There’s been a lot of focus on the opioid crisis for some time now. And yet it doesn’t seem to be getting better. Opiates, pain killers, heroin. They’re calling it an epidemic. A health crisis.
There are some things we know about opiate addiction. We know that opiate addiction, like all addiction, isn’t specific to any particular socioeconomic background. It doesn’t target only one or two particular ethnic or racial backgrounds; nor does it only affect young people. We know that opiate addicts, like all addicts, aren’t all homeless or uneducated; they aren’t all unemployed; they aren’t all alike. It’s a health crisis that knows no bounds. At least from what I can see.
Years ago, I was running a weekly parenting group in a residential treatment center. Most weeks there were 12 to 18 people in the group. Most were residents of the treatment center, and a few were graduates of the program. Most of the group members had children and had struggled to be parents while their addictions had ravaged them.
For me, it was always interesting to hear people talk about their addictions. How the addictions started. How much the person had lost. How far they’d fallen, and how fast. The things they never thought they’d do, and had. The people they never thought they’d be, and were. The regrets. The loss.
And time and again, especially in referencing addictions to heroin and opiates, people in the group would talk about how their addiction had started.
“Well I got in a car accident, and I got hooked on the meds.”
“I was an athlete in high school, until I got hurt playing football,” or hockey, or baseball.
I’ve not yet heard anyone say that they just woke up one day and decided maybe they’d try heroin. Just for the heck of it. For heroin or opiate addiction it was often after an accident or injury which resulted in getting hooked on pain medicine. When the prescription medications stopped, they bought the same drugs they now needed on the street. When those became too costly, heroin was a cheap substitute. End of story.
Until treatment. Treatment, they said, was the worst. Treatment was where they were forced to face all the things in life they’d like to forget. All the things they tried to pretend they hadn’t done, all the things they’d become. Treatment wasn’t so much about not using alcohol and drugs. Treatment was about facing everything that made them want to use. And it was brutal.
A mentor of mine used to say that treatment was about “turning the lights on.” When someone was struggling to acknowledge the atrocities that had been done to them in childhood, or fighting to admit the wrongs they’d committed, he’d encourage them.
“Turn the lights on,” he’d say.
The idea being to get things out in the open. That once someone can take a look at something in the light of day that thing, whatever it was, lost a lot of the power it had held over the person.
That’s what treatment’s about. It’s about turning the lights on.
One particular day in group we were talking about facing our fears, about allowing light in on our darkest fears and our greatest worries. There was a man in the group who had been clean from alcohol and drugs for several months. He was battling every day to continue to work his recovery program, and “fix the things I need to fix in order to stay sober.”
He was talking about some of his anxieties and fears. About how easy it would be on any given day to “just walk into the bar.” He referenced that for him the desire to use alcohol and drugs was a desire to not have to feel anything for a little while. To which the other group members each nodded and smiled. They knew.
After a moment of silence, he let out a sigh which was actually almost more of a growl, and said, “I just know there’s a man in there somewhere. And when I find him I’m gonna pull him out by the throat!”
The rest of the group chuckled in agreement.
And that statement stayed with me.
I know the opioid crisis is about drugs. I know that for a lot of addicts it seems to have started with medications. Medications which were given after accidents or injuries. Medications to ease the pain. No one knew the person would become addicted to those medications.
But the opioid crisis is about much more than just the drugs. It’s about pain. It’s about feeling, and choosing not to feel. It’s about seeking relief. For people in pain. Opiates treat pain. ALL pain.
And treatment? Treatment isn’t so much about getting people to stop using drugs. Treatment is about turning the lights on and facing all those fears that rule in the dark. It’s about feeling all those feelings that none of us like to feel. It’s about allowing ourselves to feel the pain that’s been there for a long time. Treatment is about finding that person we used to be “and pulling them out by the throat.”
penniesonmypath 