I wake up to the sight of nothing but blinding white.  My chest feels like there is a boulder crushing it as I desperately try to force air into my still lungs.

I am freezing. I am wet all over and if feels as though there is rain pouring over my body…ice cold rain.  My face is hot, burning with redness and feels of violence.  When I first come to, my reaction is to stretch my arms for the ceiling, reaching, trying frantically to grab air to put into my oxygen deprived body. 

Finally, the air begins to feed and expand my lungs.  It is one of the worst pains I have ever experienced. 

 

My head begins to clear a little.  I begin to get my bearings and realize that the reason I am cold is that there is ice all over me and all around me. I look up and a friend is on his knees beside the tub, appearing very frightened, holding his face and rocking back and forth. 

I reach out and lightly touch his arm. The look of relief on his face was like nothing I had ever seen before.  

He told me he thought I was dead…gone forever.

I come around enough to ask what happened. He tells me that I overdosed on a shot of heroin, that I turned white, my lips turned blue, then damn near turned purple.  It scared him so badly.  He drug me through the house and managed to get me into the bathtub – fully clothed.  Turning the coldest water on me, he ran to the kitchen and brought back a bag of ice, and poured it onto my chest. He was trying to shock me back to life. When it didn’t work the way he had hoped, he began doing sternum punches, a method of shocking the heart.  Then, out of his fear, he tried the old-fashioned slaps to my face.  

Nothing seemed to be successful and after four minutes, he gave up.

I came to on my own, feeling exhausted, high, and even more invincible than I had ever felt in my entire life.

I could have died that day.

But, truth is I took the risk of overdosing every single time I used heroin.  When you buy a bag of heroin, you have no idea what it has been cut with. It could be with something that reacts on that person by stopping their heart immediately.  It could be more potent than the last bag, causing instantaneous harmful effects.  

It is like playing Russian roulette with a needle.

One would think that an experience like that would have been enough to make me stop, or at the very least slow me down.  In truth, the edge I went to with that overdose was the line I wanted to push every time.  I wanted to be on the edge of the cliff of overdose, then back it up about 2 centimeters.  

I was on top of the world, in charge of my own destiny and survival…and honestly did not give a fuck about either.

Overdose in our country is a serious problem.  People – just like me - push the limits every single day and don’t make it to wake up in a cold shower. Parents have to bury children, children have to bury parents because of overdose.  It is a sad epidemic.

For at least eight years now, I have been an addict, recovering or active.  During that span of time, I have known at least 40 people who have died from overdose or from suicide that was directly related to addiction.

I hate it.

Those folks deserved so much more, but ended up just as lost as I.

No one on God’s green earth deserves to die with a needle sticking in their arm.  My hope is that we are able to find some unity in order to make a difference for folks who want and need it.

This may sound crazy, but one way to help is to sponsor a clean needle exchange, provide a supply of alcohol swabs – anything you can do to keep disease from spreading.  Provide naloxone kits for the one addicted to opiates, to heroin, or provide them to their families or loved ones.  Just because you don’t know anyone that is an addict (and the truth is – you probably do but it is a very well-kept secret) doesn’t mean you can’t try to save a life.

We are the most incarcerated country in the world.  More people are in prison in the U.S. today for drug offenses and addiction related offenses than the number of those in the entire prison system in 1976.  As a society, those who are addicted to drugs are shut out, shut down, shunned.  The judicial system is set up to punish – harshly - and all too often what is learned during those long hours behind razor wire is how to commit more crimes in order to survive…because even basic survival is difficult upon release.  We will be judged for the rest of our lives by the worst thing we have ever done, and a true chance at redemption is a shot in the dark.

One of the biggest missing pieces of the puzzle necessary for recovery to be successful is that of community.  Having a community of those who share the reality of addiction is important, but it is just as important to have an entire community that is there to support, to confront, to encourage and then believe in the one who is struggling to overcome this terrible disease.

Say a prayer for all those people in the streets, or those in the solitude of their own homes, or those locked in their offices, but all – in a sense – ripping and running, oblivious to the fact that they may be headed to the brick wall called overdose.  Work with the idea of making a difference in the life of someone who struggles with an addiction.  Commit to becoming their community. 

   

Open your heart with forgiveness and understanding and practice grace to the fullest extent of your heart.  Don’t ever give up on the one who struggles.

 

#let grace set the pace