For way too long these proven programs have had to hide in the shadows, due to general ignorance about their successes in maintaining a healthy community, and to the general stigma surrounding drugs which are consumed with needles (rather than just smoking or drinking).
It’s seven a.m., November 8, 2023. Soon, I’ll board a bus to Boston to take the T and a bus to West Roxbury. There, I’ll walk into the VA hospital to be chemically knocked out. A surgical team will put an instrument down my throat. That mechanism will, I believe, snip off tiny bits of the nodule in my lung and, perhaps, a sample of nearby lymph nodes. These pieces of me—and how strange to think of a cancer as part of ME—will be sent off to mystics and sorcerers in the mountains—sorry, I mean pathologists in a lab. They’ll read my entrails and divine my future. What a funny world, huh?
Larissa will find another job. She’s insightful and gifted and attractive, and that’s what her references will say. They won’t say she’s a drunk. They won’t want to damage her opportunities because “She’s so great when she’s not drinking. If it weren’t for that . . .” Unfortunately, those ellipses never end without change, and that change doesn’t seem to come without work on our part.
You know that old Cat Stevens song… Another Saturday night and I ain’t got nobody I got some money ’cause
Dear Hope Nation, This letter may be directed at the one person in the world who absolutely needs to read
On Aug. 29 a statewide candlelight vigil is planned at six locations, all beginning at 8 p.m., including Manchester, Nashua, Concord, Derry, Dover and Keene.
Today, the addict faces not just opiates — chemicals derived from poppies — but opioids —synthetic and much more powerful versions of the drugs of days gone by.
The event is free and open to the public. It will consist of a formal presentation followed by a Q&A session.
The closest that I can come to is imagine holding your breath and screaming at yourself not to take a breath – I mean really scream at yourself not to take a breath and your body is saying to take that breath. It just is, it’s a fight, flight survival instinct – and that’s what happens in active addiction.
This is the first of two articles from an interview that I conducted with two guys in recovery who work at Hope for New Hampshire Recovery in Manchester. This week is Adam’s story, about how he became addicted to opioids and his journey to recovery.