Linda Squire, who selflessly shared her son’s tragic story of opioid addiction with The Record last month, has asked that people “stop the stigma” and start supporting families battling addiction.
She lost her son to an overdose in January of 2015. Since then, she has worked to raise awareness about addiction and support other families dealing with its effects. She sees the opioid addiction that has exploded in this country in recent years as an epidemic.
And the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) agrees. It has labeled the crisis — stemming from the misuse of prescription pain killers and other opiates, such as heroin — as an epidemic.
According to 2015 data, the epidemic is particularly bad in Kentucky. Our commonwealth is one of five states in the country with the highest rates of overdose deaths.
We’re far from alone, though. The 2015 study, released by the HHS in May, indicated that 12.5 million people in this country misused prescription drugs that year. Squire’s son, Jonathan, was one of 33,000 people who died of a heroin overdose in 2015, according to the study.
Squire shared some simple advice during her interview with The Record. And it’s worth repeating.
“When you’re coded for addiction, you have a disease,” she said.
Families coded for addiction, she said, must “accept that your child is at risk.” She also noted that the crisis hasn’t only touched teenagers and young adults — “they are mothers, students, businessmen, people with advanced degrees. They go to work, they take care of their homes. It doesn’t discriminate between rich and poor, male and female, where you live, where you work.”
While the crisis is massive and solutions are hard to come by, Bishop Edward C. Malesic has some suggestions for parish communities.
He leads the four-county diocese of Greensburg, Penn., which lost 319 people to an opioid addiction in 2016. He calls it a plague and issued a pastoral letter to his diocese about it.
“A Pastoral Letter on the Drug Abuse Crisis: From Death and Despair to Life and Hope,” issued June 29, recommends education, prayer and cooperation with government and social services to battle the addiction.
For his part, Bishop Malesic is hosting a series of “Summer Diocesan Drug Education Evenings,” which include prayer services, a presentation on the crisis, discussion with a counselor and a time for questions.
“The church must be present to all who suffer in any way,” he wrote in the pastoral letter. “Jesus can and wants us to use his church to move our communities from being places of death and despair to places of life and hope.”
To that end, the bishop also has formed an advisory group on the crisis to continue to develop a pastoral response. The diocese is urging parishes to do several things, and these ideas may prove helpful to parishes here in the Archdiocese of Louisville, too. They are:
- Work with existing neighborhood, nonprofit and governmental organizations to promote safe communities and drug-free neighborhoods.
- Have priests and deacons continue to offer spiritual support and, when appropriate, speak about drug abuse in homilies and at formational opportunities.
- Consider developing support groups and maintain a list of treatment centers and contact information for referral purposes when needed.
- Use resources from the diocese to educate parishioners and community members to combat the opioid addiction epidemic in homes and families.
- Consider holding ongoing opportunities for prayer and healing related to the addiction crisis.
Holy Trinity Church in Louisville is already doing some of this work. The parish has collaborated with the Kentucky Harm Reduction Coalition to host a seminar on the crisis and a free training on the use of naloxone, a medicine that can temporarily alleviate an overdose until emergency assistance arrives.
The Cathedral of the Assumption, where Squire is a member, recently held a special Mass for those affected by the opioid crisis.
As an archdiocese of 110 parishes, we can and should do something to help prevent more deaths and comfort those in the throes of this crisis.
MARNIE McALLISTER
Editor
