The struggles and triumphs of an addict

'Addicts perish on a lonely Island of Addiction in midst of a vast ocean of pharmaceutical prosperity' (a Dr King quote I fit to this narrative) Adverse childhood experiences (ACES) better known as trauma intertwine with teenage addiction into a strangling rope of death and family destruction. I have a story that resonates with our youth. I have a story that will save lives. This is not bravado or arrogance. It's me sharing my tragic circumstances and my mistakes. My journey from abandonment at birth to violent sexual abuse from 3-5. From falling asleep driving at 19, killing my friend, and breaking my back to 10 years later while only a semester away from a psychology degree and working in management at Citigroup getting in a 2nd accident and breakng my neck becoming disabled.  Sharing my 14 year struggle with a pain medication harder to quit than heroin. Sharing what a year of torturous withdrawal was really like, but most importantly sharing how the seeds of aband...

The New Jersey governor wants drug abuse to be treated like a public health crisis and not a condition that is shamed and stigmatized.  What do the HIV/AIDS crisis of the '80s and '90s and the current “opioid epidemic” have in common? According to New Jersey Governor Chris Christie—a lot.  “Think about what the response of America was in 1995. We had the National Institutes of Health and every private pharmaceutical company with the government’s support struggling to get treatments—not cures—to extend the lives of people who suffered from HIV and AIDS,” the governor said this past Wednesday during a press conference in Toms River. “I don’t get, feel, the same sense of urgency in this country about this problem.”  While Christie is not the first to compare the two public health crises, his message is a good reminder of how destructive it is to debase and shame another, based on harmful stereotypes. ...