Another Friend Taken by Addiction

I just received a call informing me a friend of mine was found dead this morning of an overdose. Ill call her Katy. Katy and I have known each other for a long time. She was a few grades below me in Jr. High and High School. Katy was always a sweet quiet girl. At some point Katy started to experiment with drugs and became a heroin addict. When I was clean and a police officer I pulled Katy over one time. I straight up asked her where the dope was and she told me she had already swallowed it. I took her syringes and her spoon and told her "Katy, if you don't stop you are going to die." She replied with the typical response of "I know." Unfortunately Katy didn't know because she died alone with her dope. We weren't best friends by any stretch of the imagination, but we were friends. It hurts me so deeply that addiction robbed her of a family, a chance at life, children, a successful career, graduating college, or any of the other things she could have accomplished had it not been for dope. Katy was truly a sweet girl. She had an illness that she just could not beat on her own. I hope she is finally at peace wherever she is.
I recently did an interview for Mississippi Public Broadcasting. It will air sometime in the next two weeks. I hope that my interview can reach just one addict and convince them that there is a way out. Since I first found recovery in 2002 I have personally lost over 60 friends as a direct result from their addiction. Heroin overdoses, Drunk driving crashes, murders, suicides, etc. All from addiction. Until we stop looking at addicts as low life criminals and start looking at them as people that are sick, just like a diabetic or a cancer patient, then we will never get better. Maybe I don't do enough to let others know that we are your next door neighbors, your ministers, your grocery store clerks, and even your husbands and wives. Maybe I should be more vocal about my recovery and not as ashamed of my past. Until addicts start a movement, much like homosexuals in the 80's, then we will continue to be shunned and hated by the public. God bless the addict who thinks there is no way out. Rest in Peace "Katy."




It is hard to understand addiction unless you have experienced it. - Ken Hensley