Chapter Five - Opioid Crisis Project

Related Discussion 

 The Opioid crisis has been a prominent presence in the US and globally for quite a few years. Everyone is in touch with someone in someway who has been affected by this epidemic. In this case, my older brother of 2 years has had a horrible and frightening run with opioid addiction. I wanted to create an interview of the negative effects that came out from his experience with the drug, fortunately enough, he has not been involved with this since last year due to helpful restrictions through family and friend support and addiction centers.
The objective of my midterm was to involve an ongoing discussion that would contain the negative effects that come with using and getting involved with opioids instead of using alternative non-addictive pain killers.

Interview questions:

1. For an easier understanding, I wanted to know the usage.
1. How long were you using and under the influence, and how often were you using throughout this period? (every day, week, month)

- From Senior year of highschool to about May of this year he was under the influence of opioids. My brother tried to explain to me that drugs like this aren't an off and on substance as if you have control or power over yourself to start and stop. Sometimes usage would be an everyday cycle and other times he explained that he would feel so sick from the “down” or (hangover but in the drug sense) there would be no interest in using the product until the feeling is lost. The numbness he explained controlled the want, and need for this drug that was slowly killing him at the time. 

1. What leads your attraction toward this Drug? 

- All anyone needs to see someone use in front or before them to get interested in a drug, not as if it was an all-time bucket list check-off. There was no interest in the specific drug use before due to the lack of knowledge and interest in the drug. He said, “Once you see someone take and use without anything fatal happening in the next 30 minutes isn't an invitation to take but more of a safety net in a sense that you know if you consume, you won't have negative effects if someone else did it”. 

1. Who, How and Why did you want to get involved with this drug? 

-My brother stated, "Involvement with drugs is getting easier and easier nowadays due to the variety and availability. Where we live, Heroin is a large consumer of drug addicts, so Opioids don't cause any shock or concern compared to that line of work. Anyone can sell if they keep a lowkey description of themselves and rely on thereupon customers to keep their name out of authority's eyes, and they will once they are hooked."

1. What pushed you down this path?

- "Addiction has a long associated list in our family so getting hooked wasn't out of the ordinary due to the family genes. There wasn't a specific reason or event that happened that pushed me down this dangerous path." He explained that most addicts do it to themselves out of ups and downs in their life. Sometimes there is no reason, sometimes curiosity is too strong for one curious teenager to gamble his life on. 

1. Were you every using this drug mixed with something else? 

- "After getting into Rhode Island College many setbacks began to trouble me, when it pertains to not applying myself in school, flunking off sports teams, getting in trouble with correctional authority. Many drugs like cocaine, Molli, Xanax were involved at this time and even though I am not certain which were mixed at the same time, it was highly likely that many were. Alcohol also played a large role in my cautious decision making around the public."

1. What was involved with activity after using? 

- "Like I said, the use is kind of like a blur, once I was high nothing was really considered real. So many things that happened and could have happened did not seem like real life to me during them."

1. How much product did you take into customs? 
1. Did you always feel the need to up the dosage or did you feel as if “one-hit did you in”? 

- This specific drug was never too high or too low dosage for my brother, he said "I sought out to find whatever I could with whatever I had at the time." Stating that, "Whatever did the job would be what I would get, not a specific amount mattered when using, I only cared about obtaining the property of some of the product was the goal."

1. Would you involve anyone with you for comfortability? 

- "Anyone and everyone would be involved if they wanted too at the time and after the intake of the drug, it did not matter who came and who went. All that mattered was if someone tried to stop my high."

1. How did you hide being under the influence of your family and friends?

- When in use of the drug, there was no form or even no use in hiding it. You are slumped, constantly sluggish with very small pupils that gave away the reason why nodding off and zoning out happened.

1. Did you ever get behind the wheel with this drug in your system? 

Getting behind the wheel and driving a car or truck is extremely dangerous but to someone under the influence, like Opioids my brother elaborated on the idea that "the majority of the time there was a lack of interest to move or get somewhere without anything waiting for me at the end of that drive." There was no motivation to go anywhere because when under the influence of this drug “the high was the best part of my day” as he said, there was nothing more important at the time.

1. When did you figure it was more of a problem in your life compared to it being positive in your life?

- “After watching years and years of family and friends pushing and pushing me to get help, myself denying the help and relapsing then watching them leave. That's when I realized I'm sick, I need assistants and I need to dry out”. It took 4 years for my brother to quit and stay off and away from this specific drug due to its highly potent effects. Luckily he now knows he needs help and has found other healthy coping mechanisms. 

1. Did you try seeking help with this addiction and came upon failure?

- "Finding help was the least of my worries due to the long list of centers surrounding where we lived at the time, that provided open arms to people willing to quit their addiction and I never fully took advantage of those. However, support from my family and friends is what has allowed me to dig myself out of the hole I was in."

1. Why did you seek help? 

- "Seeking the right people that would be strict on me, yet caring and compassionate at the same time was what helped me and I wanted to get help because after some of the mistake I had made I realized how precious life is and how quickly it can be taken from you. I also began to understand the pain I was putting myself and my family through for my bad decisions. I wanted them to be proud of me, not embarrassed."

1. How hard was it getting past the addiction? 

- "Getting past any addiction is work but getting past Opioid addiction is painful, painful to watch, and of course painful to go through. Becoming so dependent on a specific drug that controls life's schedule will abrupt anyone's normal life even when not using it."

1. How did you cope without using it?

- "Coping without getting high allowed the brain to think more, stress more and achieve less. I started to regularly see a Psychiatrist to help with getting emotions and feelings out from underneath the shadows provided a clean method. I also used exercise to deal with the urgencies."

1. Do you believe the youth will have a hard time understanding drug addiction if they cannot relate? 

- "No one will be able to relate unless being able to see up close in action of actual users will provide clarity."

1. Do you think there is enough support for finding help? 

- "Finding help is only up to the user, if they believe they can get better, then they will strive. But if people force them into the help that is not wanted, nothing will change."

1. Do you believe that the world doesn't take this serious enough? 

- "Through my eyes, the world takes addiction serious but the community does not take into account the many lives that are being taken by addiction every day due to drugs. Addiction is an ongoing battle of self will, only people who have been through this will understand that and the people who don't are educated enough that addiction could be the scariest thing to a family's well being at all."

  Relation to Photojournalism

Overdosing, losing loved ones, watching people who were once at the top of the world become homeless from drug addiction is all connected to the drug abuse in the world today. Many to almost all photojournalists can capture the horrendous images from before use and after use, and if anything could piece together a timeline from the start of the addiction to the end which usually winds up resulting in death. A photojournalist can capture painful stories of many people through a click of a button. For some people it might seem unethical for cameras to be in the face of the weak, sick and addicted but how else would you paint the terrifying picture of opioid abuse. Photojournalists speak for everyone who has lost a loved one to drugs by taking photos of people under the use, people living in hell and pain. Just so a message could be sent out to the youth and public eye that through other people's tragic loss of loved ones, you could save yours by seeing the signs and taking action before curiosity settles in. Not only do photojournalists provide the only upfront view, but they capture the ones that provide examples for the public to be scared and afraid of. Afraid of what could happen even though it might be unbelievable, it's still obtainable using drugs. An example of someone who was able to capture the effect of opioid addiction is James Nachtwey in The Opioid Diaries.

PHOTOGRAPHS BY : James Nachtwey for TIME

Image Source : https://time.com/james-nachtwey-opioid-addiction-america/