The High Price of Addiction
Photos owned by Author. Each photo corresponds with the name of the person, in order, with the exception of Shawn Anderson and Dustin Todd, for whom there are no photos available.
What I’ve Lost Along The Way
Please take a moment out of your day to look at the people tagged in this post.
Check out their Facebook pages.
These are all lives lost tragically too soon in a battle that is being fought daily by people just like you and me.
Sadly, more and more lives are being lost to the disease of addiction, and no one is any more or less susceptible than the next.
These are the faces of mothers, daughters, fathers, sons, sisters and brothers, and they could be any one of ours.
You will find no commonality amongst them that ties them together beyond their humanity, and their unfortunate fight against addiction, and themselves.
This is a situation that becomes more frightening and desperate with each day that passes, and with each new life that’s lost.
We don’t need you to understand our fight...don’t ask you to put yourselves in shoes that, to us, are weighted cement fixtures that will ultimately drag us below the high tide line.
Most of us don’t want empathy from you, because we’d never want anyone to feel the things that we feel.
So instead, I simply ask you to look at what’s been lost.
Without any judgments premade and ready to be voiced at the first given opportunity, take a minute to see, instead.
Instead of talking about choice, about how to direct the blame at the addict themselves, and about all the other ways you can make this anyone else’s problem but your own, look at a few of the people that I have personally lost in my private life due to drug addiction, and consider this...what if one of these faces belonged to your mom, or your sister, your daughter, your brother, your son... Would your reaction be the same?
Would you be as adamant in your assertions that the only place to lay blame is at your dead loved ones feet?
Would disease as a cause seem a little bit less far-fetched?
Most can’t or won’t answer that honestly. And that is ok.
But as a drug addict, who is still very much in the active stages of the progression of this disease, I hope that if nothing else, this will show you that anyone, at anytime, is one step away from their lives ending in the same tragic manner as the people being remembered and honored here...and that life is short.
People don’t always make the best or right decisions.
They don’t always choose the right path.
They don’t always heed loving advice.
Forgive them. Love them.
Forgive them their selfishness, forgive them their humanity, forgive their willing blindness.
Tell them you love them every chance you get.
Because sooner than you want, that chance will be gone.
Rest in Peace:
Gene Whaley, August 16, 2011
Cheyenne Brewer, November 28, 2013
Jason Bohannon, December 31, 2015
Misty Hardwick, June 16, 2017
Edward Griffin, May 4, 2020
Jonathan Trupp, November 3,
2017
Candise Wilson, February 2, 2022
Dustin Todd, May 21, 2018
Troy Hasrlden, February 13, 2020
Courtney Dibella , June 13, 2021
Sunnie Saprona, July 19, 2021
Aja Walsh, March 18, 2017
Shawn Kennedy, October 4, 2021
Salvatore Draper, June 13, 2021
James Steadman, Date of Death is Unknown,
Dawn Squires, July 30, 2021
Paulie Roesch, April 6, 2021
Shawn Anderson, July 27, 2028
Matthews Autry July 27, 2018
Brad Payne, April 9, 2019
Andrea Mosely, January 8, 2009
Melissa Cooper, December, 2021
Cody Lynch, September 2019
Danny Price, missing since January, 2019
Mike Anderson may 1, 2020
Heidi Nichols, May 13, 2019
Jeret Cox, June 1,2018
Lizzie Stacks,June 1, 2015
Jessica Barrett, September, 2020
Megan Simmons, September 4,2021
Colee Muirhead, January 2,2018
Gary Dean, December 23,2020
David McClellan, November 21,2014
Chris Frye, February 17, 2010
You are surely missed.
