The house is torn apart, ripped through,
everything of value gone. The television is missing, the VCR, everything that
could be pawned for cash. There is broken glass and ripped up paper strewn
across the room from moments of rage that she has fallen into when the cravings
are at their worst. She is laying curled up in the corner moaning, shaking, and
sweating. It has been days since she has showered, and you see evidence of her
being sick in a bucket at the bedside. She won’t see you watching from the
crack in the door or hear your stomach rumble when you are hungry. You, in
turn, would not dare disturb her when she is out of her supply, knowing that
her rage could be directed at you. Every single day this is a reality for many
of those who live with or love someone who is addicted to an opiate,
specifically Heroin. These
are not random people you see on the street. They are family members, mothers
and fathers, sons and daughters. There is nothing quite so horrific as watching
one you love struggle with drug abuse, there is nothing more hopeless than
seeing them lose that battle time and again.
Opiate use effects between 26.4 to 36 million people
worldwide, of that number roughly 10 million are users of Heroin (“America’s
Addiction to Opioids: Heroin and Prescription Drug Abuse”,1). In America, 2.1
million people are addicted to prescription, over the counter opiates. Eight
out of ten drug related deaths are attributed to opiate use (1). Users of
Opiates are the largest group of users in the rehabilitation community (1).
With statistics such as this, one begins to wonder how abuse of painkillers has
become such a prevalent presence in the world. Furthermore, how does one become
addicted? How does this addiction impact society? Where did opiate addiction
begin?
Opiates
are derived from what is known as the Papaver
Somniferum, or the opium poppy. The opium poppy is a flower that is grown
in remote regions of the world by farmers on small plots of land. It is grown
and cultivated in harsh climates, then sold and processed into what is known as
Opium. The earliest documented record of opium use is around 3,400 B.C (“Cannabis,
Coca, & Poppy: Nature’s Addictive Plants” 1). It’s use spread from Mesopotamia
to Egypt, then the Silk Road to locations all over Asia, Africa, and Europe.
Opium was discovered to have many uses and it has been widely revered as a
painkiller, a laxative, and a cure for insomnia, amongst many others, which
contributed to its recreational popularity. This drug was the basis for the
Opium War between Britain and China; its use has stemmed conflict in nearly
every country in which it has been used. Migration and immigration readily ensured
the propagation of this drug worldwide. Opium dens sprang up throughout,
becoming the new favorite pastime of Chinese and Americans alike. This
continued until the Smoking Exclusion Act banned smoking, but not manufacturing
of Opiates. 
A
plethora of derivatives are sourced from Opium, including but not limited to
codeine, heroin, oxycodone, and methadone. Due to the multiple medicinal uses
and various strength grades, Opiate derivatives were quickly becoming hailed and
embraced as wonder drugs, used in medicines far and wide. Doctors began first
prescribing Morphine, a particularly strong derivative, for pain relief in the
1810 (“History of Heroin” 1). The production of Morphine brought with it a new
wave of substance abuse. Morphine's extremely addictive nature was starting to
become more noticeable after the Civil War, many soldiers had become addicted
to painkillers because of wounds in battle. Morphine addiction baffled
clinicians. A cure was needed, and the search for a less addictive opiate
began.
These social issues lead to the production
Heroin, which was developed in Germany in 1874. Heroin was touted as being a
miracle drug. It was said to be completely safe and without the risk of
addiction. Nearly as soon as Heroin was being manufactured it was thrown into
American pharmacies and given out as a safe alternative to morphine use. America
immediately jumped on the Heroin bandwagon, designing the first of what would
be known today as “rigs,” small, transportable cases for self-administration of
Opiates which included ones very own hypodermic needle. The Dangerous Drug Act
of 1920 ended free sales of opiates in America without prescription (“Laws” 1).
The dangerous nature of these drugs was finally getting recognition.
Unfortunately, recognition came too late and the damage had already been done.
Americans, alongside the world, were hooked on Heroin, and the production of
opiates continued from there.
Considering
the social implications of opiate abuse is a daunting task. Addiction effects
our society as a whole in an assortment of ways, and they are not always clear
cut. Addiction can result in divorce, which leads to single parent homes.
Single parent homes have a lower income pool and children from single family
homes or divorced marriages have a significant increase in mental disorder.
Children that come from drug dependent household have a higher incidence of
behavioral and emotional issues when compared to children from sober homes.
Living in a home with an addicted parent presents a scary reality for one
barely old enough to understand reality at all. The home dynamic is skewed from
having to provide for the family to having to have enough for a drug. This can
result in a child seeing far too much from the dark side of life before they
ever become adults. Neglect, lack of discipline, and poverty go hand in hand
with drug abuse.
 |
Often times children from addicted families land in foster care when a
parent has a run in with the law. These state-run programs are overrun with
children who have nowhere to go while a parent is serving time or going through
rehabilitation and regulation ("Drug-Addiction Epidemic Creates Crisis in
Foster Care" 1) In fact, these programs are desperately begging citizens
to volunteer for fostering children. Governor Peter Shumlin of Vermont asserts
that the state has "lost babies to parents who beat them, strangle them,
bang their heads against the floor, sexually abuse them. And it’s happening
because of opioid addiction” (1). The repercussions of drug addiction on
society are terrifying to behold. What might the future hold for children who
are being exposed to these types of horrors? Is there any resolution for this
epidemic? What is the recourse? What is being done?
Since the cultivation of the opium
poppy and subsequent addiction wave, the world has been trying to figure out
how to eradicate the need for painkillers. The desperate search for a cure has
led to imprisonment in jails and sanitariums, church intervention, and drug
replacement. Many of these methods are still in practice today, and some new
ones have been introduced. The fact is that no one way is correct. Many of the
practiced ways of treating opiate addiction cause more harm than good to
substance users, and many worsen the problem.
Opiate addiction is one of the most researched epidemics in the entire
world, and treatment for it is constantly evolving. A unique aspect of opiate
addiction is the social inconsistencies and deficiencies that it exposes, it is
almost absurd in many ways.
One of the ways in which opiate
dependency has been treated is through the church. There is a large amount of
individuals who believe that the sole way to heal addiction is through prayer.
The idea behind this is that separation from faith and the church can cause
inner turmoil by cutting one off from their God. Others believe that
spirituality should be an aid in fighting against such a battle, which leads to
moral and ethical corruption and causes the user to sin. There is much dispute
over the presence of religion in treatment of opiate addiction. Studies show
that religious leaders greatly overestimate the value of spirituality in their
followers who are addicted, while Clinicians greatly underestimate the
importance of religious presence during treatment (“A focus-group study on spirituality
and substance-abuse treatment” 1). Studies also show that, in certain
demographics, religious integration into treatment is preferable to a lack of
spirituality as a whole.
Another way in which the world has
struggled to rein in opiate addiction is through imprisonment. This method is
highly controversial and has been debated wildly in modern medicine because of
withdrawal. Opiate withdrawal is highly dangerous and can lead, without proper
care, to a very painful death. Prisons were not thought up to provide comfort
or medical care to inmates, they were created in order to punish people for
crimes they commit. Opiate withdrawal requires monitoring of hydration as well
as an electrolyte balance (“Opiate Withdrawal Timelines, Symptoms and Treatment”
1). Allowing a prisoner to sleep off this sickness does not work. The idea that
substance abusers should be held in jail without necessary medical care has led
to a growing number of deaths in the American prison system. In fact, only 28%
of jails report ever having allowed detoxification of their substance addicted
populations (“Alcohol and Opiate Withdrawal in US Jails” 1).
There is another approach to the
curing of opiate addiction through the medical community, of course. As in the
past, chemists are still creating derivatives of Opium. Many of these new
derivatives, true to form, are being paraded around as non-addictive. Again,
unsuspecting users of the drugs are lead to believe that these Opiods are much
more stable and can cure addiction and pain at the same time. In reality, this
is not the case. This is where the world shifts out of Opiate drug dependency
to prescribed Opiod drug addiction. Opiod categories include Methadone,
Oxycodone, Codeine, and Hydrocodone. As before, it does not take long before
the world starts to notice that these Opiod prescriptions are also getting the
population hooked. Essentially, what is being done here is that we are pushing
people from one drug to the next under the guise of curing addiction. This is
the trend that brings us to where we are right now with Opiate dependency.  |
| One thing leads to the next |
The problem with prescribing an
Opiod for pain management is that an individual takes it to dull pain. Once the
pain is dulled, they feel better. As time progresses, the same dose of Opiod
painkiller yields less of a result, resulting in a high tolerance to prescribed
doses. In order to get around this tolerance, the patient begins taking a
higher dose, in some cases injecting it intravenously. The prescription does
not last as long once the patient is taking more than prescribed. This leads to
withdrawal, and if a clinician notices abuse the patient is usually black
listed from being prescribed pain medicine. The next logical step for someone
in this circumstance is to find the drug of choice on the street. Street value
for some of these pills ranges anywhere from six to sixty dollars, for a single
pill. What is cheaper and lasts longer? Heroin.
Opiate addiction poses a unique problem
in that we do not have any surefire way to cure it. One thing that everyone may
agree on, in unison, is that a solution must be found or this epidemic will
only continue to spread. The band aid of new drugs being applied to the problem
must be ripped away to find an effective solution instead of simply masking one
issue with another. It is not enough to pray that this very real problem will
go away, either. In holding with true pessimism, one might surmise that there
may be no such cure, only the will to fight and survive or acceptance of their
very human condition.
Albert Camus is a writer whose
literary works focused solely on absurdity in life. Often his writing reflects
illogical ideas, pessimism, revolt, and behaviors in human thought and action.
Absurdity fiction challenges its readers to question patterns of behavior and
the reasons behind why we do the things that we do. Camus focus on the absurd
is akin in many ways to existentialism and nihilism. He encourages us to find
the meaning behind everything, if there is one, even things like addiction. One
might wonder in which way would the Opiate epidemic be viewed by Camus, based
off his life and words.
Considering
the fact that Camus is so heavily involved in the absurd, and the absurd is
defined as “The Absurd can be defined as a metaphysical tension or opposition
that results from the presence of human consciousness—with its ever-pressing
demand for order and meaning in life—in an essentially meaningless and
indifferent universe,” one might reasonably assume that Camus would see
addiction as a result of such tension (“Albert Camus” 1). Perhaps Camus would
see addiction as a rebellion against the strongly held notions of piety in
America’s past, or a way to express dissatisfaction with conformity. In fact, the
name Albert Camus is synonymous with revolution. Many of his literary works
have overtones of revolutionary thinking hidden within them. Camus has been
quoted as saying “The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so
absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion (1).” Albert
Camus may have seen addiction as defiance against financial oppression and
class warfare because addiction is somewhat of an equalizer amongst social
class, anyone can become addicted.
More than
anything Camus would have noted the methods of treatment for such a large
epidemic. Perhaps he would have seen something of the absurd in the idea of
replacing one addiction with the next. The novel The Plague, in many ways, can be applied to the idea of opiate
addiction when one considers the recourse. Can drug addiction be seen as a
profitable business, a way in which to keep down a lower social class? Yes, it
can be, but opiate addiction, like the plague, does not discriminate on the
lives it touches. Again, Camus being the revolutionist would surely encourage
suffers of Opiate dependency to rebel against their oppressors, which are not
only the people selling or prescribing these drugs, but the drugs themselves.
Opiate
addiction is destructive to the lives and homes countless individuals
worldwide. It is a struggle that not only effects the person suffering it, but
their family and society. Even if the help offered at this moment is not
sufficient, there is enough available to help a person fight their addiction,
should they so desire. Many have, out of sheer willpower, managed to abstain
from relapse, though the numbers show how difficult this task is. The only way
this social epidemic can be cured is by genuinely caring for one another,
loving our neighbors, seeing a need in society and filling it in every house
and home. Of course, this is not an easy task to achieve, people have always
taken the stance that minding one’s own business is preferential. Love,
support, and resistance are the cures for this ailment. I doubt Camus, who was
quoted as saying “If I had to write a book on morality, it would have a hundred
pages and ninety-nine would be blank. On the last page I should write: "I
recognize only one duty, and that is to love,” would have disagreed (“Albert
Camus” Notebooks 1935-1942)
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