“ Substance abuse,” Little Rock’s Frankie Sarver once said, “affects an entire city much the same as the disease affects its individual residents. Denial prevents its identification and an unwillingness to deal with the problem and blaming others prevents recovery.”
Frankie, wife of the late Bob Sarver, Arkansas Commissioner of Correction during the Winthrop Rockefeller administration, stated further nearly 30 years ago, that “people and communities—whose behaviors are partly defined by fear, denial hopelessness and passivity–are dysfunctional in the same ways.
“In order for the city of Little Rock to have power against the problem,” she continues, “initiatives must be created which break the denial, reduce the fear, restore faith in the ability to change and the ability of public systems to respond.
In her historic proposal to Little Rock leaders, Frankie added, “today with the problem of substance abuse affecting every segment of the city and affecting every culture, age, and income group the city cannot continue to deny the problem or place blame on others.
“Every resident must own and act against the problem,” she concluded, “and help people accomplish collectively what they have been unable to do individually.”
Will it be worth it?
Paula Cunningham, who’s letter to Little Rock’s Arkansas Democrat Gazette—“the Last Heart Beat”– was published this week. It speaks volumes.
“On Aug 29, I sat at my son’s bedside and looked at his sweet face, remembering the child he once was; imagining his laugh and smile that would fill and light up the room. I remembered the big hugs he gave.
“I watched as the machine moved his chest up and down rhythmically and sweetly, lulling me back to the memories of the days when he would run through the house with excitement or just about anything.
“I remembered the time, just a month earlier, when he was drug free, and we spent the day together hiking, and he said with so much joy, “I’m on top of the world, Momma.”
“I remembered the loving way he looked at me. I remembered the young man who would drop anything to help someone, the young man who held the door open for his mother; who sat at the
bedside of his friend in the hospital when others turned their backs; who carried his friend up 15 stairs to take a shower because he couldn’t walk; who encouraged others and lifted their spirits on a bad day; the son who called me to ask me to pray with him for a friend who didn’t know Christ.
“I remembered the tender loving heart underneath that big laugh.
“I remembered the son who hated to see me cry and hated more when he was the reason I cried. So I held back the tears, and I thanked God for this beautiful child.
“I thanked God for this beautiful hand that I held.
For the last time
“I held my son’s hand that night for the last time. I watched as his heartbeat grew weaker and weaker. Surprisingly, that wasn’t the hard part.
“No, the hard part was the last four years watching a disease consume my child; watching a drug turn my son into a machine that functioned only to replace the drug that was keeping it running; watching him so desperately try to save his family the pain it caused; watching him die inside over the shame people heaped on him.
“As I watched the last heartbeat, I let go of the pain that he suffered. I let go of the pain that I had suffered watching the drug take over my son’s life. I let go of the pain of watching him cry over an illness that he couldn’t control.
“I let go of the memories of watching him desperately fight a battle that he didn’t yet have the tools to win.
“I let go of a child that never knew his worth.
“Yet I mourned. I mourned silently deep inside me for the time he would not longer have to find a way to keep fighting to live; the time that was taken away from that one lethal dose.
“That one lethal dose that his addiction made him need more than anything else at that moment.
“As I watched his heartbeat slowly fade, I let go of the pain and thanked God for the gift of the 20 short years I had with him. I thanked God for the gift of life that my son, through organ donation, was giving to others as his last gesture of love, with the passing of that last heartbeat.
“With that last heartbeat, I vowed to be the voice that he wanted to be, to be the voice that would carry his story on as part of this fight…this fight to end the stigma… this fight to end the “opiodemic.”
The Search for a Cure
Making a difference has to begin at the grassroots level with families, neighborhoods and communities. National campaigns are fine but recovery is achieved one community at a time, one person at a time and, yes, one day at a time..
I find support for this conclusion in the Fighting Back project financed by Robert Wood Foundation which in the 1990’s spent $45 million with a series of grants to 15 communities including Little Rock.
Paul Jellinek, vice president of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation at the time, said in “Fighting Back. The First Eight Years,” that an individual’s decision to use illegal drugs or alcohol is driven by a complex spectrum of determinants including family and peer relationships, television, economics and the perception of legal penalties of single agency or group of people has the power to address enough of these factors to make a difference. The fighting back program was designed to help people accomplish collectively what they were unable to do individually.”
One Day at a Time.
Leave a Reply