Pubdate: Thu, 26 Mar 2015
Source: Los Angeles Times (CA)
Copyright: 2015 Los Angeles Times
Contact:  http://www.latimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/248
Author: Frances O'Neill Zimmerman

DRUG ADDICTS AREN'T INNOCENT

Re "A gentle lamb taken by wolves," Opinion, March 22

Author Kerry Madden should keep going to Al-Anon. She's still 
struggling to understand what's happened to her son, a recovering 
addict, and his dead friend Noah, and she never reveals what their 
gateway drug may have been. Could it have been pot?

But Madden's confusion and pain testify to the scourge of drug 
addiction. It takes money, silence, complicity with other users, 
deals with dealers, and lies upon lies to loved ones and to oneself 
to become an addict. No one is a "lamb." No one is a "wolf."

No addict is the person you once knew. Everyone involved gets burned 
- - the addict, the friends, the family. Some addicts die. Some addicts 
live permanently impaired. Some addicts get sober and live to rebuild.

Frances O'Neill Zimmerman

La Jolla
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