Suicide and Addiction

This winter seemed to be a particularly harsh one for a lot of people. February and early March (knock on wood) saw the suicides of three celebrities: first it was fashion designer Alexander McQueen, followed by "Growing Pains" star Andrew Koenig (RIP, "Boner"), followed by Marie Osmond's son, Michael Blosil/Bryan (if one could call him a "celebrity).

Was there something in the water? I don't mean to make a joke of suicide, but I have to ask because I just came out of a very deep depression, as did several of my friends. I know seasonal affective disorder is a very real thing, but I swear the government secretly implanted crazy electrodes in our brains to make us miserable this year or something.

In all seriousness, it was beyond hard. The thing about having depression is (especially when people are committing suicide left and right) is that you always feel the need to hide it. At least I do. There are a few people I am very honest with, but for the most part I don't let on as to how bad it really is. You just don't want to worry everyone. As a teenager, I attempted suicide (didn't get very far, fortunately) so I don't want everyone automatically assuming I'm sitting on the other end of the phone line with a gun to my head.

You hear people say a lot of different things when someone commits suicide. For as much sympathy as you hear, you also hear a lot of anger. For every "that poor man" you hear "that was so selfish." And I guess if you're not suicidal, it does look terribly selfish. You're gone and everyone else is left to suffer. You will be mourned. Questions will be asked. That's the reality. But to someone suffering from severe clinical depression, the picture doesn't look like that at all. To someone with severe depression, all is lost, nothing matters, and the world is better off without them. Severe depression, in a sense, sometimes removes a person's ability to see beyond their own pain to how the rest of the world will react. You see that person as loved and valued; however, they see themselves as colossal failures who ca do nothing right and don't deserve anything good in their lives.

I don't know the story behind Alexander McQueen's suicide, but from everything I have read, Andrew Koenig and Michael Blosil felt exactly that - worthless, hopeless, miserable. If you don't think you have a friend in the world, then in your mind there isn't anyone to leave behind in despair.

Then there's Corey Haim. When I was growing up, Corey Haim was a teen heartthrob. I was never particularly "into" him but I certainly knew who he was. He died this past week at the age of 38 - the same age as my husband. Too young. He battled drug addiction and had a number of health problems that I'm sure the drug use exacerbated. He reportedly died from heart congestion. Though the toxicology results won't be known for several weeks, however, from all accounts he was addicted to prescription drugs... Vicodin, Valium, Soma, maybe others. A few months ago, troubled actress Brittany Murphy died from pneumonia and drug intoxication. She filled a prescription for Vicodin 11 days before her death on Dec. 20, 2009 and it is believed she took 109 of the pills in those 11 days.

These are the stories that break my heart. A teenage relative my husband and I are very close to recently got out of drug rehab. She told me she tried everything but heroine, but her drugs of choice were prescriptions. Maybe celebrities can get oodles of pills from crazy, money-hungry doctors in Hollywood, but Joe Simpletons like my relative buy them on the street from other kids - God only knows where they get them. They think that because a doctor prescribes it, it must be "safe." My relative has told me stories about being "careful" not to overdue the Xanax. But nobody knows what their body's breaking point is.

I'm convinced I'm not a drug addict today because my parents made it very clear that if I did illegal drugs, I was dead meat. I would have to find other living arrangements. I was terrified of my mother - in this case, it did me some good. But even I, as a teenager, tried this and that. Ritalin was the biggie when I was in high school; I gave that a shot. We used to chug Nyquil. We sucked on the whipped cream hose at Friendly's for a high. One time, in college, when I was particularly naive and in the worst depression of my life, I unknowingly huffed CD cleaner.

We tried it for a quick high, a little fun. Isn't that why most kids light up a joint or smoke a bowl? But my relative got so hooked on alcohol and prescription drugs that she couldn't even wake up for school until she was higher than a kite and she took the stuff all day long to keep going.

These kids think it makes them hardcore. They think it makes them cool.
Meanwhile, the rest of us sit back and see sad, broken little children who can't handle reality. Oh, and you can be a broken little child at any age.

My husband and I watch "Celebrity Rehab With Dr. Drew" pretty faithfully. OK, I'll admit it - at first we started watching it because we were amused at the idea of washed-up, B-rated celebs trying to get off crack. But with every episode, we got more and more sucked in, and for legit reasons. I started to identify with some of the patients and my husband saw his brother (a recovering drug addict) in a lot of them. We started to cheer them on. It made us realize that underneath it all, people are just people. It really doesn't matter how much money you have, how many albums you've put out, or how many movies you've made. We're just people with our own history of pain and every one of us faces a decision - "Am I going to deal with this or not?" Are we going to to face reality like the intelligent, grown-ups capable of healing that God made us, or are we going to hide like the sad little broken children, pushing away reality with a needle to the arm, a puff of smoke through a bong, or a line of powder snorted up our noses?

Since my relative has been out of rehab, I've heard a lot about "higher powers." In 12-step recovery, anything can be your higher power - God, Jesus, a toilet seat, your recovery book, your roommate, your cat... you get the idea. You pick something and say "this is stronger than I am" and then you rely on it to keep you from getting hooked back on whatever you were hooked on in the first place.

From where I sit, I look at all the broken little children - and I was one, but I never got sucked into drugs - and I want to hold them all and give them the love they missed out on and tell them... the only reliable higher power is Jesus Christ. Period. You want to kill yourself? You were bought with a price by the blood of Jesus. Your life is no longer your own. Go ahead - jump off that bridge. Your body will be in a thousand tiny bits, but what about your soul? You think you're damaged goods and the best you can do is drugs? You are created in God's image. He made you beautiful. HE CAN HEAL YOU. Not some book, not a statue of Buddha, not your Golden Retriever. Jesus can heal you. If you let Him.

It's a choice. You chose drugs. Will you choose the Savior of the world?

My favorite band is Casting Crowns and they say it better than I ever could:
"I'll take a shack on a rock over a castle in the sand."

Sad, broken little children like me... make your choice. And if you screw up, make it again.

But never, ever give up. Pin It