September 8, 2011
When is an idea a creative spark with life force within it or just a passing thought?
Heading into the holidays in 2010, I was being dogged by a nagging inner voice to DO SOMETHING about the bias and prejudice about addiction. Me? Ridicules – I’m no expert on addiction. True – I’m a mom, a sister, an aunt that has been witness to the disease of addiction and its power to destroy life and hope. Still, it has also taught resilience, courage, curiosity and compassion. In the face of it all, this disease should never be taken lightly.
And, yet I hear, “Oh, it’s just a phase. We all did it in the 60’s… how bad can it be for this generation?” Back then, were the newspapers full of articles on drugs? Did it make the nightly news regularly? Did we hear as often about the deaths of the famous from substance abuse? Did we know the long term impact on the lives of millions of Americans? Certainly “polite society” doesn’t talk about addiction other than to scoff the fool who didn’t just “get sober and stay that way.”
Sherry’s mom asks, “why didn’t I take it more seriously when she told me she was using heroin? She was in graduate school. I didn’t like the idea but I just assumed she knew what she was doing.” Danny’s mom says it never, ever occurred to her that he could die. She knew he was abusing drugs but die? She was the one who found his lifeless body lying in bed in their home. The wife of a well known, wealthy surgeon keeps repeating to herself, “this doesn’t happen in our family; we’re doctors and lawyers. We are rich and educated; this sort of thing just doesn’t happen to us.” Her middle son lost his battle with addiction three years before.
The quiet, the gregarious, the daring, the timid, the motivated, the complacent, the smart, the academic struggler, the depressed, the bubbly…the stories from the moms, dads, siblings and grandparents begin to have a familiar ring. Our children are/were sensitive, caring, curious, hard working, compassionate, funny, quiet, loud and always in our hearts.
How can all these teenagers, young adults as well as older adults be all “bad”, defective, or immoral? How can their struggles with addiction be put in a tidy box labeled “warning: to not touch for fear of contamination!” Addiction is not a communicable disease.
Today we know addiction has plagued mankind for hundreds of years. Ignorance, snobbery, fear and perhaps not a little religious fire and brimstone has made it easy to shunt this disease aside. Those suffering have been judged weak, foolish, lazy, and or crazy. And so we don’t invest time in considering any deeper truth. Stigma and ignorance prevail in all levels of government, law enforcement, research and rehab programs, in spiritual/religious communities and in our neighborhoods.
World organizations are presenting policy and positioning papers in all ways possible in this age of electronic communication. The Internet, Facebook, blogs, newspaper, websites – in print and online – are filled with articles on drugs, the impact on our borders and quality of life.
News outlets are rife with articles about the failure of Nixon’s 40 year war on drugs. Areas of California are financially dependent on the growth and distribution of medical grade marijuana. Clinics of questionable repute in South Florida and Houston are dispensing powerful prescription medications daily in staggering volumes. The “street” drug industry consists of average men and women desperate to feed their families, drug lords with vast networks of distributors. In rural areas seemingly normal neighborhood houses are nothing more than illegal indoor grow farms for marijuana. The insatiable appetite of Americans for legal and illegal drugs feeds and fuels this industry where a vast amount of money is being made.
The infrastructure of law enforcement, judicial systems, and prisons is another part of the “drug machine”. Decades of funded research programs, rehab programs and ancillary services make up another huge investment in dealing with substance abuse. These systems have been in place for, in many cases, decades. Yet the disease continues to spread unabated – deaths from expanding forms of substances spike up regularly. One of the latest is the so called “bath salts”. Sold with a wink and a nod for $80 or so, none will see anything resembling bath water. Instead these manufactured powders are one of the fastest growing causes of death at this time.
What does this all mean for Shatter the Stigma? If we continue thinking about the disease of addiction in the same old ways, we will never make headway in saving lives. When I first began giving presentations about my story, parents were hungry to learn they were not alone, they were not crazy, and there is a common ground we walk upon.
When our children are alive, we share common space of hope, despair, fear, anger, embarrassment, denial. Inwardly we pray that our children will not fall victim to substances. Asking for support is risky; we must expose our truth to a world that might judge us and our children unworthy of their prayers. We can lose jobs along with hope. We might be estranged from family and friends who judge our parenting harshly.
When our children die, we are crushed. Some hide cause of death, others are more open. Death is a formidable foe in this disease. The threat of death from addiction drives us to seek “the answer”; it can cause us to implode out of hopelessness. And, then THAT phone call comes. The call we’ve dreaded and prayed we would never get.
When Amy Winehouse died recently, Russell Brand wrote about the dreaded phone call – the one that informs us that the battle is over for a loved one. All the calls before, the requests for money, for things, for forgiveness… from a phone booth, from jail, from the scene of a car accident…all those practice calls before “the one” we all dread. This time it is our son or daughter or grandchild whose life has come to an end.
Finally we know…we failed to save our children. Maybe we failed to notice they needed help… the stories are varied and seemingly endless. And so I talk and listen and listen and talk over and over – wherever I’m invited.
Over time I found myself reading anything and everything related to this disease – medical literature, the history of drug laws, and history of addiction research. I began putting some new connections together which I then began sharing with others. Watching parents move from despair to hope, from isolation and victimhood to proactive leaders, I realized others might be interested in what I am learning.
In yoga we have a Sanskrit word: kula which means community. With children living or passed on – in community we can reweave our sanity into a new whole. Together we can share resources – pools of information not yet discovered by all. We can share hope; we can offer morale support and prayers. And so it is – from nagging inner voice to a website for information to spark new ideas for hope, to broaden understanding, to invite learning opportunities – the blog for topical focus and discussion.
Please take a look around www.shatterthestigma.com – share your favorite websites, perhaps a poem or story, submit prayer requests, pictures for posting if a child has passed from this disease. Collaborating with many others working to make a difference with the disease of addiction, I am honored to be a part of this effort.
Namaste, Barbara
Jim and Jessie’s mom, Bill and John Roger’s sister and Amanda’s aunt.
