Introduction
Imagine receiving a phone call from the police, your son or
daughter is in the ICU at the hospital on a respirator in a coma from an
overdose of heroin. Most parents have no idea their child is addicted to drugs.
People wear different masks to hide
their struggle with chemical dependence, it is an illness that affects all
walks of life and all ages. Opioid dependence is like riding a carousel and
never being able to get off the ride, no matter how desperate you are to stop.
The word epidemic defined by Merriam Webster dictionary is “a widespread occurrence of an infectious disease in a community
at a particular time”. Opioid misuse is widespread and infects every life
attached to the individual suffering, leaving them feeling gut wrenchingly
alone with nowhere to turn. According to the US Department of Health &
Human Services in 2017 there were 72,000 overdose deaths, or on average 130
people dying per day from opiate overdoses. The opioid epidemic plaguing the
world appears to be here for the long haul; let us breakdown the history,
examples, and some solutions to this ongoing battle for people’s souls.
History
During the civil war medics used
morphine to treat wounds and provide a level of anesthetic to soldiers on the
battlefront. Following the war many soldiers became dependent on morphine to
cope with life. In 1898 “heroin is first produced by the Bayer Company” (“Opioid Crisis Fast Facts.”) at the time was
promoted to be less addictive than its morphine predecessor. It was given to
soldiers addicted to morphine as a way to “detox” off the dangerous drug. Then
in 1914 the government passed the Harrison Narcotics Act, which stated doctors
had to write an actual prescription for narcotics. Following that law the
government passed the Anti-Heroin Act in 1924, banning all sales of heroin in
the United States. More than fifty years
later The Controlled Substances Act was passed, created groupings for drug
classes and restricting access to certain drugs. Heroin is a schedule one drug,
meaning it is illegal to all citizens. Schedule two drugs are Morphine,
Vicodin, Fentanyl, Oxycodone, and Methadone. In 1995 Purdue Pharma released
OxyContin, a timed released version of oxycodone, and then was sued by the
federal government in 2007 for misleading the addiction risk to the medical
field and consumers. The company had to pay over six hundred million dollars to
the federal government through criminal and civil fines. In 2016 the CDC
publishes new guidelines on procedures and policies for prescribers and
patients dealing with chronic pain in an effort to reign in the escalating
opioid addiction epidemic sweeping the country. “Between 1999 and 2010, twice
as many lives were lost as a result of an opioid overdose than the lives that
were lost during the Vietnam War.” (Clarke et all 1). When we think about the
grim reality of rampant drug addiction taking the lives of more casualties than
the Vietnam War it is mind boggling. According to the research the cycle of
over prescribing and becoming dependent on pills to get you through the day
does not appear to be slowing down. “As of October 16th, 2017, the
US Government declared the opioid epidemic a public health emergency” (Jones et
al 1) due to the climbing addiction and overdose rates.
Social Effects
Opioid addiction affects every inner
working of this country. Everyone knows someone who is taking narcotic pain
pills, and they may be blissfully unaware. You see it on the news, skyrocketing
numbers prescriptions written by doctors this year for hydrocodone. Fentanyl is
the newest killer drug ruining lives, and killing people via overdosing.
Addiction runs rampant through our schools, communities, towns, state, and
nation.
According to the CDC opioid deaths
and overdoses are on the continual rise in this country, no state or town is
excluded from this stark fact.
Examples
The cycle of addiction is a mental
illness, according to the DSM-V or Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental
Disorders 5th edition published by the American Psychiatric
Association. The manual breaks down each type of substance disorders, and
specifically opioid use disorder, opioid intoxication, and opioid withdrawal.
In my daily life I work as a
counselor at a drug and alcohol rehab facility, and see people admitted daily
defeated by opioid addiction. This illness affects everything from lawyers,
doctors, nurses, to stay at home housewives and even teenagers. Once you cross
the threshold and set off the allergy to drugs and alcohol you are consumed by
a constant phenomenon of craving, ferocious cries for more and more.
I have known a young lady named
Roxanne since she was seven years old, and have seen her struggle with
addiction and balancing her life for years. We lost touch over ten years ago,
and one day in May she showed up at my treatment center to get admitted. It all
started with back pain and doctors prescribing hydrocodone, and multiple back
surgeries. Fifteen years later she had an emotional break down, suicidal from
thoughts of never being good enough and the inability to stop taking pills. She
told me she had a thought to do heroin and it was too much for her. She had
always been a straight A honor roll student, graduated from college with a
Bachelor’s in Psychology. The reason behind her degree was a desperate desire
to figure out why she could not stop the mental obsession for just one more
pill. In all her years of studying no one answered her question of why she
could not stop. She came to treatment and through our shared experience and
explanation she received an answer to the question she had been searching for
desperately for all those years. Now she is a staff member, a house manager,
passing on her knowledge of this disease to the next alcoholic or drug addict,
presenting them with a solution.
In the last few years we have lost
so many young heroin addicts from overdosing. With the statistic of 130 people
per day dying in the United States from opioid overdose, I am surprised it is
not many more. The unfortunate reality is people switch from pain pills to
heroin because it is economically cheaper than buying pills. Building up a
tolerance to opiates means you need more and more to feel the effect. Usually
people die from asphyxiation, opiates control your breathing and shut down your
system. Without a quick response of Narcan and emergency medical professionals,
it is often too late.
Solutions
In all my years of working in the
field of addiction, I never see any education related to the illness of
addiction or alcoholism. Main stream media, the government, the medical field
and so on focuses all their attention on prevention. For example when my
children were in school the DARE program was a huge part of yearly curriculum.
“Drug Abuse Resistance
Education (D.A.R.E.) is an education program that seeks to prevent use of
controlled drugs, membership in gangs, and violent behavior. It was founded in
Los Angeles in 1983 as a joint initiative of then-LAPD chief Daryl Gates and
the Los Angeles Unified School District as a demand-side drug control strategy
of the American War on Drugs.” (Dare 1)
Prevention is the only aspect people talk about when it
comes to educating our future generations, versus removing the stigma
surrounding addiction. To teach children to never do drugs or drink alcohol is
not a request based in reality, yet we preach to them all the time to abstain
from “peer pressure” and taking that first drink. In all actuality we should be educating
children and adults alike on the signs of addiction, and what do we do when we
want to stop and cannot do so. A vital aspect of addiction for the real addict
is that manifestation of the allergy and the inability to control our mental
obsession, leaving people feeling broken and insane.
The solution to addiction is connection, and in finding a
place of true belonging with people who can relate to what you are going
through saves lives. We as addicts need to know that we are seen, that we are heard,
and that we matter. Through Alcoholics Anonymous people find a solution to
their physical allergy to substances, the mind crushing mental obsession of
getting that first one, and the spiritual malady that is overran when the cycle
starts all over again following a spree.
“We believe, and so suggested a few years ago, that the
action of alcohol on these chronic alcoholics is a manifestation of an allergy;
that the phenomenon of craving is limited to this class and never occurs in the
average temperate drinker. These allergic types can never safely use alcohol in
any form at all; and once having formed the habit and found they cannot break
it, once having lost their self-confidence, their reliance upon things human,
their problems pile up on them and become astonishingly difficult to solve.
Frothy emotional appeal seldom suffices. The message which can interest and
hold these alcoholic people must have depth and weight. In nearly all cases,
their ideals must be grounded in a power greater than themselves, if they are
to recreate their lives.” (Alcoholics Anonymous, xxviii)
Through the program of Alcoholics Anonymous we find a
spiritual answer to our physical and mental illness that no human aid can
correct. It is only through vitally required spiritual experiences and working
the 12 Steps that we find a new happiness and freedom.
Camus
and Absurdity
Camus
spent his life and writings focused on absurdist fiction. He focused on the
meaning of life and the existential question if any of our struggles matter.
According to an article on the Nobel
Prize website, Camus works focused on “acceptance with ‘the total absence of
hope, which has nothing to do with despair, a continual refusal, which must not
be confused with renouncement – and a conscious dissatisfaction’.” This
sentiment sums up a life of addiction, people living their life in a forever
state of continual despair with no hope in sight. Day after day addicts
contemplate if any of their pain and suffering matters to anyone, even
themselves. It is absurd to judge people on what they struggle with and shame
them for being addicted, when modern medicine and doctors ignite the flame from
where the fire started from.
Conclusion
Human beings are complex and in depth creatures, reaching out
for connection. When a baby is born it needs love and to be touched in order to
survive. I do not think this ever changes, but when we get older we armor up in
the world incapable of being vulnerable and honest. The opioid crisis in the
United States has been declared a national state of emergency by President
Trump. The cycle of opioid dependence to opioid overdose has caused a state of
sheer calamity. Every day over 130 people die from this illness, and we need a
solution. Through a twelve step program, detoxification, love, compassion, no
judgement or shaming, we as a nation can help the people stuck in the absurd
reality of addiction, insanity, or death.
Works Cited
Albert Camus – Biographical.
NobelPrize.org. Nobel Media AB 2018. Wed. 5 Dec 2018. https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1957/camus/biographical/
Alcoholics
Anonymous: the Big Book --4th Ed.--. Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc.,
2001.
Clarke, Janice L, et al.
“The American Opioid Epidemic: Population Health Implications and Potential
Solutions. Report from the National Stakeholder Panel.” Mary Ann Liebert,
Inc. | Home, 23 Feb. 2016, www.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/pop.2015.0144.
“D.A.R.E. America | Teaching
Students Decision-Making for Safe & Healthy Living.” DARE America,
www.dare.com/. Accessed 2 October 2018
Katz, Josh. Short
Answers to Hard Questions About the Opioid Crisis. 10 Aug. 2017,
www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/08/03/upshot/opioid-drug-overdose-epidemic.html.
“Opioid Crisis Fast
Facts.” https://www.cnn.com/2017/09/18/health/opioid-crisis-fast-facts/index.html.
Accessed 11 Nov. 2018.
Jones, Mark R et al. “A
Brief History of the Opioid Epidemic and Strategies for Pain
Medicine” Pain and therapy vol. 7,1 (2018): 13-21.
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