33.
Curt Hall, a 33-year-old former heroin user who has been in recovery for eight years, knows more friends, acquaintances and clients who have died from overdoses. Mr. Hall is currently the director of operations at Hope House in Mount Sinai, New York. Hope House is a faith-based human services agency that provides residential and outpatient care to people in crisis.
How will such huge losses be handled? Or is it?
“I definitely felt like I couldn’t talk about this with certain people,” Hall says. “I felt like I couldn’t be open about it, that I couldn’t grieve. It was like I had to pretend. Pretending caused strange things to happen in my head. The switch was turned off.”
“People tend to compartmentalize their grief and treat it separately,” said Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist, associate director of child and adolescent psychiatry at Long Island Jewish Medical Center, which includes Zucker Hillside Hospital and Zucker Hillside Hospital. says Dr. Victor Fornari, department chair. Cohen Children’s Medical Center.
Hall, who has been in therapy for about eight years, said grief and loss were common themes throughout her therapy sessions.
“As a result of America’s decades-long opioid crisis, collective grief has gripped this country,” said Steve Chasman, LCSW, CASAC, executive director of the Long Island Council on Alcoholism and Drug Addiction.
Matthew Hubbard, 36, who is in recovery after 15 years of drug use, said he knows more than 40 people who have died from overdoses, including his best friend Alex. Matt says he coped with his grief and loss by getting high.
Now Matt is undergoing treatment and living at Hope House, dealing with his grief and trauma. When he was in a rehab facility in the past, he realized he had a lot in common with veterans and police officers.
“I’ve been through so much trauma that I realized I had more in common with Iraq veterans and police officers than with the average person,” he said. “I didn’t realize that I was so severely affected mentally.”
Not since the HIV/AIDS epidemic of the 1980s has youth communities been so devastated by deaths within their ranks.
Litza Williams, MA, LCSW-C and Eleanor Haley, MA, co-founders of the online grief community What’s Your Grief?, see many similarities between both epidemics.
“I think the HIV/AIDS epidemic and the opioid crisis are both impacting communities of people who already feel stigmatized. It makes me feel like I’m someone else, as if I’m being looked down upon. “In many cases, the people who are most affected by the grief and loss of the opioid epidemic are those who use drugs,” Williams said.
Grief processing for these “opioid epidemic survivors” can be complicated. This is because many of them are users and may even be participating in, or currently using, extremely dangerous activities. Stigma associated with drug use, whether past or present, can prevent grievers from sharing their feelings.
“One of the characteristics of these losses is that people feel stigmatized and don’t feel like they have the right to mourn publicly or in the same way,” Williams said. “Their grief is not understood, which means a huge number of people are not accessing services.”
Chasman added: “We are excited to expand these healthier opportunities as a way to recognize and provide support for the collective grief and loss we are all experiencing as a result of the opioid crisis that has spanned more than 15 years. It is extremely important,” he added.
Williams said that when people with substance use disorders (SUDs) share their grief with medical professionals, it’s likely to be ignored and overshadowed by the patient’s addiction.
One might think that losing a friend or loved one to an overdose or fentanyl poisoning would shock a person into abstinence. But that’s not the case, she added.
“When someone who is addicted loses someone, it often fuels the addiction because that’s how they cope,” Williams says. “They’re so embarrassed because this was supposed to be a wake-up call. They might think, ‘How can I take advantage of the day after my best friend died and get out here?’ What do you say about it?
“When I was shooting heroin, I didn’t care if I was alive or dead,” Hall recalled. “But I didn’t want to die. I just wanted to run away from my feelings. Now I’m very scared of dying, but that’s because everyone around me is dying. I don’t know. There’s definitely a part of me that wonders, ‘Why did I succeed and why didn’t they?’
Hall lost her best friend Jay two and a half years ago. Jay had been in and out of recovery for years, but his overdose shocked everyone.
“I think about him every day,” he says. “Jay had a son named Rain, but he was born after he died, so I never met him. I’m trying to live the life he’ll never be able to live. I’m trying to live the life he never got to live. I don’t know if I’ve ever grieved. I don’t think there’s a timeline for that.”
“I think people who have experienced severe adversity have to find a way to say, Okay, let’s turn adversity into strength instead of denying it,” Dr. Fornari added. “I’m not going to pretend, I’m going to wear it like a badge of honor. I’m going to try to help others, by doing things that help save those who aren’t saved. I think people can gain a lot of power and meaning from it.”
Hall said she is grateful for the fact that she is “one of the people who made it through.”
“I feel it’s my duty to share my story and be someone who doesn’t get caught up in or hide behind prejudice. Rather than mourn those who have died, I feel it is my duty to share my story and to be someone who doesn’t hide behind prejudice. I’m trying to survive,” Hall said.
“Going forward, it is up to us to recognize our collective grief and respond appropriately by creating services to support our people, our families, and our neighbors,” Chasman said.
Curt Hall visits Hope House’s memorial garden.
Source: Carol Trotter
Curt Hall stands near Hope House’s memorial garden, where a cross is engraved with the names of those who have died in the opioid crisis.
Source: Carol Trotter
