Today is International Overdose Awareness Day. Each year on this day I create a special post specifically dedicated to honor the memory of all those who were lost to overdose and the parents who are grieving them.
My daughter, Melanie lost her life to the disease of addiction. Before that I never knew such a day existed. Sadly, this is the 3rd year I have been a member of this group that no one ever asks to join, and have met hundreds of other bereaved parents along this road.
If you have not had this disease touch your life directly I imagine you know someone who has. Regardless of the way your loved one died, grief is grief and loss is loss. We all hurt the same and miss our loved ones.
In 2020 when I first learned about International Overdose Awareness Day it was recorded that 81,000 people lost their lives to drug overdose during the previous 12 months.
Now, 2 years later this number has increased to over 107,000!
Today, on International Overdose Awareness Day I want to bring awareness to what is an often overlooked disease in our country.
Did you know that Substance Use Disorder is in fact an actual disease?
Are you aware that the disease of addiction touches people of all backgrounds, despite race, religion, education, or social class? People from all walks of life have suffered from substance abuse or known someone who has.
People who suffer from substance abuse are mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, and friends to many. It is up to us to make strides to reduce the stigma associated with substance abuse and bring about education and healing.
Today the Governor of the State of Georgia has issued an Executive Order to fly our flags at half-staff to honor the life and memory of individuals who passed away from drug overdoses.
This is a great, but small step in the right direction. However, there is still much work left to be done.
Thank u for sharing that I know it can’t be easy. July 29th a year ago my husband died cause of an overdose. He usually didn’t do it he was depressed. He did it with me he died in my arms that night. I was the herion addict he was trying to get me clean. I should be died today but God has his reasons why I am still here. I have been clean since then but that day lives in my mind over and over. I will always blame myself.
@Maryann I am so very sorry for the loss of your husband. Grief is a hard journey but we are not alone. God is carrying you through the valley even when we don’t understand his thoughts or ways. Recovery is possible. I’ve come to meet many and you are one of them. Don’t give up and keep pressing forward. Sending hugs to you today. 🫂💜🫂
Yes yes yes!! Thank you, Pat for educating us and continuing to be an advocate for people who suffer!!!
💜💜💜
Though I have not been personally affected by the opioid addiction/overdose crisis in my country, I have suffered enough unrelenting ACE-related hyper-anxiety to have known, enjoyed and appreciated the great release upon consuming alcohol and/or THC. Yet, I once was one of those who, while sympathetic, would look down on those who’d ‘allowed’ themselves to become addicted to alcohol and/or illicit ‘hard’ drugs.
However, upon learning that serious life trauma, notably adverse childhood experiences, is very often behind the addict’s debilitating addiction, I began to understand ball-and-chain self-medicating: The greater the drug-induced euphoria/escape one attains from its use, the more one wants to repeat the experience; and the more intolerable one finds their sober reality, the more pleasurable that escape should be perceived. By extension, the greater one’s mental pain or trauma while sober, the greater the need for escape from reality, thus the more addictive the euphoric escape-form will likely be.
Lasting PTSD mental pain is very formidable yet invisibly confined to inside one’s head. It is solitarily suffered, unlike an openly visible physical disability or condition, which tends to elicit sympathy/empathy from others. It can make every day a mental ordeal, unless the turmoil is prescription and/or illicitly medicated.
During the first half of 2022 there were at least 1,095 lives lost in B.C. from toxic-drug overdosing, and more than 10,000 such deaths since April of 2016. Typically societally overlooked is that intense addiction usually doesn’t originate from a bout of boredom, where a person repeatedly consumed recreationally but became heavily hooked — and homeless, soon after — on an unregulated often-deadly chemical that eventually destroyed their life and even those of loved-ones. Either way, neglecting people dealing with debilitating drug addiction should never have been an acceptable or preferable political option.
But the callous politics typically involved with addiction funding/services likely reflect conservative electorate opposition, however irrational, towards making proper treatment available to low- and no-income addicts. Tragically and appallingly, it’s as though some people, however precious their souls, can be considered disposable.
Even to an otherwise democratic and relatively civilized nation, their worth(lessness) is measured basically by their sober ‘productivity’ or lack thereof. Those people may then begin perceiving themselves as worthless and accordingly live their daily lives more haphazardly. Sadly, many of the chronically addicted don’t really care if they overdose and never wake up. It’s not that they necessarily want to die; it’s that they want their pointless corporeal hell to cease and desist.