The Safest Place
February 14, 2021
I am deeply saddened by the news that Laura Berman and Samuel Chapman lost their son on Sunday, February 7th, 2021 to a fentanyl-laced “Xanax” overdose. What that means is that that pill was probably manufactured in some basement somewhere and looked the same as a real Xanax pill. It was not!
It is my strong belief that anyone, individuals, companies, and even countries, that knowingly sell, distribute, or cut fentanyl with any other substances to use outside of its designed use, should be prosecuted at the maximum penalties the law allows. Fentanyl, a synthetic opioid, was designed to relieve pain, initially, in cancer patients who had built resistance to morphine and other traditional pain medications. Fentanyl is 50 to 100 times stronger than morphine, that’s powerful and deadly in the wrong hands. Carfentanil is an analog (related substance) of the synthetic opioid Fentanyl. The Belgian doctor Paul Janssen first synthesized Carfentanil in 1974. Beginning in the 1980s, Carfentanil began to be used as an ingredient in Wildnil®, a tranquilizer for large mammals such as horses and elephants. Doctors in the United States do not prescribe Carfentanil to human patients because the Opioid is so powerful. Carfentanil is 10,000 times more powerful than morphine. That is not a typo! Any person, company, or country that knowingly makes available Fentanyl and Carfentanil is a murderer and should be prosecuted at the highest level of severity the law allows, all of them!
With the wave of chaos that flooded our world in early 2020, COVID 19, everything else has been overshadowed by the Corona Virus. This includes deaths by overdose.
Back in Spring 2020 the CDC and NAMI released reports that indicate episodes of people experiencing mental health symptoms have increased dramatically. Especially among those who are in their early teens. Along with that overdoses are up and will top out over 80,000 for 2020, more than ever before. Somewhere over 80% of those deaths will be from opioids and over 75% of those will be the result of Fentanyl and Carfentanil laced opioids.
The reality is that right now there is a mom and dad who are devasted, trying to find answers that they will not find, and they are in desperate need of healing. My prayers are with them, and everyone that loved someone lost to a drug overdose.
I have never been more convinced that the key to overcoming addiction and mental health issues is being deeply connected to community. By that, I simply mean in meaningful relationships. It is what human beings hunger for, and it often is what leads a person to addiction when not experienced in functional ways for many different reasons.
We live in a society that fuels the lack of community. Add to that the isolation that many feel due to COVID restrictions and the trend of our world to really disconnect through tools that make them think they are connecting, we are not. Of course, a lot of this is linked to the social media world but there are many more factors that contribute beyond the scope of this post. A recent documentary called the “Social Dilemma” explains some of this. Here is a link to Simon Sinek’s FB page that gives simple ideas on how to build connection in the COVID 19 era “Social Distancing Without Disconnecting”.
Mental health struggles and addiction increase in a world where there is a greater sense of this fragmentation. We are living in that world.
Kent Dunnington, author of “Addiction and Virtue” explains it this way:
“Who you are – who your in group is – and how you should structure your day provides a sense of organization and purpose” – Kent Dunnington
Someone fighting addiction or mental health can find this purpose and structure even in the chaos that their struggles present.
Part of the danger is that the addiction/mental health becomes their world, in every way. I once heard a writer illustrate this point regarding connection when they were explaining the importance of you and I just being a friend to someone facing a mental health issue, and I believe, someone fighting an addiction. What the author was pointing out is how a person in treatment or care can get to a place where they feel every single person in their life is there because they are either getting paid to or must be there. Their doctor, therapist, and, although there are benefits to this, their support group or people facing the same challenge. He explained that that can wreak havoc on the person internally, so they need people to be with them that are there just to be there, as a friend.
For someone facing an addiction, the substance or behavior of choice can provide the same. Sounds weird I know. The writer of the book “Junky” said this:
“My whole life was measured out in eye droppers full of morphine solution” William Burroughs
I think about it, I talk about it, I see only other people that do the same and I wonder: “Why can’t I break free?”
For those of us who try to help our loved ones, we can provide and be something different. For someone fighting an addiction find some people that care, that have nothing to do with the world you are trying to escape, I mean that in a healthy way.
You have choices, make the ones that will help you and your loved one the most!
This weeks featured image is by Brooke Shaden called “The Safest Place”. Writing about the image in her Flickr account (here is the link: the safest place | Today the image was inspired by the incom… | Flickr) she said this “I watched as so many people sought shelter from their own personal storms – life, all of it’s hardships, fears, anxieties – they wanted so much to be protected from them. I wanted the opposite; not always because it was fun, but because I had this unending feeling in my stomach telling me to embrace what is uncomfortable.”
This deeply saddens me and I will lift this family in prayer. Only God can comfort them. He can heal the broken heart & He is our promise keeper. I stand with them in this time of sadness. I pray they accept Gods’s promises and His covenant of love & compassion.