Twelve years. It’s taken me twelve long years to move the word “surrender” from the abstract idea column to the action column. Surrender has become an action, rather than the absence of action. It has moved columns because I have learned it is, by far, the hardest thing to do. I have had some success with raising the white flag. I no longer have any preconceived notion of catching a thrown ball or successfully geolocating my way home from, basically, anywhere. But surrendering to the fact that I can not stop my own child from illegal drug use – that is heart-smashingly difficult. But reality k ..read more

This is the mantra of all SUD parents, everywhere, all the time, ad infinitum. It sounds ludicrous. Similar to “love the thief, but not the theft.” In reality it’s closer to “love the depressed but not the depression” because addiction is a form of mental illness. No question it can devolve into criminal activity: stealing, dealing illegal drugs, buying said drugs, assault and battery, prostituting, driving uninsured/unlicensed or under the influence, destruction of private property, skipping out on jobs/taxes/bills. If this feels like an unhelpful psychic dump – well, so be it. This is the un ..read more

When a family member relapses waking moments are not fully your own. Work seems less important. Socializing seems trivial. Food loses its flavor. Affection is harder to feel because sorrow has taken up residence in your breastbone and your heart can no longer radiate. You feel unjustifiably tired. Tears hang out right behind your eyeballs. It takes a lot of effort to keep them there. This is the time when I lecture myself to “pony up” because the disease is worse for those with SUD than it is for me. At least that is how I have always looked at it. But lately I have begun to second guess mysel ..read more

I have spoken three times at my town’s International Overdose Day. I live in Cohasset (which is Algonquian for “long rocky place”) and the town perches on the Atlantic Ocean just south of Boston. The center of our town has a historic common, or shared green lawn, that is ringed by stately 18th century homes of white clapboard. The wooden doors of these homes are accented by multi-paned transoms that wink in the light; the sort of confident wink that is completely appropriate in an upper crust sailing town. Standing in the center of the common, not far from the granite flag pole, one can gaze u ..read more

Do you remember when the local drug dealer was the high school kid with the chalk-painted Camaro who smoked during math class? Or maybe it was the friend twice removed who would set up lines of coke in shiny bathrooms of boom-boom-boom nightclubs? How about the neighborhood kid who rode his bike around town to deliver a mishmash of badly rolled joints? You would think to yourself, “Jesus Christ, am I the only one who knows what is going on around here?!” I am not trying to make light of drug dealing…but it was kind of quaint. It was simple. It was local. It was a much naughtier version of the ..read more

84 year old portrait artist Alice Neel said this to the renowned essayist Henry Geldzhaler. Well, she didn’t quite say this. Henry had asked Alice “does a good subject make a good painting?” She cheekily replied, “a good artist makes a good painting.” I like Alice. Alice paints large quirky portraits whose subjects have large soulful heads and bodies trapped in awkward poses. Her subjects seem to say “hey won’t you look at me?” while simultaneously admitting “I have no idea how I present myself.” After reading Alice’s interview I came away with the feeling that the subjects of her portraits ar ..read more

Groups exist: running clubs and bird watching clubs, weight watcher groups and book groups. People join because of a common interest or to encourage each other in a common pursuit. But did you know that some people willingly join groups they do not want to belong to?! My husband and I belong to one. We joined a support group for those who have a family member suffering from the disease of addiction. We joined because “life had become unmanageable” and changing the behavior of our child was not possible. Instead we learned that we, like the others, are powerless. The common thread that binds us ..read more

Pressed pills are counterfeit pills. And they are everywhere. If you are unfamiliar with them than you and I had something in common. We have all read about cash-only pill mills run by pain clinics. And individual crimes commited by those feeding an addiction: the raiding of medicine cabinets, the falsifying of prescriptions, doctor-shopping and faked injuries. But prescription pills no longer need to be hunted down because counterfeit ones can be delivered right to you. It’s an incredibly lucrative business. Consider that in the first seven months of 2020 the Minnesota DEA confiscated 46,000 ..read more

I have come to my summer porch to take in the late afternoon sun. The old porch is hexagonal and has two squeaky wooden doors, two ripped screens and a weathered mahogany floor. In one corner I spy a robust little pile of mouse droppings. They betray a foolishly circuitous trail; a rodent’s version of the Hansel and Gretel tale. Under the small wrought iron table I find two soft grey feathers. Feathers like those from the breast of a grey catbird. They lie discarded, side by side.  I can’t help but hope that she didn’t struggle too long before finding her way back to the opening in the ri ..read more

Life is a love poem. Most days I am sure of it, some days I am not. The days I am not are usually because I am astonished by extraordinary acts of greed. Examples abound. Never in recent history has the wage gap been this large. Agribusinesses poison our topsoil with dizzying amounts of pesticides to increase corn yields – which are then used to sweeten our foods to a sickening degree. All in the name of profits. I can think of a dozen more examples. I am sure you can too. Currently I am dumbstruck by the amount of greed the Sackler family showed manufacturing oxycontin. As the death count mou ..read more