Laying an Addiction to Rest

A beloved uncle escapes heroin habit but not death.

 Heroin:  (Diacetylmorphine), like other opiates, is a central nervous system depressant.  Objective Symptoms: Constricted pupils: suppression of the central nervous system; lower respiration and pulse, reduced body temperature – under 97 degrees, dry mouth, constricts the flow of many body fluids, puncture wounds (tracks). 

            A tear rolls down my cheek as I sit in the front pew, lost in my own thoughts and heartaches.  Suddenly I hear my name and I am cruelly shocked back into reality.  It’s time I think to myself as I gather all the courage suppressed inside me, and walk somberly up to the pulpit, my heels echoing with each step.  Hundreds of eyes burn into me as I take hold of the podium.  I peer at the countless faces, faces I recognize, and faces I’ve never seen.  But even the most familiar faces become blurred as time freezes and minutes become eternity.

          I take a deep breath and read aloud the poem about a life wasted, a life that could have been successful, the life of a giving, unselfish, loving being that ended way too soon.  Becoming nothing more than a statistic and a memory.  I felt the tears bubbling up inside of me, bur I fought them back.  I owed it to him to finish.  Tearful eyes and supportive smiles glanced up at me.  I had done it, I had made it through.  I did what no one thought I could.

          But as I sat down, all my stability came crashing down, as tears streamed down my face.  I sat there shaking, unable to be comforted.  I wish I could tell you that this was all just a horrible nightmare.  I wish I could tell you that next I woke up and it all just faded away.  But I can’t.  The memory of my Uncle Gary’s funeral is very real and will stay with me always.

          It might have been easier if he had lived a better life and died in a less tragic way.  But instead he led a life controlled by drugs and alcohol and died suddenly of a heroin overdose.  I will always remember when I went to visit him at a drug rehabilitation hospital and he would say to me…   “Learn from my mistakes, and don’t end up like this.”

          It would have been less painful if he were a horrible person and I could hate him for what he did to himself and what he did to his family, who had to watch him suffer.  But he wasn’t a horrible person, in fact he was more generous, caring, and compassionate than other people.  He just took a wrong turn and gave in to peer pressure, a mistake many teens make today.  But this mistake can be avoided.

          Hopefully my uncle’s life will mean something to some one, I know it meant the world to me.

                                                          Heather Mooney