Change the way we think

The loss of a life through drug addiction is one of the most frustrating and painful moments that  I have personally experienced multiple times in just a short period. Some moments greater in emotion then others all just as complicated to explain why it is happening on such a large scale. We point fingers at the doctors and prescriptions . The pure ignorance of their get out of jail free card with claiming to be naïve to the drugs they prescribe. At a 200 thousand dollar a year  tuition to practice medicine we cannot simply buy into this excuse. However they are not all to blame. We cannot just blame the medical society. So what now? My frustration turns to the dealer who sold him or her their last bag. With addiction we are all entitled to a last bag. Sure the dealer becomes the easy target. He is producing a good that we are willing to barter  with our lives. We sell our soul for that one moment we have been chasing since the first time we picked up. Is he the culprit for the destruction of our society or simply a piece to and equation so much larger then him?
         I turn to the addict next. My anger and pain that he or she has caused us all for ending such a beautiful life to soon. How can they be so damn selfish when all of us love them so much? Do they not see the value that we see in them? I am mad at these moments for losing them. For having to search for their voices only in my dreams. So what now?  I turn my angst inward I begin the self-blame for  not doing all I could do. Had I not done enough? Still I find no right answer. This disease has become a Social Disease. What if someone was not suffering from the disease of addiction but rather caught up in a moment of advertisement not realizing that were being advertised too. What if we are advertising for what we stand against  unknowingly ? What if we do not realize what we are showing the next person growing up who is  feeling misplaced in the world. Someone who struggles to find a voice but see's the noise his neighbor had made through his addiction. Later being memorialized on Facebook with his passing soon after at a vigil? So he or she decides to take that path. Not because he or she is an addict but because their society had created a path they did not realize  looks appealing to some feeling out of place and easily influenced.
      We suffer as a community but not all suffer from the same thing that we are so quickly to label with the same stamp. How much are we truly missing from the problem? The solution might be something we are overlooking if we are not searching in the right places having such a singular focus. In recovery we say the problem is not in the drugs it is in the thinking. What if our solution lied in thinking that we have not tapped into yet?   We must be willing to consistently shake the foundation of our conscience  if we are to ever evolve in how we combat this epidemic. Figure out what works. discard the rest, change if we have to, and never give up.