The Secret, Silent Echo Of An Overdose

What happens to us when we lose another loved one?

We lost another perfect person.

The cycle of addiction, especially opiate use, is so often in shadow. You could be at Taix and get offered some wildly cut coke, maybe openly, maybe in the dining room, the bathroom fucked off.

And it’s a party. Everyone is having a loquaciously great time. You start running dope on foil or snorting China White or cutting Oxy, well. Now you are become Death, the destroyer of worlds.

And you put a needle in your arm? Pull the charge and the tie? Depress the plunger? Don’t ever fucking tell a soul. You will evolve into some monstrous being unworthy of love, safety, and care.

This admission, this honesty, this cry for help, causes flee. Creates a foundational disfunction for those who may judge, who may run. And that shame, that admonishment creates secrecy and isolation. Run, hide.

I would never condemn this action. I couldn’t handle it, myself, after a while. But I still think it has its worth. Especially when harm reduction and safe-use protections lift you up. Homeless Healthcare LA saved my life. So did a neighbor. So did my sister. So did my ex-girlfriend. All because they knew how to care for a drug user, or at the very least, cared for a hurting person in their hour of need. Policy and wealthy political pricks do not.

When we lose a brother or sister in this community it is so often silent and secret. The cause of death isn’t mentioned right away, not in the news or the Instagram post captions. There is an ask of respect for the family’s grief. Of course! And then later we find out. Like it was some dark shame that should be hidden and snuffed out from community knowledge.

But part of harm reduction is destigmatization. Not bullshit platitudes like “check in on your friends,” but screaming out loud: if you are a drug user, if you are shutting down your depression with opiates or anything else, I will help you. I will accept you and love you.

Carry Narcan and carry hope. I don’t mean to sound like a sappy son-of-a-bitch, but we will hold each other when no one else will. The silence we seek in quieting our awful thoughts is the only silence that should be struck out when one of us dies. None of us are alone—and the culture of cutting out this part of our lives abandons those in need.

I won’t be a party to it.