Brandon, soon approaching his 26th birthday continues to get the calls from friends and former prescription drug addicts like him. In the last 3 months Brandon has learned of three friends who have died of a drug overdose. The last was just a couple of weeks ago; Erica E. was just a 27 year old “child” with an entire future filled with joy and hope just beyond the reach of her addiction. Erica died of a heroin overdose as did Kelsey K. and Brian H. The irony is that they all started on prescription pain pills so many years ago and escalated to heroin when Oxy became too expensive to satisfy their addiction. All three had been clean for a short while before relapsing and turning to the one drug they likely swore they would never stoop to. When Oxy addicts turn to heroin they go to an unknown strength of a drug in which the potency changes from drug dealer to drug dealer. In an Oxycotin pill they knew exactly how much they were taking but it is also the very pill that leads them down this deadly path. These unfortunate souls didn’t just destroy their life and future, they destroyed hundreds of family members and friends who will forever wonder if they did all they could or if these three were just destined to die from an addiction that started with a simple pain pill and only stopped with their last breath. Fathers’ who will never walk their daughters down the aisle in a now imagined future marriage cringe in unthinkable pain. Mothers who will never hold the grandchildren their children might have given them now can only stroke the hair of their deceased children as they say a final goodbye. Brothers and sisters who have lost a sibling and are now perhaps an only child without their big brother or little sister next to them at the next family gathering, instead they lie in a casket or urn. Aunts, Uncles, Cousins, Grandparents and friends from too few years of life are all destroyed in a puff of smoke or a syringe filled with the final dose. What a travesty! Do not take RX drug abuse lightly as it does not just fade away. Be aware, ask questions and drug test them if you have any hint they are abusing drugs. The shit that will kill these children is in your medicine cabinet or already in the pockets of the friends they will meet tonight. I didn’t follow any of this advice because I knew it all and I would handle it myself so I ended up almost losing my son. Now I worry every day that this demon of addiction will call to him again and he will answer.
