That they never intended for this to happen to them. That they wish they never would have started. They feel pretty bad about themselves already without judgment from everyone else. They were still good, caring people. Addiction just completely overtook them. Their families are devastated. Their siblings and parents left behind are forever affected, forever touched by this disease. This becomes a family disease once it touches even one person in the family. We are not ashamed of them. Through their addiction we continued to love them and forever will.
We are survivors of one the worst wars in America. We cry everyday. We cry for those that will die today, tomorrow, next week, next month and on and on. We cry for their families, and with their families. We are losing beautiful, creative, and loving people, every 19 minutes, and over 120 people a day. It seems like no one cares, that there is no outrage. This is a silent killer, and not enough noise is being made about this modern-day scourge in America.
While I am a mother who lost her son to an opioid overdose, it does not define me, or my family. My son still matters, even though most people cannot bring themselves to even say his name, or recall his memory. I am forever missing my son, Mitchell, and he is my inspiration to wake up and live, every single day.
It hijacks the brain and we need to arrest the addiction, not the person…to help stop the progression of the disease without stigmatizing the person as bad, but suffering from mental illness that addiction brings, by chemically altering the brains structure. The brain gets hijacked and wired only to seek what it now believes it lacks to be normal. The brain stops making serotonin and dopamine on its own and craves the opiates to feel well and not get sick. An addictive brain is a diseased brain and not a moral failure on the one suffering from addiction, but by a society/government that has failed morally to protect our citizens and loved ones from the profiteers of prescription drugs who have dirty hands in this epidemic.
We lost our morality and compass when we allowed profit over human lives. Stop the prescribing of these opiates to children/adults that are not in chronic pain. The FDA needs to be held accountable for their poor judgment of allowing these powerful opiates to be prescribed and for not stopping the many deaths this epidemic has caused by heroin addiction due to big pharma.
…My son died -- the unidentified young face of addiction that stopped Times Square the morning of April 12, 2013. He relapsed and fell into the subway and was electrocuted by the third rail. It was not suicide or anything other than another beautiful son/daughter losing their battle with addiction and the heartless society that shames them.
The stigma needs to be removed. It can happen to any family, regardless of social status. These aren't junkies in the street... these are your neighbors, the quarterback, our own children. Opioid addiction has been classified as a brain disease and the rate of relapse is extremely high.
That initially you made a choice to try it, but after that it becomes a disease. So many people need to really educate themselves on addiction. As a family member I have seen close family members and friends try it once and go down that dark path after. Once you're addicted you're hooked. Do you think addicts want to live on the street? Panhandle? Shoplift? Not have their family and friends' support? Feel less than? Not be able to get help through funding, etc.? I don't think so. I myself have never used drugs, however, I know it's a disease. I've lived through it with my family/friends, once we stop the stigma and really try and understand and educate ourselves then we can help the matter and not cause more harm. Why not be apart of the solution and not the problem?
I wish people understood how much I wanted to stop, how much I hated what my life had become. I think people assume that there is a lot more choice involved than there is. But I don't think anyone really chooses to become a heroin addict. I chose to start getting high initially but something changed in me where pot and alcohol weren't enough and I compulsively sought better ways to get high. By the time heroin came into the picture it was too late, I was already gone. Heroin does not sound like a good idea to a rational human being and some people can use other recreational or prescribed drugs and remain rational. Those of us who become junkies are people who are rendered incapable of making good decisions when mind-altering substances are introduced to our bloodstream. You might call it a slippery slope, the regression from casual partying to heroin but it's really a very slow process of accepting different levels of normality.
The first time I knew of one of my friends shooting up I was disgusted, but it gradually became less foreign and one day just didn't seem like a bad idea anymore. After that point it is a quick downhill to rock bottom. The first time I shot up I had just turned 18 and that afternoon I was leaving the country to visit my parents for a month. I dreamt of heroin every night I was gone, And while I knew it was a bad idea, I knew as soon as I got back to the States I was going to do it again, just one more time. I spent the next three years waking up every day with the intention of getting clean but a few hours into the day I'd think, just one more time, then tomorrow I will do things differently.
It's hard to explain to anyone who's never been through it and I can see how it would be hard to understand because it doesn't make sense, but there was no choice. Even now, I have to keep reminding myself because it doesn't make sense to me anymore either. I have been clean for six years and am married. I, no joke, drive a minivan, have three small children and a nice house with a pool. Most people don't know and would never assume that I spent any time living in a tent behind a supermarket using dirty needles and rainwater to inject heroin into my neck. So that's the other thing I wish people knew, and really believed, is that we change. We Hate ourselves as much as society hates us but we don't have to stay that way forever, we can change into amazing beings.
I wish people understood that it's not as simple as "just stop!" Addiction to pain medication happened quickly for me and I was so ashamed to admit it. I wish drug addiction was not such a stigma. Being addicted to alcohol is the same thing, yet alcoholism seems much more "socially acceptable" if that makes sense?
Addiction does not discriminate. It is not only the "junkie" you see on the corner, begging for change who is affected. I've helped treat everyone from an Ivy League graduate from a prominent, well respected family, to an elderly Southern matriarch who became addicted after being prescribed opioids for years and has never even tried marijuana.
I wish people knew that heroin addiction does not discriminate. I wish people knew that those suffering from addiction are not bad people, but someone with a disease. I wish there was less stigma surrounding heroin addiction so that more people suffering would feel comfortable seeking the help they so desperately need and deserve.
It's a horrifying addiction that destroys the lives of not only the user, but their family members. Watching its effect on my son for the last 7 plus years has drained me emotionally and financially. Heroin and opioid addiction has no bias. I've seen people from all walks of life fall victim to this monster — people who were straight up users and people who started out managing legitimate pain, only to graduate to heroin use. So many people dead. My own son has nearly died more times than I can count due to secondary issues (endocarditis, staph infections, etc.) all brought on by infections from the syringe use. He has had to have multiple surgeries to his heart. One time he was found unresponsive in the hospital.
One of the most painful things to watch is to see how other people treat addicts: as less than human. My heart and prayers go out to the families and loved ones. This is someone's son. A daughter. A father. A brother. A mother. No words can describe the despair of watching a bright and articulate son succumb to the drive to use again. How does one explain the feelings of being isolated and powerless to help? How can WE, in the Unites States, continue to prescribe opioids, make them so readily available, and not make it easier for addicts to get the help they need? It's a vicious and evil circle. I wouldn't wish this hell on anyone. I refuse to give up on my son, though. If it weren't for my faith in God, I'd have jumped off a cliff a long time ago...
I was a Registered Nurse. I never imagined that I could become addicted to opiates...lose everything I owned. I wound up homeless, on public assistance. Lost my license to practice, was chronically in trouble, in court, arrested. My life went from comfortably upper-middle class to indigent in less than six months. I used to be judgmental. I used to say, "I would never do that!" I would have the public know…Don't judge. Never see yourself as someone who "would never." I started with prescribed Vicodin. I've been sober now seven years. Every day, I'm grateful for life itself. My mother died of overdose on October 12, 2007. I've seen hundreds die before their time. We have to help each other.
I wish people understood that addiction is a disease and should be treated as such, that it can happen to anyone, that it is both chronic and fatal, that people with an addiction should not be shunned and separated from their loved ones, and that it is closely linked to mental illness and trauma. I would also like them to know that it can begin with a legal prescription from your doctor, or from making a choice to simply feel better, and that because there is not enough treatment available it is not as simple as wanting to get help. I wish people knew how difficult it is for an uninformed parent to learn about addiction and to learn what to do about it. Thank you for giving me this opportunity to share my thoughts.
It is not something you just quit. It is a painful everyday battle, whether you are using or not. I have been fighting for 18 years. I have been to the needle and back and am currently on a Suboxone program. I really wish "maintenance" programs were not looked down upon as they are. It has saved mine and many others' lives, but yet it seems to have a bad reputation.
I am a person in long-term recovery -- 27 years. I am also a mother whose son battled an opiate addiction for 16 years. After 9 good months of sobriety, my son relapsed and died on Nov 24, 2015. This plague transcends all barriers. It is a disease that is steadily killing our communities. The only way to battle this is together --educate and prevent. Erase the stigma.
Even people who are shamelessly panhandling and ARE truly just after cash for dope really aren't shameless. They have a story, too. One guy told me his story of standing by the highway exit asking for money when someone callously shouted, "Get a job!" He was telling me, "I am looking for a job every day. I go down to the temp agencies, I fill out applications. It's hard." He wasn't proud of his addiction -- at the same time he had trouble stopping or we wouldn't have been helping him at our detox center. I think deep down, individuals struggling under addiction really do not want to be where they are. No one wants to stay there in poverty, neither in pain nor fleeting numbness. People want to have a happy life. Shaming someone by suggesting to "find employment" is no solution and isn't meant to be by the speaker. If you're the one saying it, it's just your way of inflating your own ego and voicing your disapproval of a total stranger whose story you don't care to know.
Addiction is a disease and should be treated as one without stigma, and without cost prohibitive treatments.
Heroin is a terrible drug, but opiate users are not sociopathic junkies like the stereotype says. We are human beings with a disease, and with the proper support we can recover.
I have struggled with opioid addiction on and off for 30 years with the most clean time being 7 years consecutive. The thing that I think that people are quickly understanding is that opiate addiction does not discriminate and is not a moral failing.
Many of us that have become addicted are intelligent, valuable people who lost control after experimentation, curiosity or having the opiates prescribed. I didn't ever intend to be a heroin addict; it quickly got out of control and led me to places I never dreamed of.
It's an illness and doctors and big pharma are culpable. The sources of synthetic heroin need to be cut off. Treatment options are too expensive and far too scarce. Selfishness is not the reason why addicts become hooked. Many addicts (and their families) desperately try to help them(selves). That stigma only exacerbates the epidemic. That criminalization of the addict is not a solution. That doctors and big pharma are culpable (my repetition is deliberate).
There are many legitimate users of pain medication who suffer from chronic diseases. Patients are not addicts. I suffer from Fibromyalgia and MS and just making through the day is a challenge. I still work full-time but I am on intermittent FMLA since flare ups can happen at any time. I suffered for over 10 years in debilitating pain because doctors thought I was too young to be in such pain. You can not let the possibility of someone being an addict hold you back from treating those who actually need it. There is no reason any person should have to suffer in pain. I have seen the horrors of addiction with friends and my ex-husband, and it is awful, but we as a society must recognize there are millions of us who have true invisible illnesses.
These are people with a terrible disease and marginalizing them is not at all helpful.
