Tag: Addicts

I have a habit of meeting random strangers. From the moment I learned to talk, I chatted it up with everyone I met. My dad said I’d make new friends every time we went grocery shopping. I’ve maintained that reputation as an adult, to my kids’ embarrassment. Not only do I meet pe...

A child grows up, attends college, obtains employment, marries, and starts a family. That young person, who is now an adult, developed an addiction to prescription medication. When he can no longer obtain the prescriptions, he becomes addicted to heroin. Now this person is a criminal because this pe...

People addicted to opioids have found a way to get high off anti-diarrhea medication, too. The problem is serious enough that U.S. Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb asked makers of loperamide, sold over the counter as Imodium AD, to change the way they package the ...

Let’s start by saying that labeling people as “addicts” is problematic. It blames individuals for the choices they were limited to due to systemic societal problems. That’s been my perspective since grad school, when my degree problem had a lot of overlapping coursework with ...

When Danny came into Lower East Side Services at 9 am after his first call to them, he spoke first with the director regarding intake services. Jamal ,the director, asked him specific questions about his usage, how often he used, in which way, and how much each time. After his interview with Jamal, ...

Where do we find some heroin addicts to speak to? This was the question that my team and I were faced with when building an opioid treatment program. The answer to that question turned out to be surprising. As a bit of background here, I’ve spent the last 3 years working with my team to bui...

See the girl in that image above? That was me. For years after recovering from opioid addiction, I struggled. Even though I was clean, I felt worthless. Hopeless. Like I’d lost my chance at life. I went through the motions each day, and for a long time, that’s how I thought it w...

When Jessie’s friends asked him why he’d arrived to footy 30 minutes late, he lied. The bus was running slow, he said — a nearly constant occurrence in Melbourne. When Jessie leaves his friends waiting, he usually blames it on the bus. On any given day, in public toilets around ...