Very few lives haven’t been impacted by addiction – whether it is alcohol, or drugs. And even more lives have suffered the loss of a loved one due to an overdose.
The drug epidemic in the U.S. is disconcerting. More than 100 people die each day from an overdose, most from prescription drugs.
Today is International Overdose Awareness Day. Remember those we’ve lost, and do everything you can to help those afflicted.
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Author: E.M. Murphy
A voracious writer, lifetime learner and eternal seeker who aims to open minds and hearts.
Armed with a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and a NASM Certified Behavior Change Specialist, humanity and humor is at the heart of my writing, reminding us that the key to success will always start with a genuine concern for others while making sure to be true to our authentic selves.
View all posts by E.M. Murphy
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 permanently cease and desist.