Why I Would Buy My Daughters Heroin
The views expressed here are my own and are not necessarily shared by any employer or educational institution I may be affiliated with...but who could blame them. This one goes too far.
I have two daughters ten years apart who are similar and different as night and day. I consider myself a pacifist, but I know I would use violence to save them if they were in danger. I might use violence to save them even if there were another non violent way. They are my daughters, and I would not bet that my ideals could withstand a threat to them. But what to do if they were ever a threat to themselves?
I work in a medication assisted recovery center, that's a nice way to say methadone clinic. I work as a chemical dependency counselor, I'm good at it, and though I don't count myself as a believer, this feels like a calling. In the relatively short time I've worked in this field I've worked with several individuals who were unfortunate enough to be born to parents who kicked them out on the street at a young age to fend for themselves. Usually they did this because the child way gay, lesbian, or transgender. I was and still am disgusted by this sort of thing. To abandon a child to what mercy they can find in the world is not only a violation of parenthood, but of our very humanity. While I understand the forces that drive a person to such a barbaric act I have no sympathy for it. I don't care what your parents did to you, what they taught you in school, or what your holy book tells you, you simply need to be better than that. To fall short is unacceptable. But until recently I had some sympathy for the parents of drug addicts who did the same thing. What do you do with a child who continues to use drugs, even after you have sent them to treatment? What do you do when they lie and steal from you to support their habit? What choice do you have if they refuse to go back to treatment after a relapse? Aren't I hurting them more in the long run if continue to enable their behavior?
I don't know the answer to the above questions, but I know one thing for certain. No person I have ever worked with has ever been better off for having been kicked out of their home. Drugs may be bad for your child, but the street is worse. Any child is vulnerable on the street, a child addicted to drugs is even more so. There is no shortage of people waiting to take advantage of such children.
The reason parents abandon their children for drug use is they have been told that continuing to support their child will keep them stuck in addiction or make their addiction worse. The only alternative is to cut ties with the child, cut off all support, and hope the child gets desperate enough to change.
In reality what happens is that parents trade one option that might hurt the child for one that will almost definitely hurt them. A child has precious little to barter for the things they need. If the child is already tortured by shame for being unable stop using drugs, imagine how much worse it is for I child who has had to sell their body, not just for drugs, but for food and shelter, and sometimes they will offer themselves and get nothing in return. Drugs can hurt your child but that kind of trauma can leave scars that from which they may never fully recover. The other option is to prey on others, any child who has to survive on the streets will probably have to do both. I won't do that to my daughters.
I would sooner buy my daughters heroin and help them inject it before I would kick them out of my home. It wouldn't be my first choice, but if it came down to it that's what I would do. Being a drug addict is not a fate worse than death. I may not be able to protect my children from everything. But I will protect them from everything I can.
