When there is ambiguity over the death of a child, often coroners or medical examiners are hesitant to label the death a suicide. *Content and method warning* This article discusses suicide in children, which is rare but likely also under-reported, according to Centre for Suicide Prevention. When kids are in crisis, how can we help them? – Broadview Magazine Addiction is a disease-and a nasty, difficult and particularly lonely one at that.Every day we scan news headlines and social media for items of interest to the field of suicide prevention. I hope we can mourn without passing judgement or espousing our beliefs about what could have been done differently. Without a footnote, without the proclamation of “what a waste!”, without stamping the loved ones left behind with a scarlet letter of shame. So, I will repeat what I espoused to a particularly nasty Twitter troll slightly more eloquently here: I hope that one day, when we mourn the losses of those taken by addiction, we do so in the same manner in which we mourn the losses of people taken by any other disease. Or maybe it’s hard for me to understand the logic behind treating people suffering from a debilitating disease poorly because I’m not an asshole. Maybe it’s hard for me to understand because I have watched addiction take even the most resilient, determined and strong people I have ever known. Maybe it’s hard for me to understand because I have loved more broken people than “perfect” people. The captious look on someone’s face when they find out the cause of death was an overdose, the trite proclamation that they “wish they had just gotten help”, the sigh of relief when they realize that they-who would never dare abuse alcohol, drugs or any other substance for that matter-will never die in the same way. Not because you love them less because of how they died, but because it feels like everyone else does.

When someone you love is suffering or has passed away at the hands of addiction, grief becomes complicated. My goal is to send a reminder to whoever is reading this to act with more compassion and less judgement. Not because I don’t have thoughts and opinions, but because sparking a debate over whether or not addiction is a disease (it is) and how it should be treated (it depends) is not my goal here. The intricacies of addiction and recovery are not what I wish to discuss here. The death of rapper Juice WRLD, the passing of Congressman Jamie Raskin’s son Tommy Raskin, and the AMA announcing that there is an “overdose epidemic” happening hand-in-hand with the global COVID-19 pandemic. So, on the other hand, there have been deaths and losses at the hands of addiction of which we are all aware. In some instances, those aren’t my stories to share. In 2020, the manner in which addiction attacked my life felt like a personal vendetta.

But, regardless of the vice, there is something that doesn’t change when discussing addiction-the shame that comes with it. Members of my family have suffered from addictions to alcohol and drugs, loved ones have passed away from accidental overdoses and while I have never been formally treated for addiction, I have abused alcohol and drugs at points in my life, too. But, when I sat down to write, one thing was at the top of my mind-addiction.Īddiction has been present in my life for as long as I can remember. In the recent weeks during which I have been working on my first newsletter, I have considered a number of different topics for my weekly “On: insert topic here” series.

Tommy raskin drugs