One by One
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We need to find ways to offer treatment and help addicts heal. Doing time won’t save them. Proper treatment might. If the system were to educate addicts and consider them victims of a behavioral disease with very real needs that are not being met, and provide options for them to fulfill those needs, we would likely see an immense drop in crime rates across the nation. Punishing criminals who commit their crimes due to behavioral diseases, such as drug addiction, only makes the problem worse, and actually facilitates and perpetuates the cycle of crime, incarceration, and death.
In some cities, narcotics officers meet at least once a week with their supervisors and focus on specific areas of the community that have high crime rates related to drug use. These officers swap information centered on individual addicts who are being monitored closely by a team of specialized police officers. An addict who voices a desire for rehabilitation or assistance of any kind, rather than being arrested and punished for using, is placed in the custody of a social worker who monitors their detox, helping them on an individual basis. With this level of compassion and understanding both on the streets and in jail, an addict might actually have the chance to get the real help he or she desperately needs to stop short this diseased behavioral cycle before it’s too late.
Seven is the number of people I know who have died from opioid overdoses. Seven is the number of addicts I know who could have survived had they received treatment sooner. Now is the time for criminal justice reform concerning the penalties directed at drug addiction; now is the time for change.
I was an IV heroin user and smoked pot every day for more than ten years straight, and I am now living a sober, happy, healthy, and fulfilling life. Sure, I get tempted to get high once in a while, smoke a cigarette here or there, drink some beer, and sometimes, depending on what life is throwing at me, I may cave in to temptation, but with help and support I am able to nip it in the bud and get back on track before it’s too late. In all honesty, the life I have left behind has its lures and thrills, but the life I have now is fulfilling and challenging. Being a father and husband gives me so much purpose, and the faith-based lifestyle my wife and I live together, which has led us all over the world, now has us settling down in the central Midwest to raise and grow our family and prosper. Amanda now teaches elementary school and I write, own my own trucking company, and play drums for a living. We have our struggles, but we try our best to remain faithful and patient through every bump in the road.
Having recovered from an addiction that by all accounts should have left me permanently disabled, imprisoned, or dead, I now have a reason to live—my wife and child—and a purpose: to make a difference in the world. Like my brother so wisely said to me before dying from addiction, “I think you have found something that people spend their whole life searching for but usually never find,” and I am truly humbled because I think he was right. My path may be different from yours and that’s okay. I don’t expect everyone to become a Christian, to serve Jesus Christ as a missionary and become an active minister in the church. This is my own road, the one that has helped me overcome my disease. I only hope it will inspire you to develop your own personal insight and apply it to your life as you see fit.
Whatever you do, don’t give up. There is a way out; there is help eagerly waiting for you to accept it into your life; you can get better, I am proof of that. As Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”
Even in your darkest hour, there is hope. Hope is universal, it goes beyond temptation, it goes beyond religious beliefs. I am here, still standing, alive and kicking, sharing my story with you to fill you with the utmost and purest hope, the realistic hope that I was unable to perceive when I was deep in the trenches of addiction. If you are struggling with addiction or know someone who is, or are simply living in today’s world that is so ripe with addiction, know that it’s possible to fight it, to recover, and to lead a healthy and happy life. I have faith that it can be done and now it’s time for you to have faith—faith in loved ones, faith in a support network, faith in religious and spiritual beliefs, and faith in yourself. The disease of addiction is ravaging our country, but it can be overcome.
Resources
If you or a family member or friend is suffering from a drug addiction, please get help from a qualified professional. Here are a few resources that may be of use.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMSA)
1-800-662-4357, TTY: 1-800-487-4889
https://www.hhs.gov/opioids/
https://www.samhsa.gov/find-help/national-helpline
https://findtreatment.samhsa.gov/
National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIH)
https://www.drugabuse.gov/patients-families
American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM)
https://asam.ps.membersuite.com/directory/SearchDirectory_Criteria.aspx
American Academy of Addiction Psychiatry (ASAM)
https://www.aaap.org/?page_id=658?sid=658
Acknowledgments
I’d like to acknowledge Elizabeth Schar, Julia Abramoff, and D’Anne Burwell. Liz for helping me to discover my gift of writing and for all of her support, D’Anne for her help in connecting me with a publisher and for her passion in fighting addiction, and Julia for all her hard work while helping me to write the memoir.
Allison.
Austin and me.
My wife, Amanda, our daughter, Allison, and me.