Dear ….YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE…

Please don’t die!

Even though I haven’t known you for very long I care about you. Being your roommate in rehab for 28 days was enlightening to say the least. Even though heroin wasn’t my thing, it effected the majority of our rehab brothers and sisters. Almost three years later, at least five of them are dead.

Which brings me back to my opening plea. I often tell my therapist, “I can’t just sit here and let them die.” Yours is a preventable death, dear “YOU KNOW WHO”… True, there’s nothing I can do. Only you can do this. Hopefully with the love and guidance of others. But you need to pull out all the stops, because the rehab-insurance health system is not slowing this horrific procession to death for so many.

And, let’s not forget that its a behavioral choice. Look on the back of your health insurance card. There’s usually TWO phone numbers. Medical…and behavioral health. And yes, your behavior has been controlled by the nasty by-product of that Satanic red flower, the poppy, from the other side of the world. But there are steps (12 and then some) to take to make the change you need to emerge from this epidemic alive.

If you relapse again, particularly after a long period of abstinence, there is a very good chance you will die. In fact, you will probably die. I don’t want you to!

Your own father, on his deathbed, begged you to stop using. There’s no reason to thank him in person for that advice anytime soon. Heaven can wait, and here’s why and what you should live for:

Your love of books. 1984 is one of your favorite books even though you were born nine years later. Your sense of history and literature in our lives is rare for such a junior twentysomething. A lot of that comes from your grandfather. If you die, you won’t be around to share and hear the wise old tales from your Pop Pop. Your time with him on Earth is precious. Stick around: in case he gets to Heaven and you don’t.

Your uncanny knowledge of science and most notably pharmaceuticals is certainly a double edged sword….but clearly you could put that to use professionally in a wide gamut of career choices. Heck, maybe you’ll make some money off it.

Your use of very big words, (and not so big) some of which I sometimes have to Google…will be missed. Good word usage, vocabulary and good writing skills will shine in our rapidly evolving Tweetgram emoticon universe. Your words may change the world, if at least for a loved one. This is something you, as you would put it: can “ascribe” to! Come on: only people at thesaurus.com or Oxford (maybe Cambridge) …OK, Montclair State…use the word “ascribe”.

For an addict, our drug counselors warned, the Marijuana maintenance program will fail. We cannot drink or use no matter what…not even that sweet smelling leaf that can make you giggle, forget and eat everything in sight. It could also make you use heroin. If you can stop using heroin, you can certainly stop ANYTHING else, let alone Mary Jane.

The fun and games are over. Yeah, it sucks. But dying is worse. Fear not because there is a big wide world of fun and games without drinking or using.

You made such a strong impression in our 28 days together and two years of friendship…that I will feel such loss if you don’t make it. Imagine the staggering loss for your mother, PopPop and your closest friends.

I hope you can read this letter out loud twenty years from now so we can look back and laugh. And that will only happen, if you don’t die. So, please don’t!

Love and friendship,

Brian

I wrote this months ago…but it’s urgent, isnt it? Urgent enough to break my Facebook ban….