Addiction plagues states, towns, families and groups of friends. It doesn’t care about your ethnicity or how much money you make. It doesn’t care about your responsibilities or promises to others. Whether it’s alcohol, drugs or even spending habits; addiction has no prejudice with who and what it claims.
I read an article today from the Hyannis News that stopped me in my tracks;
“Sources report friends were trying to load an unconscious, limp, and gravely afflicted overdose victim into a taxi cab. The cab driver fortunately refused and witnesses in the neighborhood quickly phoned police.” – Hyannis News
THIS is what our beautiful home has turned into as a direct result of addiction and in this particular case, the heroin epidemic running ramped on not only Cape Cod, but small towns everywhere. I hate that when I come home to the place I love and consider my safe haven, it’s riddled with people I went to high school with that are covered with track marks or asking for money.
I think back to the post I wrote about Cape Cod friendships and it couldn’t stand truer against this incident of putting your half-dead buddy into a cab to try and get him the help he needed. Unless they just didn’t want to be found with his dead body in which case, what a shitty group of friends. They must have been from over the bridge.
Everyone’s acting like the world is about to end because of a few Ebola outbreaks, but last time I checked addiction claims an incomparable amount of lives compared to a fluid-passed disease that has killed less people in America than have been married to Kim Kardashian.
I unfortunately know firsthand just how easily addiction can rip apart families and ties that you spent your whole life building. But you know what it can’t take? Your memories and the positive impacts they had when they were clean.
So how about we all take some time today to remember a few important facts;
- Addiction is a disease, one that can be treated but never cured
- You’re more likely to have sex with a Kardashian than you are to contract Ebola
- Don’t hang out with people from over the bridge
Twitter: Hippie - Insane Tony
Sadly this crap has been happening here since the early 90's. I have personally lost more than one friend to a heroin overdose that probably could have been prevented If the people around them had just called 911. Instead they were ignored while in distress or abandoned. It is maddening even to this day that some great, although lost at the time, people could still be with us if help was sought. One was as recently as 2008 and it still hurts. There are too many lost souls here on Cape Cod and you don't see a lot of old junkies. It's pretty sad to play the guessing game of which friend from my past will overdose next. It's even more sad to find out you have guessed correctly.
P.S. Those people you are getting high with are not your friends, they are not even their own friends.