The pain always comes back. You can push it off for a few hours, maybe a day or so, maybe a year, but it show’s up. The feeling in the pit of your stomach like it’s happening all over again. Like you just heard the news. Trying to process what’s happened. You feel like your stomach's about to catapult itself up through your throat and outside of your body. There’s no way you could truly appreciate joy unless you knew what true pain felt like, but trying to rationalize it doesn’t help. To know you’re not the only one makes it worse.
Many others are feeling the same way you felt not too long ago. At this point, you start counting. It starts feeling normal. Another one? It’s become your reality. It will eat you up inside unless you try and accept it. Another year. Another funeral. Another name. Another face. Another brother with another family. Another friend who had a promising future laid to rest.
Heroin has won again.
I hate seeing my community in pain. I hate that there’s pain to feel. Heroin addiction is a disease that regular people get. It’s not stereotypical. It doesn’t happen to junkies down by the river out in the backwoods. It doesn’t just happen to those in the inner city. It happens to teens and young adults in the suburbs. Great schools, great towns, great friends… heroin doesn’t discriminate. It does, however, cause pain.
The increase in drug-related deaths in the U.S. in the last 15 years is astounding. According to the CDC, “Drug poisoning (overdose) is the number one cause of injury-related death in the United States, with 43,982 deaths occurring in 2013. A recent study using data from 28 states reported that the death rate for heroin overdose doubled from 2010 through 2012.” This isn’t just affecting urban areas, it’s taking over suburban and rural communities near Chicago and St.Louis as well. Below is a bar chart showing the staggering increase in Heroin-related deaths from 2001 to 2014.
There have been too many drug-related deaths in our communities and the numbers are rising at an alarming rate. In my community alone there have been four men under the age of 25 that have passed in the last 2.5 years that were all my fellow classmates. One was a great friend.
What does this mean for our country and the communities that are continuously affected by this epidemic? When will the pain cease and the amount of drugs available in our communities drop? When will we stop burying our beloved friends and family because heroin is readily available? I don't know, but I wish I had the answer.
