Thinking About Addiction

It’s simply evidence of the shift by chronic users to a cheaper, more readily available alternative.

Kids in the audience already know someone who uses drugs without appearing to suffer much from it. Assertions to the contrary by some stranger are automatically dismissed.

Then again, there was a time when heroin addiction was primarily an urban phenomenon, and that didn’t last.

If by chance the patient didn’t fit the physician’s preconception of an addict– he or she was a respected member of the community, for example– then the doctor often fell into the enabler role.

It takes thirty seconds to write a prescription… that fits very well into a scheduled 15 minute office visit.

In that respect, you could say that our ally in change is addiction itself.

Problem is, we in the general public don’t like being made to wait. We want answers, and we want them to be final.

The system that was supposed to help them was unwittingly undermining their recovery.

Chimayo and surrounding Rio Arriba County have long struggled with heroin overdose rates that exceed ten times the national average.

As one longtime Capitol Hill figure told me, “you can get anything accomplished as long as you’re willing to share the credit– especially with those who don’t deserve it.”