Dear Friends,
One April 21, 2016 pop icon Prince died of an opioid overdose from a ‘prescription’ pain killer drug called Fentanyl. Fentanyl an extremely strong painkiller that is 50 times stronger than morphine and 100 times stronger than heroin. Heroin is often laced with Fentanyl when sold on the streets to increase potency. You may recall last year’s tragedy, when 74 Chicago citizens overdosed in 72 hours due to a batch of heroin that was laced with too much Fentanyl.
Over the last couple of years, I have hosted tours and I been invited to speak to leadership in several affluent communities in State and out of State, as leaders are desperately looking for ‘best practices’ and real time, sustainable answers to this growing and urgent epidemic. In Illinois, unfortunately, budget challenges leave most communities stuck—unable to implement a better system for their communities, as the epidemic spreads and more lives are at risk.
Make no mistake, like any epidemic that spreads indiscriminately and that can touch anybody regardless of social and economic strata, this is a problem that affects all of us directly and indirectly and therefore, it is ALL of our problem. Therefore, it requires all of our attention and we must do our part to support solutions.
Prince’s death is a tragedy. I hope that his untimely death and that the unfortunate circumstances of his death serve to ignite the conversation towards real time mobilization of real solutions for the deadly and urgent disease of addiction. It is already costing us too many lives and it is touching almost 1 in 3 families today.
At A Safe Haven, the vast majority of homeless people we have served over the years have suffered from alcohol and addiction issues. Gratefully, the vast majority of the people we have served, today, are living positive and productive lives in long-term recovery.
I hope no more celebrities have to die to get our attention about the opioid crisis in our country and the widespread issue of addictions. Since the 1950’s, science has documented that alcoholism and addiction is a ‘disease of the brain’ due to the brain chemistry that changes from the drugs and alcohol use. It is also documented that 4 out of 5 heroin users today were first taking prescription drugs, making prescription medication the number one ‘gateway’ drug to heroin addiction.
I know many of us grew up listening and singing along to incredibly gifted artists who have succumbed to the disease of addictions, like Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson and now Prince to name a few. All of their music reminds me of a certain milestone in my life, whether it was elementary school, high school or college. In fact, early on in my career when I entered the field of finance, the first thing I did after I paid off my college loans, was buy “A Little Red Corvette”. I credit ‘Prince’ with that decision!
Today, the deaths of these high profile artists are associated with the most devastating epidemic affecting so many unknown and even forgotten people throughout our Country. I realize it is easy to pass judgment, as it seems so unnatural and self-inflicted, especially to most of us who have never been addicted. But like other diseases that have overcome stigma throughout the years, like breast cancer and AIDS, we are embarking on an era where the time has come to galvanize widespread support, understanding, and compassion for a disease that is costing the lives of too many people we know and love(d). We are all affected, either directly or indirectly.
The issue of addiction knows no boundaries and is spreading throughout rich and poor communities. It is affecting and taking the lives of our youth, veterans, women with children and even seniors as millions are unwittingly becoming addicted and overdosing. Regrettably, the incidence of addiction often stems from the unintentional consequences of a prescription drug that was due to an originally legitimate injury or sickness.
As far as disease outbreaks go, the disease of addiction has failed to see the sense of urgency and priority in our Country as Ebola, Zika or other viruses, even though it is spreading among populations and it is statistically just as devastating and deadly as any disease known to man.
The nature of the disease has been highly stigmatized, partially even due to recovery modalities that have advocated and encouraged anonymity. These may be contributing factors on how we may all have inadvertently ignored the disease of addiction, yet it has been at our own peril, both in terms of societal and financial costs. I hope for a day when someone in Recovery embraces their experience triumphantly, and can be celebrated as much as a ‘cancer survivor’ is today.
At a time when we are seeing political divisiveness on many social issues, opioid addiction is finally getting significant bipartisan interest and support in regards to rethinking our approach. We are leaning more towards providing people impacted by the disease more access to treatment services, we are considering more common sense police and prison reform policies for those whose non-violent problems with the law are rooted by the disease of addiction, and we are encouraging more employers to consider hiring ex-offenders in recovery to give them a second chance as a key component to breaking the cycle.
According to the American Medical Association and the World Health Organization, addiction has been defined as a disease, since the 1950’s. Essentially, a disease is defined by being chronic, progressive, and leading to death if left untreated. Although findings show that the disease of addiction cannot be cured, behavior modification, diet (i.e., no drugs or alcohol), and proper treatment can lead to remission, much like treatment for diabetes.
Since inception, our model was informed, developed and based on the real needs of over 100,000 real people caught in the throes of addiction with nowhere else to go, whether it was because they never had any access to resources or whether we met them after they exhausted all of their resources and after they had burned every bridge, including employers, family and friends.
Recently, in March 2016 President Obama announced his plans to address the prescription opioid abuse and heroin epidemic. There are 8 key elements of this $1.1 billion initiative: Expanding Access to Treatment, Establishing a Mental Health and Substance Use Disorder Parity Task Force, Implementing Mental Health and Substance Use Disorder Parity in Medicaid, Preventing Opioid Overdose Deaths, Expanding Public Health-Public Safety Partnerships to Combat the Spread of Heroin, Investing in Community Policing to Address Heroin, Tackling Substance Use Disorders in Rural Communities, and Implementing Syringe Services Programs.
At a time when we live in a politically divisive world, A Safe Haven applauds the President and the Speakers’ united front on poverty and drug issues and their efforts, initiatives, and financial support. However, at a time when we are experiencing an epidemic, the clock is not on our side and we need more than good intentions. We respectfully suggest that we must consider ‘credentialed community based residential care’ and supporting anchor organizations with scalable, proven and evidence-based models of performance based and results driven success.
As our Country is looking at this issue in earnest with the bipartisan support and with the Mental Health Parity Law that is needed to get implemented, we have the opportunity to help influence a better paradigm for addressing the issues of behavioral health, including drug and alcohol addiction, your voice is urgently needed to make sure that happens.
As a faithful friend and supporter, we know that you are as concerned about the issues of poverty, homelessness, and the growing epidemic of addictions, as we are. Together we have been there to help those in crisis since a time when no one in leadership would listen. Now that we have their attention, we urge you to weigh in on the importance of asking our leadership and elected officials at all levels to support and to budget for the ‘best practices in the field’.
For the first time in our lifetime, we have an opportunity to help shape the future and to help influence a better behavioral healthcare system that is designed to help rebuild the lives of our poor in their time of need, reverse the epidemic of addiction, and move people back into society with their pride and purpose restored.
Sincerely,
Neli Vazquez Rowland
