Drug Addiction in America

When I was a kid, my mother would announce, "Don't make any plans for Saturday, we're having miracle day." What did that mean? Well, it meant mom would pop a "pep pill" and the whole family would be enlisted to clean the entire house in one day. When the song "Mother's Little Helper" came out, we suspected she had a secret relationship with Mick Jagger. The "Greatest Generation" is so perfectly profiled in the show "Mad Men" that when I started watching it I was flabbergasted. My generation didn't get their substance dependence from anywhere strange. Smoking, drinking, popping pills -- that was how people coped in the '50s and early '60s.

And substance abuse wasn't the only thing our parents imposed upon us. Having grown up during the depression and World War II, that generation was determined "never to be hungry again." They worked tirelessly to make life better for their children and instill in them a work ethic so that the next generation could have everything that was denied those born in the '20s and '30s. On the surface, this appears to be a good thing. But, in reality, it was only, as my one brother often yelled at my parents (usually right before he was soundly thrashed for disrespect), "Materialism! Materialism! Materialism!"

There was no encouragement to follow our bliss. You want to be an actress? An artist? An archeologist? A horse trainer? How silly. Get your high school degree and go get a job in an office or as a mechanic. And that's what we did. And, unconsciously unhappy with our lives, we took up the habits of our parents -- high balls, pep pills and valium. Luckily, I was afraid of actual drugs. I preferred the liquid sort and a little weed now and then.

I lost my first sibling in 1986 when my brother died of AIDS at the age of 33 in the first wave of the epidemic. True, he was gay at the worst time in history, and was everywhere he shouldn't have been - San Francisco, Fire Island, bathhouses in New York and Philadelphia -- when AIDS was silently and unknowingly being spread. On the surface, his death does not seem to be drug or alcohol related. But, perhaps, if his drinking and drugging hadn't skewed his inhibitions, he would not have engaged in such reckless activity.

I lost my second sibling in 2004 when my other brother, the city diving champ in his junior and senior years of high school, died of liver cancer at age 50, directly due to drugs and alcohol.

And on February 24th, I lost my 47-year-old sister to an overdose of oxycodone. My beautiful baby sister with the curly auburn hair and big blue eyes.

Whose fault were these deaths? Well, the person who engaged in the dangerous activity of course. But could any of it have been prevented? Does anyone else bear responsibility? When three children out of five die like this, is it merely a coincidence?

I don't know why my one brother was gay, I believe he was born that way, but why? And why did all my siblings get so involved in drugs and alcohol? Yes, "the times they were a changing," we thought it was fun to get out of ourselves. But why did we need to get out of ourselves? What was broken in us that craved escape?

With my sister's death, a veil was torn down for me. My parents gave us everything we needed, took us on vacations every year, made sure we were clean and had nice clothes, joined a swim club, traveled all over to swim and diving meets and our living room looked like Sears' toy department at Christmas. They were the "fun" couple, the pre-Liz Eddie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds of their crowd. But my parents were damaged people.

My mother never got over the death of her father when she was 10, and my father came from an oddly dysfunctional family that he rarely talked about. His parents were drinkers and my grandfather died at age 55. Alcohol was always a major presence in our lives. My mother would dole out Valium at funerals and before weddings. They attempted to make life as easy as possible for their children. And that was their mistake. They did things that altered the roads their children were destined to take, under the guise of "helping," instead of letting things play out.

When I learned that they helped my sister move out of her husband's house and into an apartment last year, I told my husband she'd be dead in five years because there was no one to keep an eye on her. Her husband told my parents she was a ticking time bomb. But, taken in by an addict's tale of woe that her husband and children mistreated her, they decided they knew better, said she was ready to be on her own, and moved her, furnished the apartment and, I suspect, paid her rent at least occasionally. The "mistreatment" she claimed, I've since learned, was her husband and sons flipping out when she'd steal her husbands pills, or get so drunk or drugged out she couldn't function, or would disappear and not explain where she'd been.

This most recent tragedy was so avoidable. Four years ago when she and her husband had problems, I took her in, on the condition she attend 12-step meetings. At the time, everyone was thrilled. For around six months she did well, and it seemed that she had stopped drinking. But she stopped going to meetings shortly after returning home, and it's now apparent she replaced the alcohol with drugs. Last year, I was told by my mother that I was wrong for making attending meetings a condition of her coming to my house.

Diagnosed with Lyme's disease a few years ago, my sister spent a fortune going to a specialist and buying vitamins and supplements. Those things languished on the shelf and in the refrigerator as the only medication she took was the Vicodin she was prescribed. Her husband told the doctor this, but she continued to prescribe the Vicodin. For years my sister's sons and husband, who has a valid health condition and takes his meds responsibly, told my parents that my sister was stealing her husband's pain medication. They called them liars. I would tell them that she would get messed up and "phone terrorize" me, and was told, no, she was clean now.

The past two years, I was estranged from my parents and my sister as she sunk further into drug addiction and vilified me. And since my parents had a perceived dog in that fight as well, they commiserated with and validated her, telling me I was the one who was wrong. My heart was broken, I felt abandoned.

When my sister got breast cancer treatment last year, she claimed she had a damaged disk from the radiation and started going to a pain management clinic where she was given morphine and oxycodone. After seeing her sashay down the walk behind my house last September after an appointment at the clinic (the last time I saw her), I doubted she had a condition that warranted those medications.

Considering what I've learned since about her history with the Lyme's disease specialist, I am now certain that she was playing this pain clinic doctor. On Christmas, she overdosed and had a seizure at my parents' house. They finally realized my sister had a problem, and suggested that she go to a rehab. She told them she "didn't want that kind of help." Despite two phone calls from my parents to the doctor telling him she was abusing her meds, he continued to prescribe them. Between the Lyme's disease specialist and the pain management doctor, the phrase "pushers in white coats" comes to mind. The night we found her dead, there was a prescription for 120 oxycodone, dated two days before. There were only 63 pills left.

I love my sister dearly, I will miss her forever. This will take a long time to heal, a lot longer than when the boys died. Sober nine years now and active in my program, this was especially devastating to me because of what I know.

She was over-prescribed and enabled to death.