We’ve been experiencing the effects of this for some time. Our daughter is trapped in it and so many of her friends are caught in it, some have even died. To us, the treatment programs that our insurance money goes to, (not the money itself), seem very inadequate compared to the problem, four days in a detox and then being put on a waiting list for longer term care just doesn’t work. This wouldn’t work for cigarettes let alone a drug that compels otherwise normal children to claw at their own faces when they can’t get it. Like taking on the devil, and the Mexican drug cartels at the same time with a peashooter.
My wife and her friends, who see and feel the devastation first hand, have the right idea. A lot of these girls, mainly girls in our world, need a home, decent food, therapy yes, but more than anything they need isolation from the drug itself until they can be pronounced cured. And that takes a lot of time and a lot of commitment, something the mothers can provide if the resources are there.
Peter, you are so right. Heroin addiction is terrible disease with no easy cure. The good news is that available drug therapies for the addiction — yes use a drug to fight a drug — are helpful in reducing the harms.
I applaud you for considering also offering a supportive home environmnent. Let me know if you want me to help connect you to resources on that.
Thanks for your support. Governor Baker wrote in the Globe today of his support for increased support for drug based therapy. The drug (Suboxone) therapy helps somewhat, and I’m sure the statistics must favor its use, but our experience is that it really hasn’t stopped the progression. It’s very difficult to accept the condition in more or less the same way we make peace with having a family member with terminal cancer. It’s also very strange for the parents of so many to be thinking and saying “just lock them up”, and stranger still that many of them agree.