An Image of the Drug Epidemic

The things you can't unsee

Let me paint a picture with words.

When we think of the drug epidemic we conjure up images of tourniquets and syringes, of homeless, unattached men and women on the street, shooting up syringes of brown fluid, in big cities like San Francisco or in small town Appalachia.

As a child I learned the word ‘druggies.’ Those who used drugs were ‘othered.’ It was less common then (and there) so their behaviors and lives were dramatically different from the middle class, Protestant work ethic world into which I was born and by which I was raised. Druggies seemed like foreigners or aliens. So their struggles and their deaths seemed less tangible.

Now, a physician, husband and father, I see it differently. No less tragic, of course. But more poignant images come to mind now.

I see the young woman, her lips blue, no breaths escaping her body, and the way she suddenly gasped and sat up after we gave her naloxone (Narcan) to reverse the effects of her heroin. I think of how apologetic she was and how kind. I remember the very nice conversation we had.

Sometimes the image I see is of an elderly father or mother caring for a middle aged addict, using their final years to do all they can for their child lost in substance abuse. Picking them up after overdoses, trying to get them to go yet again to rehab, spending whatever treasure they have left, hoping against hope.

All too often the image is of wounded children raised by grandparents, uncles or aunts because their mother and father can’t seem to claw their way out of addiction. Their pediatric scars are deep.

However, I think the worst may a collage of sight and sound.

It’s the father lying over body of his dead young son, sobbing. Knowing that the years were cut short, the plans and hopes ended. Wondering if he could have done more. It’s the life of potential lost, the future jokes and struggles and triumphs never to be. It’s the trips and dinners and evenings around a fire, stillborn.

It’s the scream of the dead man’s wife falling to the ground, hoping it’s a dream from which she can wake, barely able to take a breath and saying, over and over, ‘no, no, no.’

It’s standing by them, with no words to say, wishing for some comfort to offer.

This is the drug epidemic. This is heroin, fentanyl, methamphetamine and cocaine. It’s oxycontin, oxycodone, hydrocodone, morphine, methadone, Xanax and Ativan. It’s a long list of chemicals and far longer roll call of the dead.

People make bad choices but it doesn’t make their loss any less stunning or painful.

We have work to do. But the first thing is to realize with painful clarity what all of this looks like, every single day, in the ERs and on the streets and in the drug-houses and the funeral homes of this country and so many others.

You can see it. You just can’t ever unsee it.