My brother, an addict

Did you know that overdoses are the LEADING cause of death among Americans under 50? 64,000 people lost their lives in 2017. Those people? …well, they are our neighbors, they are our friends, and they are, sadly, members of our own families.

We lost my brother 3 weeks ago. Now his death will be quietly filed into 2018’s statistics whether we want it to or not. What I haven’t been comfortable enough to share with most yet is that my big brother was addicted to opiates. He fought hard but was continually dismissed by a system that cared nothing about him. He was forced to struggle privately until the day of his death. I’ll never forget my sister’s call telling me that we lost him. Our lives are now divided into before and after. My family loved him dearly but try as we might, we could not save him by ourselves. Grief and guilt now frame our faces as we speak of him in past tense. He was so intelligent and was so kind, especially to the marginalized. I guess he understood what that felt like. I could go on and on about what a wonderful person he was, but I’ll just say this: despite his drug use, Matt was a light in our lives that will never embrace us with its warmth again. We will go on, but we will continue to ache every day for the rest of our lives.

I’m only posting this so everyone knows what the real opioid EPIDEMIC looks like. It will continue to ravage through our lives unless we enact change. I ask you to confront your own feelings on addiction and what you think it looks like, then change them because I promise to you that it’s anything but typical. We must change our attitudes and our policies and stop punishing those who require our help and our love the most. This post and its received message will not bring my brother back, but I hope that my transparency in sharing my brother’s story might help raise awareness to a stigmatized subject and most importantly, allow us to love each other a little more. If you’re reading this, I’ll be here for you, whenever you need me to, no matter what you’re going through. I will honor my brother in being a better person, a better nurse, and a better friend.

We love you, Matt.
Wherever you are now, you are free.

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