hope is what crushes parents when their child dies a needless death, an ignoble death to many. Had he fought in a war and been killed in action, to society it would have been a noble death. Most people who are separated from the life-and-death battle with addiction can’t see the struggle that this generation of young people are fighting on a moment-by-moment basis against an enemy that is in their brain, in their body—not outside it—one they can’t shoot and kill or put in prison. But we, as parents and friends, see it and wonder how much longer can they fight before they lose?

Darkness & Light

Last week, our son would have turned 31. My husband and I still wonder what that would have been like? Would we have enjoyed celebrating as he got married like most of his friends have? Would he be living nearby or in a distant state for a new job? Would he and his wife be planning to start a family and give us grandchildren? These are questions we can only visit in our imaginations, and yes, they bring pain.

On our son’s FB memorial page and our Instagram this week, I posted a photo of the desert after a storm when a rainbow appeared, with this quote: “As in nature, so in life: it takes both clouds and sunshine to make a rainbow.” I have been pondering these apparent paradoxes in nature and in life, especially the concept of darkness & light. While reading A Grace Disguised by Jerry Sittser, I was reminded again of how we felt from the moment we heard the words from the sheriff’s mouth: “I’m sorry to have to tell you, but your son is dead.” Sittser lost his mother, his wife, and his daughter together in a head-on collision by a drunk driver and says, “Sudden and tragic loss leads to terrible darkness.” Yes. Existential darkness.

He describes a dream of seeing the sun setting and running frantically west toward it in order to remain in some vestige of light – but the sun was outpacing him to sink below the horizon. As he looked back over his shoulder, utter darkness and despair was closing in behind him. He later realized that “the quickest way to reach the light of day is to head east, plunging into the darkness, until one comes to the sunrise.”

Celebrating our Dead & Death to Stigma

2019 11 All Souls Procession 5 Last weekend, my husband and I were part of the 30^th annual All Souls Procession here in Tucson. It is part of the Mexican & Latin American celebration of El Diá de los Muertos (The Day of the Dead – see link below for an article about it). November 1^st & 2^nd are set aside to gather as a community to show our love and respect for our loved ones who have died. I have heard that Tucson’s celebration is one of the largest in America with about 100,000 people.

While John and & were walking, carrying a large photo poster of our son decorated with marigold-colored trim & lights, a woman in the procession came up to us and asked John, “Who is that?” John responded, “This is our son who died of a heroin overdose at 25.” The woman’s face froze for a few moments as we continued walking, then she looked down and turned to walk away as she said in a low voice with a pained look on her face, “My daughter is an addict.”

We don’t know why this woman was drawn to come up to us and ask that question, Continue reading “Celebrating our Dead & Death to Stigma”

Poetry – for all our needs

In March, I wrote a blog about fentanyl that featured a poem by Carol Bialock: Breathing Under Water. I knew almost nothing about the author other than that she was clearly a deep thinker and an excellent poet. After that post, I was contacted by Fernwood Press, to let me know that for Carol’s upcoming 90th birthday, they were publishing a collection of her poems.

I have since learned more about this remarkable woman who was a sister of the Society of the Sacred Heart in Chile and a lifelong activist for human rights. (To learn more about her, please go to www.CarolBialock.com.) I want to share some highlights from Coral Castles, her newly published book.

I am no poet and I confess, I struggle when reading most poetry – I do better hearing a Continue reading “Poetry – for all our needs”

MYSTERIOUS WAYS

I love mysteries. From the time I began reading on my own, I gravitated toward mysteries: first Nancy Drew, then Agatha Christie, Edgar Allan Poe, Arthur Conan Doyle. My husband and I continue to read and watch mysteries covering topics from historical to crime to espionage. Maybe my penchant for asking “Why?” is at the root of this affinity. The challenge of figuring out a conundrum and the satisfaction when the mystery is finally solved. Continue reading “MYSTERIOUS WAYS”

Coming Out of the Black Hole

In doing further research in support of the upcoming publication of our memoir, I have found many new groups, websites, and blogs about the opioid epidemic. It is very encouraging. And I was thinking back to 2005 when we first discovered that our son was using Black Tar Heroin. We were in an absolute black hole of information––there was nothing to be found on the internet or in our community, even though it had been a decade since this new way of producing and marketing heroin had hit the streets of the west coast. Eventually we discovered Black Tar Heroin: The Dark End of the Street, a1999 documentary directed by Steven Okazaki. Filmed from 1995-98 in San Francisco. Continue reading “Coming Out of the Black Hole”

WITH or WITHOUT HOPE?

There is something unique about the Christmas season, even if you do not buy into the Biblical story that lies at its core, even if you hold some other faith, even with no faith at all. For some reason, and not coincidentally, this time of year usually brings a sense of hope to most of us: hope in a better future for us and our loved ones, for society, for the world.

I think it is also tied in with the advent of a New Year, a new beginning, a chance to make changes that need a special impetus. “Hope smiles from the threshold of the year to come, whispering, ‘It will be happier’.” (Tennyson). It seems “Hope springs eternal in the human breast” (Pope) and as we stand at the starting line on the path of a new year, we are forward-focused with possibilities, even unlikely ones.

Hope is optimistic. Hope creates courage. Hope fosters healing. Hope dispels fear. Hope supplies fortitude and persistence. Blind Helen Keller said, “Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence.”

But what about those among us – our family, our friends, even our selves – who see no hope for the future, feel no sense of expectation but instead see only more of the drudgery they have lived with in life, the continual uphill climb with no rest along the way, no way out of an unbearable situation? A relationship, prison, an addiction, an illness, poverty, a loss. I think we all know that for these discouraged and depressed ones this week, among all weeks of the year, is the final straw. Everyone seems happy and contented, planning new goals, possible changes, new adventures – everyone except them, except “me”.

Eight months before our son’s death, he saw a friend overdose and die during the holidays. It was the impetus for him to seek help and go through withdrawals from heroin one more time with the hope that he would be free forever from his addiction. It was a realistic hope – if we had understood what he knew: he needed medication to help him achieve that long-term goal. We had hopes but they were based on mis-information and faulty assumptions. Eight months later we realized our mistake.

If you are among those who feel no hope, who are facing unbearable situations, seemingly unbeatable odds, please remember that we all – ALL – need help at times with feeling hope-full. Take the one step that can help you find the hope you need to envision a different, better future for yourself: call someone or go somewhere. A friend, a help-line, a hospital, a 12-Step meeting, a church service. Reject feelings of shame at admitting you need help by remember that we ALL need help to make it through this life. We were never meant to live life alone. We ALL need the support of a community of some sort. Advocate for yourself – you are worth it – until you find someone who will help. And don’t forget God. His children throughout the millennia have felt despair and depression. But we can remind ourselves of what King David said: “Why are you in despair, my soul? Hope in God, my help, my God.” (Psalm 43:5)

And for those of us who are feeling the anticipation of a new year with new hopes and realistic expectations, let’s be intentionally on the look out for those whose hope is lost and who need a listening ear and a helping hand. Let’s use our blessed life to help someone else.