Pubdate: Thu, 05 Jan 2017
Source: Worcester Telegram & Gazette (MA)
Copyright: 2017 Worcester Telegram & Gazette
Contact:  http://www.telegram.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/509
Note: Rarely prints LTEs from outside circulation area - requires 'Letter
to the Editor' in subject
Author: Dianne Williamson

DIANNE WILLIAMSON: STATISTICS HID HUMANITY BEHIND DRUG ADDICTION

Maxwell Baker wanted to be a doctor. His father, a physician himself, said
he would have been a great one.

"He was remarkably brilliant," said Dr. James L. Baker of Holden. "And he
had compassion."

But Maxwell also had an addiction, one that he battled and managed to tame
in the last two years of his life. He fell deeply in love, was taking
pre-med classes in college and was filled with energy and purpose. Two
days before Christmas, he told his dad that his goal was to treat addicts
and educate society about substance abuse.

"He said, 'I want to help society understand that it's a disease and
there's a person under there,' " his father recalled. "That's what he
wanted to do with his life."

Five days later, Maxwell Baker was dead. He was 23, a young man who played
the drums, devoured great works of literature and split wood to build a
roaring fire on Christmas Eve. He had a cat he called Agent Jack Bauer. In
his younger days he earned the nickname "Google Doodle" because he could
answer questions faster than the search engine, his family said. Today
he's a statistic, one of more than 47,000 to die of a drug overdose each
year in America.

On Tuesday, Dr. Baker drove to the Hillside Cemetery in Sterling to
examine the plot in which the youngest of his four children will be buried
on Friday. The plot is next to his own, which provides the elder Baker
some comfort. He also hopes that sharing Maxwell's story will help other
families cope, because he knows his son would have wanted that.

Like many addicts, the son his family called "Macky" began his addiction
with pills, while a student at Wachusett Regional High School in Holden.
He was just 15 and would soon move on to heroin. He dropped out of high
school and was a user for five years. One day in 2014, in what he
described as the hardest thing he'd ever done, his father kicked him out
of the house. The next day Macky started outpatient treatment at a program
in Framingham.

"He fought his way through it and he stopped," Dr. Baker said. Having
obtained his GED, he graduated from Quinsigamond Community College, where
he was a member of the student senate. He matriculated at UMass Lowell
this year to earn a bachelor's degree in biology. He fell deeply in love
with a woman named Emma and the pair were planning to live together and
later marry.

Then, on Nov. 27, Max suffered serious injuries in a car accident on Route
62 in Sterling. In the hospital, well aware of the danger of a relapse, he
initially refused pills or drugs of any kind. On Dec. 2 he underwent
surgery on his hand and was in so much pain he accepted six Vicodin pills.
On Christmas, he goaded his girlfriend into singing "Frosty the Snowman"
and "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer." Three days later, on Dec. 28, he was
found in the bathroom of his mother's house in Sterling, dead of an
apparent overdose.

"He had been really, really happy," his father said. "It was a complete
shock that it happened."

As medical director of the VNA Hospice and Palliative Care and
Rose-Monahan Hospice House, Dr. Baker had discussed an article with Max
just days before his death that had recently appeared in JAMA, the Journal
of the American Medical Association.

"The neurobiological basis for substance-use disorders has been
established by a growing body of research that concludes addiction is a
chronic disease of the brain and not simply a choice or a personal failing
as it has been viewed by many," reads the article, which calls substance
abuse "one of the most pressing public health issues in the United States"
and recommends expanding access to treatment.

"I asked him what I could do," Dr. Baker recalled. "He said, 'Dad, I just
need you to be there.' We were so close ... All of us are kind of blaming
ourselves. Was it our divorce? Did I enable him? I have incredible guilt
about it."

Now, the family is left with memories of a boy who built a science lab in
the dining room when he was just 10. Of a boy who played football with his
father in the backyard and then leaned on his chest as he picked animals
from the clouds in the sky. Of a man who had so much potential and so much
to live for.

Asked what was the hardest thing about losing his son, Dr. Baker said,
"Just the awareness that he had the strength and courage to build a happy
life and make a difference in this world, and now he can't do it. He can't
give to others what mattered so much to him."

Instead, Max Baker will be buried too young, with his drumsticks and his
beloved books, while those who survive him will carry the message he was
once to eager to share.

"I want to try to accomplish his goals," his father said. "I want to bring
this awful disease out of the shadows and recognize the humanity of people
suffering from it. These are people worth saving. They're all somebody's
son or daughter. We're all in this together, and we have to act that way."

Donations in Max's memory may be made to the Maxwell F. Baker Foundation
for Addiction Recovery at Santander Bank, 164 Reservoir St., Holden, MA
01520.
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