Suicides, Drug Addiction and High School Football

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Retweeted by David Fahrenthold: https://twitter.com/Fahrenthold

A waitress asked me if I was a journalist and said in a whisper while wiping away tears, “We need your help.” Here’s what I found in Madison, Indiana, a pretty little town that’s going through hell.

Link to tweet

SPORTS

Suicides, Drug Addiction and High School Football

Sports of The Times

By JULIET MACUR MARCH 8, 2018

MADISON, Ind. — An hour’s drive from Louisville, perched along the Ohio River, sits the prettiest little town. ... Madison, population 12,000, has won awards for its beauty. Best Main Street. One of the top 20 romantic towns in Indiana. One of 12 distinctive destinations in the United States, according to the National Trust for Historic Preservation. ... The river walk, down from the main street, is a hot spot for joggers and dog walkers and couples canoodling on benches. In the distance, a soaring bridge that connects Indiana and Kentucky often disappears behind a morning fog.

It’s all a lovely distraction from an open secret. On a reporting trip in July, I learned this in the unlikeliest of places: at Horst’s Little Bakery Haus, a doughnut shop with just a few tables, not far from the river. ... A waitress had overheard me interviewing someone at the bakery earlier, and asked if I was a journalist. ... She checked over her shoulder to see if anyone was listening. There was an urgency in her whisper as she said: “I lost my son last month. He hung himself from a tree in our yard and shot himself in the head. I cut him down myself, with my own hands. So many suicides.” ... She wiped away tears. ... “We need your help,” she said.

A Heart-Wrenching Epidemic

Madison, in southeastern Indiana, is at the center of a drug-trafficking triangle connecting Indianapolis, Cincinnati and Louisville. It is battling life-or-death problems. ... The waitress at the bakery will tell you that. So will her only surviving son, who graduated from high school in May and talks about how he wanted to kill himself a few years ago. The bakery’s dishwasher will tell you a story, too. Her 26-year-old daughter died of multiple organ failure in 2015, after years of addiction. She left behind a drug-addicted infant.

Even the head football coach at Madison Consolidated High School knows that this town — like so many others across the country, in both rich and poor areas — is going through hell these days, pushed over the edge by a growing opioid problem that’s eating away at communities. ... In the coach’s preseason speech to his team, he didn’t invoke Vince Lombardi or repeat inspirational quotations. Instead, he told the players how he ended up coaching at Madison, what motivated him to stay here and how drugs played a role in that. ... Madison is one of the places that have been hit especially hard by the opioid crisis, which has been declared a national emergency. There’s no single reason for it.
....

Email: [e-mail]

[CentralMass]

1. This (tragedy) is happening in a lot of small towns across the country.

[Eliot Rosewater]

2. This is a Big deal, this story and millions like it.

Trump administration is of course CUTTING funds to combat this and creating a regulatory environment where drug companies will gladly continue to addict the country with little to no ramifications. Though we may see some efforts to limit prescribing in the short run.

And on the other side of this are the people who actually need pain killers, strong ones, for long periods of time, many of them likely will be left to suffer unconscionably.

Our overall attitude about drugs and the rights attitude about regulation create a perfect storm.

[dewsgirl]

3. So very sad. I have lost 3 people close to me due to this epidemic. 2 of them completely hid their

Addictions from almost everyone. I am still in shock, this was almost 2 years ago.