Humanizing Addiction

Aaron was fidgety. As he sat in the front seat of my car, he expressed his gratitude for the ride to the Heroin Anonymous (HA) meeting at the Triangle Club in Dover. I noted to myself that he was not making eye contact with me as we engaged in small talk about the day. I asked if he planned to get his 30-day chip at the meeting, which incidentally was the first HA meeting in the state of New Hampshire.

Aaron had asked me to be his sponsor a few weeks prior. I was attending the HA meetings at the Triangle Club on a regular basis, giving rides to some of the young men who had no transportation. Aaron, a twenty-two-year-old from Seabrook, a husband and father, was one of these young men.

Modeled as an extension of the 12-step program of Alcoholics Anonymous, the Tuesday night HA meeting was a popular gathering of recovering heroin addicts from the Seacoast and Strafford County. Folks from neighboring Maine towns like Sanford, Lebanon, and Alfred would also attend. On any given Tuesday there could be as many as seventy attendees. The meeting offered chips for continuous lengths of sobriety—eleven months, ten months, counting down to thirty days and the “most important person in the room, not to single you out, but to welcome you in” 24-hour chip. The recognition of lengths of sobriety is important not only to the recipient, but also for others in the room to show that the program works.

At the meeting Aaron shuffled to the podium when the 30-day chip roll call was called by the meeting “chip person.” Amid the applause and words of encouragement, Aaron return to his seat without looking up. My spidey senses were aroused.

On the way back to Seabrook, Aaron shared that he had had a relapse a day earlier but was too ashamed to talked about it before the meeting. A floodlight triggered on as we pulled into his driveway. We sit in silence for a few minutes before I could muster what I thought were the right words of encouragement that tomorrow would be another day. As he got out of the car, I shook his hand, gave him a pat on the back and asked him to check in with me in the morning.

On the way home I stopped at a CVS and bought Aaron a card to again offer words of encouragement. I scribbled the following message on the card:

I never had the opportunity to give Aaron the card. Aaron, twenty-two years of age, husband, father, son, outdoorsman, and student, died of a heroin overdose on Tuesday, October 13, 2015 at his home. I still have that card in my office.