'It mattered to that one'
Submitted by Casscounty1 on
By Robin Aaron
Sitting down to write a story about a young woman who has completely changed her life for the better is always a pleasure.
To see the light in her eyes and, at times, the pain of regret as she recounts how she has experienced such a violently drastic transformation, I count to be a privilege in a way that is unique to my profession.
I can hear in my mind what may be some of the comments that will be said as our local readers look through our feature about addiction. I know the many types of reactions that will result.
Some of you will be encouraged. Some of you will find blame. Some of you will look for signs of how our subjects deserve to pay even more for the harm they’ve done. Some of you will relate because you’ve experienced the nightmares of addiction first-hand, perhaps through a family member or perhaps through personal experience.
For whatever reaction you have, at the least I hope you’ll be stirred to action, to discussion, to anything but indifference.
I hope that you will at least recognize that people who are suffering from drug addiction are just that- people. And that even the worst cases don’t have to be a lost cause.
There is life after addiction, at least there can be. There is some hope even for the most hopeless cases.
Our publication covers many of the local symptoms that stem from this problem: increased crime rates, theft, violence, child abuse, molestation, mental illness, funding shortages, broken families, broken dreams, lost potential, high school dropout rates, abject poverty. It almost seems that, like a cancer, drug addiction infects every facet of our communities.
Drug use is a choice. It is a personal failure. It is a crime.
It is like one of those giants that seems to tower and mock as it maims and murders everything it touches, but it is not unbeatable and it is not more powerful than hope, than peace, than love. It is not so powerful that it could defeat a unified, educated and engaged community.
Is there not a cause?
What if it were your child, your spouse, your grandchild bound by a substance abuse problem? Would you want to fight for their lives or simply throw them away? Would they be worthless to you?
No one grows up dreaming that one day they’d be hooked on meth or prescription drugs. No one hopes that one day their life would be a living hell of obsession over where their next fix will come; so strung out they have no idea how much longer they can survive.
Drug abuse is a choice, but there is a point where control is lost and this giant moves in with a sword and a gut wrenching laughter that it has its prey in its grip.
Not everyone who falls prey can be salvaged. Not everyone who falls prey to addiction even wants to be helped. But there are those can be and those who do.
As the famous story goes, two boys walked along a beach, one of them tossing back some of the many starfish that had been trapped by the receding tide. As he hurled them back into the ocean, the other began to laugh.
“What are you doing? That doesn’t matter! You can’t save them all,” the other fellow scoffed.
As the first looked down and picked up yet another little starfish, he once again tossed it back into the surf and then turned to face his friend.
“It mattered to that one,” he answered.
We have a few starfish to show you this week. I hope you’ll see they are proof that “it mattered to that one”. And I believe Cass County may just have a few smooth stones and a slingshot up our sleeve to put down a very large, very contentious giant. I believe more importantly that we are not fighting alone.
Nothing is impossible unless you believe it to be.
Rate this article:
- Log in to post comments
