Ah, So You Poke The Hornet’s Nest?

What do you complain about the most?

I think that, perhaps, the above question was offered by someone who had read my last post. What they provoke in this way from others does not concern me. My insouciance will not be moved; my ennui will never allow it.

It is possible that some may, incorrectly, land on the certainty that I complain constantly without cease. Or perhaps that Taylor Swift is the main target of my criticism, my source of causticity, and its resultant acidic release.

Taylor Swift is rarely on my mind. However, even if I lack the respect I once had for her, she is hardly the muse responsible for my complete and unrelenting anger; she has no such power over me, and I realize how other people in her “cult” of unreasonable fans had swayed my opinion of her.

While the idea that I am an “anti-Swifty” may seem to set me apart from you and everyone you know, I am hardly a lone wolf in this area. For every Swifty, there are hundreds of people who are even more disenchanted, jaded, and weary of her. We have had enough.

I have gone astray, however, in calling the NFL a “fixed” sport. It seems to me that I’ve heard this before from kooks who love to sit around and, in a partly paranoid and delusional state, put hands to keyboard and declare that this event or that incident was the result of a conspiracy.

This nonsense became a conspiracy theory regarding the NFL. There is, however, little to no proof of any such thing. For one to exist, the conspiracy itself would have to be small or compartmented in such a way that if one person (it’s already happened with more than one), a player, coach, or owner leaked information on it, there would be serious consequences. For one, the biggest asset the NFL has is its fans. Imagine the terror they would unleash if they found or were presented with proof that everything is scripted, like the WWF (did John Stossel really have to ask)? I knew it when I was a kid. I could see that for every punch one wrestler threw, one of them would stomp as if it were a real blow. It covered what was usually just a lack of sound.

That fans bought it for so long horrified me. Every time Chief J Strongbow let himself get beaten enough to, were it real, fall down and die, only to suddenly go into a war dance and unleash his well-acted fury, I knew what I was seeing. However, I never made a big deal about it, and from 1974 to 2000, I rarely paid any attention to wrestling. That was excellent timing, as I consider, and I am not alone on this, 2000 to be the best year wrestling ever had, and one which could not be repeated. Yet I never heard any conspiracy theories about wrestling except for the hostile takeovers and buyouts that doomed the WWE to its present, boring state.

What vexed me recently into giving the NFL or Taylor Swift any room on my site may not have anything to do with sports-fixing. Then again, no one can prove that there does not exist any rigging or predetermined “script”, or that the obviously, flagrantly bad calls by the officials I have seen this season did not happen.

Detractors of the NFL conspiracy theories all point out that there are laws that bind the league to prevent any cheating or tanking in any way. However, I challenge you to give me one example of any corporate entity or company large enough to have the power to do things such as price fixing that actually follows the letter of the law, and I will call you on the spot for your proof, which you, of course, will not have.

What draws most of my complaints is hardly Taylor Swift or her newest temporary boyfriend. It isn’t the constant news coverage they get, nor is it the media telling people to watch them, to cheer them on, to love them. The romance will end badly. It may even be messy. I know this just as I knew that the Ravens were not supposed to win. The Chiefs were scoreless in the second half. They did not need to score; it was already over.

My biggest concern, and what I complain most about, aside from my failures and the attendant self-loathing they have caused, is the incredibly uncaring and cavalier attitude people have toward global warming, crime and corporate power, used to further threaten life on earth and steal money from people who do not have any. This corporate power is responsible for the shocking response to the Affordable Health Care Act.

Insurance companies write inscrutable policies that even established attorneys cannot unlock the secrets of. Between that and crime, a lack of governmental concern over firearm availability and the sickening statistics that this lack of concern reflects, people are dying.

These are not deaths from highway accidents, resort conditions, home, or household accidents. No, these deaths are the most heinous things that can happen to people: premature, hollow, meaningless, and unnecessary deaths. There is no glory, no honor, and nothing about such an ending that is good. It’s just evil and tragic.

Please note, I do not for one second believe in fate or “dying for a reason” or “it was his or her time” to go. That’s weak rationalization, which is to say, a pack of lies.

Perhaps you would like to tell a grieving spouse, parent, or sibling that their loved one was murdered by someone with an assault rifle because it was “their time” or worse, that it was “God’s will“. You deserve to be slapped if you say such things.

Answer this question: how many mass shootings took place in the United States in 2023?

You don’t know, do you? Because corporate news stopped telling you. I place even odds that nobody knows, that the books have been cooked to the point that the truth cannot be known. This would constitute a real conspiracy if I am even close. But no one can prove me right…or wrong.

Another killer is fentanyl. It’s everywhere. People claim that it’s a myth that police officers can’t be affected by just touching it or inhaling residual dust. We’re whitewashing a killer. The reason? No one wants to know about it. There’s almost as much misinformation on fentanyl as there still is about Covid-19.

Corporate media covers for corporations that are killing our last chances of surviving global warming. I’ve often said that the “temperature threshold” is already passed, and we’ve crossed the no return line drawn in the sand. No one can even see the line anymore; to many people have kicked sand over it. While wars continue, the need to cut reliance on oil is left out of discussion. We are, as a species, headed inexorably toward extinction. If there’s a way to stop that mass extinction, it lies more in the realm of fantasy than truth. I’m always sorry to write this, but I just don’t believe reliance on fossil fuels will stop.

What’s that you see in a child’s eyes? The desire to be a child, to play, be with friends, grow and become someone important?

Or do you see shock, mute and staring, after their home was destroyed by a rocket attack?

What’s that in that little boy’s eyes? Wonder at the world around him, the possibilities?

Or is it the dull stare of a little kid who’s just been raped by his father? Neither child can ever know trust again. Will never know peace or a world without the innocence it once had for them.

These are the things I complain about the most. The things I care about the most. Sometimes, I believe that we deserve to become extinct. God gave us a beautiful, bountiful place to live and the ability to thrive and to take care of what we’ve been blessed with.

But we deny his existence and fill fields that were once lush and beautiful with trees, grass, and flowers with sewage and toxic sludge.

Folks, those are the things I complain about the most. And I am not about to stop.

Endangered America

On October 31,1880, in Denver, rioting broke out and Chinese people were attacked, one killed, although I believe more died but were hidden in the reports. White “superiority” had always been around, but this event was something that needed an apology for.

More irresponsible decisions over mask mandates have come from major air carriers like Delta. It’s also a drop in mandates for Uber drivers and passengers. A federal judge struck the mandates down in a show of classic superiority from a bench. It also reflects political corruption. Judges are expected to be informed but fair and impartial. This one is neither informed nor impartial. Someone got to him. We’re talking bribery. No, don’t act surprised or as if my accusation is farfetched.

Florida’s problem with CRT is getting way out of hand.

We’ve never been more aware of the problem with Republicans and racism. Now it’s way out there. Approximately 41 math textbooks reviewed in the Sunshine State have been rejected because they use references to CRT. I think the hypocrisy here tells us all we need to know about Republicans. They scream about “cancel culture” when CSA monuments are removed, but banning books and the word “gay” are more damaging than a statue of Robert E. Lee being relocated to a museum. Florida has become a place where bigots, homophobics and women-haters can take refuge with their own kind.

I hope this summer, you will remember this, and boycott the entire state by traveling elsewhere. A country with so much to explore can certainly provide you with plentiful fun, from breathtaking scenery to amusement parks and hiking, camping and fishing or bike riding. Florida doesn’t deserve your hard-earned dollars. Carolina beaches are every bit as nice, and some nicer, than any in Florida. From the Florida state line to Massachusetts, there are awesome beaches.

Fentanyl overdose that killed Mac Miller in 2018 was sold by a dealer who just got sentenced to ten years. It isn’t enough. Ryan Reavis dealt counterfeit oxycodone that contained fentanyl. It killed the rapper. His attorney says he’s sorry (that he gets to see his family and Miller does not). That statement doesn’t work when a man is dead.

Miller died the same year as my son died, from the same drug. The rich and the powerful have caused people in pain to search for opiods on the streets — an inexcusable result of wrongful death and malpractice cases directed wrongly at honest physicians (and also at) pharma corporations. Recreational use and responsible use by individuals with chronic, debilitating pain are two different things, and overdoses, especially fatal ones, from drugs like oxycodone were either never tracked or were incorrectly classified. In fact, I can’t find specific numbers for any group except teens, and fentanyl overdose fatalities weren’t even tracked until recently. The rise of fentanyl as an additive to counterfeit drugs does coincide with the loss of accessibility of pain medication to patients who really needed it.

In other words, the restriction of pain treatment drugs caused desperate people to look for relief elsewhere, with high mortality rates being the result. And tracking those deaths is impossible because it was not done or it targeted teens only. I’ve read no source and seen no data I consider accurate in the least. The NIH reports are centered on teens. The CDC is preoccupied with COVID-19 and if they have been tracking fentanyl overdose deaths, I found little evidence of serious research.

People I know are currently suffering unbearable pain, myself included, and are being denied relief. They are labeled “addicts” and if one should have a mental illness listed in their file, the answer will always be, ” no, it’s all in your head.” The compounded stigmatization is humiliating and shameful and can cause people to end their own lives. Better that than lying about, useless, embarrassed and groaning in pain.

Meanwhile, deaths from China White climb. No one wants you to know this. If you know, you can take that information and throw it in the faces of the men who control prescription drugs.

We are a nation (United States) of barbarians and corrupt leaders. Republican politicians get all the pain medication they need. All the kiddie porn their jaded souls can take. Even street drugs are no problem: give them all drug screens and watch them howl in protest. They’ll refuse. But let an everyman or everywoman have a verified medical condition. One that keeps them in pain so intense that they go to street dealers. They’ll all die, of course. No one sheds one tear. Better to have them off the Medicare rolls than give them legitimate treatment, right?

Because that’s what it comes down to. Making millions suffer because they’re afraid of lawsuits. Looking up the arses of doctors and preventing them from actually being doctors.

And whether you like it or not, corrupt judges exist and corrupt politicians are part of our reality. Our focus should be on those who clearly don’t care about the people who voted for them, or anyone else. Republican politicians routinely challenge or violate the Constitution. And where do you think it will end?

I’ll give you a hint: you won’t like it. Please consider this when voting. Heartless Republicans — or Those who have fought them. Fascism or liberty? Humanity or barbarity?

You have to choose.

Private Graham Should Not Be Dead

Sometime, on the morning of 31 December, 2020, Private First Class Asia Graham, 19, was found unresponsive in her billet at Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas. This Wednesday the MEs report on the cause of death was released.

Fentanyl mixed with synthetic cannabinoids. Not that the mixture mattered; the fentanyl alone would have killed her. It’s what killed my son, so I know a bit about it. Far more potent than morphine, it suppresses pulmonary function to the point of stopping it. The heart stops afterward.

Cardiopulmonary arrest and quick death. Almost impossible to intervene unless another person sees the event and has Narcan ready. Even then, some fentanyl OD survivors never fully recover and it’s heartbreaking to see.

The Army Times article doesn’t say whether she had any drug abuse history. Of course once one enlists, blood and urine test results determine if the recruit will be accepted for training. The tests are repeated and a battery of vaccines are administered upon arrival at the training facility’s reception center. Only then does an enlisted man or woman enter basic training.

But a month out of basic training and advanced training for her choice of job, fresh in the First Armored Division, Graham was raped while unconscious. One year later she was dead, and during that year, despite her reporting the crime to military authorities, her violator struck two more times. Imagine that.

What must it feel like to be in the same unit as your rapist and know that he was free to offend two more times at least?

Well I can’t tell you that, but went through over a decade of rape and other sexual abuse and knew that both parents did it to everyone else in the family of four boys and four girls. Had there been any other siblings they’d have been given the same “education”. Eight wouldn’t be enough.

As for her sad and lonely death, only PFC Graham knew how she really felt. Drugs? I don’t know if she had been a user prior to enlisting, but she was clean long enough to get through some tough training and that’s all I need to know. So whether she self-medicated, or suffered a relapse, it doesn’t matter. She’s dead.

I can tell you one thing in general about being unconscious and raped while you’re out. I can tell you lots of things about being raped while you’re conscious. The feeling of being dirty. Of having been violated. And the guilt that doesn’t belong but is there just the same. There’s no difference in general. Some feel that that one is worse than the other. The victim reacts and is traumatized either way.

A young woman trained to protect us. You and me. A promise of the chance to achieve great success ruined by a sick young man who has nothing to give that this country should ever want and surely never needed. A sick man who just began his first week of court-martial hearings.

And with the Army and the DoD’s track record of total silence on sex crimes and of greasing the skids so men generally get away with such evil crimes and the utter failure of the CID to function properly, it may be a long one. And the two surviving victims may go through the trauma of testifying for nothing.

Because it’s still the same goddamn apparatus engaged in the trial that let PFC Christian Alvarado free to claim two more victims before his first one died.

The Army has vowed to rewire its system for handling sex crimes.

They should not need to.

But women are victimized almost, it seems, with Command approval.

And PFC Asia Graham is dead.

Tears In Heaven?

He did it to himself. The syringe was found half empty on the bathroom floor. Nobody forced him. He wasn’t tied up and injected like Popeye Doyle in “French Connection II” which, unlike the first movie wasn’t based on a true story but was total bullshit.

Nobody coaxed, talked him into it or dared him. Nobody knew he was going to die and nobody who knew him failed to be horrified and traumatized by his death.

The cops, New York’s finest, tossed the apartment in an illegal search. It must have been a bad night, and no police officer ever liked getting a radio call for a DB. But on a cold night in New York, snow and ice everywhere, blackened by automobile exhaust, with a new strain of Covid out there, hell no.

The girlfriend was treated as a criminal, like an animal. Given a blanket and told to sit on the hallway floor. While they tore the apartment up looking for kingpin-sized stashes that didn’t exist.

The search produced nothing and if it had would have been inadmissible in a court of law.

The man was young, not old but certainly no teenager; his history of abuse telling his age. He was not a criminal and made no trouble. His heart was such that he wanted to help people. Which he often had. But for himself, he could spare no such help, none of the guidance he’d offered others, and nothing of the training he had in becoming a certified EMT. Because that’s how The Disease works.

So, in an effort to wean himself from methadone and get out of the system forever, he began, at some point, using again. That’s all too common. You’ll see why.

The 60s and 70s: Goddamn Hippies Everywhere

There was once a TV guide that came free with every copy of Baltimore’s Sunday Sun and The News American newspapers. Each was different in font but let people know the network’s and independent station’s television lineup for the coming week. In The Sun’s version there was a crossword puzzle in the back, and a cartoon page with “Channel Chuckles” by syndicated cartoonist Bil Keane of “Family Circus” fame. It featured insane characters like “Aunt Tenna” who was alternately obsessed with and disgusted by certain shows or commercials. Dated and stereotypical, it didn’t age well, but at times was funny if you got the joke. Today most people wouldn’t. Even the name “Aunt Tenna” would be lost on many people whose TV didn’t come with an antenna, and rooftop versions still standing are mere skeletons of an era long before they were born.

But also in that back section were some things like public service ads. One was a full page drawing of a man titled “How To Identify An Addict”. It depicted a young man in long sleeves, bell bottoms and wearing sunglasses. Lines drawn to certain parts were labeled “Sunglasses to hide bloodshot eyes”, “Red, runny nose”, “Long sleeves to hide track marks”, and so on. This was the golden age of the hippies, counterculture, free sex, tons of drugs and the emergent electric rock. The age when the Beatles no longer sang “She Loves You” or “I Want To Hold Your Hand” and went on to fields of strawberries, vexing parents even more than they had been in 1964.

Woodstock shocked so many people that by 1971, the public service ads changed forever. This public service ad character once urged people to read labels for safety. Then, in the days when the problem with DDT became a headline topic, it changed, extolling the virtues of pesticides. Which really is important, because we can’t eat oats anymore.

Every teen was demonized. If they wore certain clothes they were automatically drug addicts, and if they wore “nice” clothes and got straight A grades in school, then they were athletes or sticks in the mud and probably would turn into drug addicts in college. That’s what older people thought and parents drove themselves to drink worrying about.

Drug abuse was a real problem and it was spreading from urban areas to Elm Street. Truckers who needed to stay awake used Dexies and Bennies, then to come down and sleep without a crashing effect would use Reds and Yellow Jackets. On campuses, both prep and public high school as well as college, amphetamines reigned, helping kids to remain alert in boring lectures or to “cram” for exams.

There was a beginning of awareness of drug use and the words “treatment” and “help” were thrown about by the media and political bodies and officials, but that was lip service; nothing good ever came of it. Usually if caught dirty, or in possession, depending upon the place (economically) or on skin color, clothing and hair length, central booking and jail time came next, or as in the case of a suburban white kid, it would be a release to parental custody. But many young people endured hard abuse at the hands of parents who were horrified that their precious Johnny or Charmaine could do something so despicable and evil. They would sleep deprive them and grill them long into the night as to who “gave” them drugs or “made them” take drugs. And depending on the drug, parents reacted differently. If cocaine or heroin was involved, the world had come to an end. Families ended. Marriage did not survive the wedge driven between an angry father and a grief-ridden mother, or vice versa. Religious beliefs and practices or affiliations made everything worse; and that rarely ended well. From celebrities to ma and pa down the street, all had to deal with kids dead of overdoses, whether intended or not.

Sometimes parents rode their kids so hard that the drug won and suicide was the price.

Families burying an overdosed child were often viewed differently afterward, treated as though their house was cursed or some kind of plague house, and friendships, even long standing ones, ended with not a word spoken.

I saw all of this. Lived through my own hell and my search through drugs for relief. I heard all of the slang, knew people who died, hated first the hippies because I was in a conservative, religious house, then the whole god damned world for standing by and allowing kids to die of overdoses, allowing kids to be raped and beaten, for calling victims awful names and locking them up. For everything.

The Scam War On Drugs And The “Just Say No” Joke

There never was a war on drugs. A war on people of color perhaps. Don’t be surprised by this; everything is always about money, and lots of money always corrupts. From the Reagan administration and Nancy Reagan we got a drug “czar” and “Just say ‘No’ (to drugs)” and shit got worse. Crack hit the streets. PCP and LSD went out and pot, pills, crank and crack ruled. Dealers were everywhere in schools, waiting just beyond the playground if they were older, in alleys, on corners and the workplace. And the young and old alike died by the numbers.

Along with addiction came crime; the need to get well drove desperate people to the most extreme ways. More injured, traumatized and dead because of illegal drugs.

February 14, 2018

The Last Day

My son Mike Jr. had been addicted to pain killers for at least 15 years. By 2010 he could take a 30 day supply in two days. Then he’d be dope sick and a horror. On top of being autistic and having other problems, this made him a monster.

I won’t go into those details about being a monster, but let it be known that his doctor did not help. Dr. Udochi fed him the percocet for years and suddenly cut him off. I don’t necessarily blame her, he was eventually flagged and was doctor shopping, and he was often unruly in the examination room.

By November of 2017, he, like so many others who had suddenly been denied opioids because of the “crisis” they had caused, bringing death and lawsuits for everything from malpractice to wrongful death.

In November my son got a hold of something I’d never heard of. He bought percocet on the street, but it was a pill made with fentanyl in it. He dropped immediately and required CPR. But there was a delay; some brain damage seemed apparent. In hospital he was very confused, unable to focus, forgetting that he’d just asked the same question a few minutes before, and I thought he’d never come back.

A few weeks later, it happened again. The first time he had described Heaven, seeing his sister there, and running around with her on beautiful green grass. His grandfather was there, reading a newspaper and watching them. He wanted to go back.

When my daughter died on 5 July 2012, they had her on life support but turned it off because her brain stem had no bloodflow. After “partially drowning”, as the medical examiner’s report said, she spent 24 hours ventilated. It crushed us all. I was there when the machine was turned off. My son and I cried outside, hugging each other and I felt his grief, so intense that it practically bled through his very pores. We’d been close, the three of us, before and after the divorce. In a way, Mikey took the divorce harder than she did and he clung to her for stability and her own suffering; together they were stronger. With her death, he was never the same. The drug abuse intensified.

Three times he would overdose on the fentanyl-laced pills. At the time there was no fixed name for the mixture so an old name for a different version caught: “scramble.”

And each time he had to be revived, and each time he had to be admitted to Howard County General Hospital. The last time, as he was dressed to leave, the doctor told him, and I heard it, that his liver and kidney functions were not normal. He had two referrals for specialists but I knew Mikey wouldn’t go. He had no insurance and Social Security had cut him off and demanded he repay every dollar he’d received even though he had qualified. He was a young man destined from the minute he was born to never have an even marginally normal life, and I knew it was over when I heard the doctor tell him his kidneys and liver were failing.

But I thought we would have more time. He did visit me on Christmas of 2017. The day was over too fast, and I never saw him alive again. We talked, but he wasn’t well, and on Valentine’s Day of 2018 the street drug won. He died and wasn’t found for hours. He had already gone cold and blue.

His mother didn’t have a funeral or wake. They planned a barbecue in the yard of their mobile home. Seemed more like they were celebrating being rid of him than mourning. I thought, Fuck them. That’s some cold shit.

All that’s left for me is pain to go with my memories. A broken heart so beyond repair that I shun closeness and I’m deathly afraid of losing someone, anyone else, that I love. I had cruel words for my siblings when they didn’t really react to his death. But that was my fault, not theirs. I wondered what would happen to me if any one of them died next. I did not wish to find out. Distance was good, isolation even better. I’ve grown adept at avoiding pain. I have enough of it.

New York

The man died with a half-empty syringe. Nobody who has a reliable connection does that. You don’t horse out unless it’s junk laced with shit. Additives have always been used to cut junk. Some would do it shitty, like with rat poison. In small amounts that can be tolerated, but that’s with ingestion; injection leaves no room for fucking around. You drop.

Sometimes it’s just a hot bag, too pure, and the respiratory system is so repressed that the heart stops.

But that’s not happening much now. The death toll from fentanyl is no joke; this bag was hot because fentanyl was added to the smack.

The first thing I asked was, “Why? Why the fuck would anyone do that and kill their own customers?”

There is no sensible answer.

The goal is to provide a more intense high because the H is cut too much. It can’t give the satisfaction a customer needs. Being addicted to heroin is a road trip to Hell. And you can’t control it; you get terribly sick between hits. “Getting well” is all you think about and until you do you’re a mess. It twists your gut with the first moments of withdrawal and gets horrible from there. Pain. Shaking, sweating, nausea, vision in and out, vomiting if it goes on too long. And a deep hunger like nothing else. You’re in Hell.

When the man in New York bought his bags of heroin he could not have known some were hot. You’d have to test it to know that. And you’re going to be surprised that many users do test for fentanyl because it’s too common a problem these days. Getting off methadone and free of drugs and the System is a desirable goal, but most end up in the program for years. You can’t travel. They won’t give you the supply for it. You can’t get snowed in, catch the flu, miss the bus. The methadone becomes the drug you’re now a slave to.

I know why he was doing H again. It’s bad logic, and it got him killed. But this is how it ends for so many. He’s not the first and will not be the last.

As I write this, the DEA has just seized 50,000 counterfeit percocet in Vegas laced with fentanyl. That’s potentially 50,000 deaths. No, that’s not hyperbole; the drug is used for severe pain and can only be dispensed by doctors and then as sparingly, with as much supervision, as possible. Doctors don’t relish losing a patient; therefore when administering this drug they take pains to see that everything is done by the book. Without a doctor’s supervision, fentanyl cannot be safely used. It simply kills people.

Morphine was a popular 70s drug on the street. Fentanyl is dozens of times more powerful, yet look at the statistics for morphine related deaths and the picture in your mind should be scary as hell. And fentanyl is everywhere now. In everything. Now, not a single street drug is remotely safe.

A good man died in New York. His mother and twin sister are devastated; they now know the pain I know. The pain too many of us know. He’s not even a name anymore. He’s a statistic. Just another fucking number to the feds and the state of New York. His girlfriend lies in a hospital, broken. No one knows her pain but her. And she’s not talking.

I understand death. I do not fear it. Not for myself. I fear it for others; I know the hell visited upon the families and friends of those who leave us. The people we love the most.

God damn drugs.

On February 14th I passed the third anniversary of my son’s death. I miss my kids. It seems like yesterday that I held them in my arms. That I talked to them in baby talk while they hungrily drank their formula and with tiny hands reached up to touch my nose.

Yet…it was a lifetime ago. And I never saw anything bad back then. Only blessings wrapped in soft blankets. They deserved so much more. So much more.

I sometimes play this song and wonder.

Did my Mikey see his sister in Heaven?

Did they run and laugh under a cerulean sky, barefoot in lush green grass?

Are they there, will they know me if I make it there someday?

Will my tears stop…in Heaven?

The Worst Anniversary

I lost my son two years ago on this day. It was Valentine’s Day, 2018. He died almost immediately after taking a single dose of a street drug.

Here is an excellent list of the deadliest drugs. You need to read it, because at one time or another, chances are, you’ve been on or used them. Most are prescription drugs or even over the counter drugs. Easily obtained, most of them legal. Number one will shock you. I was surprised that I’m on or use more than four of them yet have never been warned by a doctor or pharmacist of how they can interact with horrible results.

But my son didn’t die from any of these. It was fentanyl, an opiate much more powerful than morphine. If the dose is too high, as the street version almost always is, especially mixed with heroin, the result is depression of respiratory function, quickly followed by pulmonary shutdown. If not found and quickly treated by CPR and Narcan, the victim dies; biological death doesn’t take very long.

When my son was checked on by his mother, he was already blue and had vomited just before going fully unconscious. At the time he would not have been able to speak. No cry for help. Just a suffocating death.

If you have heard of fentanyl but don’t seem to anymore, there’s some parents in Ohio you might want to consider. This sad and horrific story should break your heart.

My heart is broken. Has been so many times I’ve lost count. You begin to wonder how much a heart can take. I’ve often wondered how I’ve taken so much and lived. The deaths of my children have left me with a mind that avoids thinking about what happens after death; where they are. After his first fentanyl overdose my son was changed. He talked of seeing his sister in Heaven, of running and playing on lush grass with a happy heart. Months later I got the call from his grandmother. The call I’d known was coming but dreaded. My boy was gone.

Fentanyl simply kills. Patches for pain relief are serious business. First responders to a street version overdose wear hazmat gear. They have to. A few grains of powdered fentanyl are as strong as half a bottle of morphine. Merely touching it is extremely dangerous.

Narcan is essential to have on hand when you live with an opiate addict. Unfortunately, the death toll from fentanyl goes on.

In an instance where a user is unresponsive, administer the Narcan. Start CPR if necessary. Call 911; there’s no time for Poison Control. It’s life or death. Mostly its death. You can never stop it all. Addicts lie. They tell you they’re clean. Ask for money for McDonald’s or a pack of cigarettes. Next thing you know you’re standing beside a coffin in a fucking cemetery.

I can’t advise you. I’m sorry. All I can do is grieve with you.

Father and Son

He didn’t listen. He could no longer hear.

Father and Son at the end of the journey.

From a Facebook post two years ago this day, December 21, 2017…

He still dreams. He can do that. I’ve always believed that as long as someone can dream, they can live. Because to know a dream is to have hope. With hope, anyone can survive.

Well, I may have been mistaken. And I’ll get to the why part in a minute. Right now, I feel like telling anyone who will pay attention that for two years running, the life expectancy of an average American has dropped. I remember when it was supposed to be rising. It doesn’t seem like it was very long ago. But the reason, or most of the reason as I understand it, is drug use. As in, opioid addiction.

Overdoses cause traffic, work and domestic deaths, and the numbers are staggering. But the drugs under the opioid nomenclature also cause death from long term use. I’m not going to pretend I’m a health expert, and it’s really simple anyway. In the long term, doses need to be increased to maintain efficacy. The body gets resistant. And alone with a bottle of Percocet (oxycodone) and a nasty set of withdrawal symptoms, anyone will take more than their prescribed dose. It happens. It is not restricted to any demographic. It crosses every line into every corner of our country regardless of education, intelligence, income, race, religion or occupation. And there’s not really anyone to blame, because it’s past time to bother with that. When this many (NHCS reports 63,600 deaths from drug overdoses in 2016) people are dying, it is time to figure out what to do to stop it. Nothing else matters.

Recently, the surge of an old enemy, the street drug known as Scramble, has become dangerously available, and people scoring what they think is heroin with a few added ingredients, but nothing exotic, are really buying a substance that’s about to drop them. And sometimes when they drop, they can be saved. And sometimes they can’t be.

First responders need to know things, really before they arrive to a scene, what’s going on. If they can get Nalaxone, or Narcan, into a patient fast enough–or better yet, if a family member or caregiver can have it handy–then respiratory function can be kept up until oxygen or a respirator, as necessary, can be used. In too many cases, heroin mixed with fentanyl causes almost instant reduction in respiration rate, and if it gets low enough, or stops, the cardiopulmonary process stops. Death is minutes away without CPR.

Well with all that, you’d think that once around the block with an experience like that would scare someone into being less inclined to risk it again. But that’s not what happens.

The Scramble combination is powerful. And usually there was already an opioid addiction, and the supply runs short because they have to take a thirty day supply in a few days, or because a doctor has suddenly cut them off–oh yeah, that happens. Not all doctors are necessarily nice people. So an addict looks to the street dealer for help. With fentanyl involved, it’s a dead end street.

I understand this. I’m going through it with someone close to me. I’ve gotten three calls in one month informing me that this family member has overdosed and is in or on the way to the hospital in an ambulance. Three times. Two were within three days of each other.

The reason I may have been mistaken about my philosophy on dreams and hope and survival? He has dreams. But he’s going to do it again. Getting him help depends mostly on his willingness to help himself. Then there’s the kind of help available. If the problem was alcohol, it would be no problem. They would do detoxification at the hospital. Here, that does not apply to drug addiction and repeated overdoses.

All substances allow you to keep your dreams when you’re not at the extremes of a high or withdrawal. But they’re not enough, dreams. Neither is anything else. A spouse, fiancee, loving family, a great job…once the opioid use goes into overdrive, not much can stop it. The numbers say it plain: Death is stalking the user.

I hear an old man’s voice in the throat of my son. I see Hell in his face. And sure enough, the word came: kidney and liver function are off. That’s one of the long term results of being hooked. And I have had to watch it, and I’ve begged, warned, cried, expressed my deepest fears to him…and it does no good. I don’t want him to die, of course. But I can’t stop it from happening.

I’m not here to give anyone advice. I don’t have any to offer. I’m not here to educate; I’m not qualified. I’m not even complaining; no one cares. I’m just saying that we are facing too many crises at once, and it seems we’re losing a couple of battles here. We can’t have that. But instead of hearing reasonable talk and thoughtful discourse, all I seem to be getting is people who are bigoted saying things like “it’s poor people, let them kill themselves”, or “that’s a black problem. So what?”

On the other hand, big pharma doesn’t want too many restrictions, it’s bad for business. Corporate heartless protocols.

Well. We’re dying. That’s what I know.