A father’s grief opens door to drug discussion

I read the obituaries just about every day. It’s a habit I’ve had for years, starting back in the 1980s when I was a practicing nurse. In those days, I looked for the names and faces of my mostly geriatric patients, noting when someone whose bedside I had attended, whose family I had grown to care for, or whose circumstances had touched me personally passed from this life into whatever comes after.

Now, I scan the obits for another reason. Because I write about substance abuse and addiction, and because I know all too well how deadly today’s “recreational” drugs can be, I look for tragedy on the obituary pages. I find it all too often – in the young faces of the dead, in the wrenching, between-the-lines grief of the surviving schoolmates, siblings, parents, spouses and young children, in the veiled references to “died unexpectedly” or “died in his sleep” or “died in an automobile accident.” Young people leave us for many sad reasons, of course, but I know in my heart that many, if not most, of those whose obituaries I keep in my file have died of drug-related causes. Until recently, though, I had never seen it confirmed in an obituary.

On Dec. 1, when I came across the obituary of 29-year-old Samuel Hamill of Tremont, on Mount Desert Island, I felt shocked – and oddly excited. Right at the top, the third sentence read: “He had struggled for many years with an addiction to heroin and other drugs.” Midway through the notice: “He gained support from several Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous groups in and near Mount Desert Island and elsewhere.” And at the bottom: “His family hopes that his death will help others to understand the devastation to families caused by drug and alcohol abuse on Mount Desert Island and move others to support groups that work hard and against great odds to mitigate their effects. Tax deductible contributions in his memory may be made to The MDI Alcohol and Drug Group, Inc., P.O. Box 616, Southwest Harbor, ME 04679.”

Back in the early 1990s, when I worked as a visiting nurse in the Bangor area, several of my patients were young gay men who had developed AIDS and had come home to die. Family members often learned of the men’s homosexuality at the same time that they were confronted with the then-hopeless diagnosis and its devastating course. They struggled to cope with their emotions – fear, grief, anger and shame – while tending to their dying sons’ most intimate needs. They watched as their loved ones wasted away day by day, their hours filled with the physical pain and mental confusion of full-blown AIDS.

Families’ despair was only worsened by the stigma associated with the disease and the silence surrounding it. There was no way to talk about young men with HIV-AIDS without also talking about homosexuality, and that was just not a conversation most people in rural Maine were ready to have.

This deadly silence was broken on the obituary page, as one by one, families decided to bring their pain out of the closet. Some chose to identify the viral disease that had claimed their loved one’s life; others made reference to surviving same-sex companions, or asked that memorial donations be made to AIDS research.

The trend marked a subtle but essential shift in public attitude. It began to reveal the extent of the disease, helped de-fuse the issue of homosexuality and opened the door to shared conversation, education and support. It identified the real enemy – ignorance, prejudice and fear – and allowed families to reclaim their loved ones, even in death, from its grasp.

Samuel Hamill’s father, also named Sam Hamill, said he wrote his son’s obituary for papers in Maine and New Jersey without thinking too much about the impact of its openness. “It seemed like a perfectly natural thing to do,” he said in a phone conversation last week from his home in Princeton, N.J. Young Sam’s addiction and his long struggle to overcome it had been a topic of frank conversation within the family circle for several years, and many of their friends also were aware of the young man’s disease.

Hamill said the response to the obituary has been remarkable. He’s received stacks of letters from friends, acquaintances and strangers in both Maine and New Jersey. Many have praised his forthrightness in naming his son’s disease and some have shared their own struggles against substance abuse and addiction.

Young Sam, he said, would approve. “He tried hard and he was always very open [about his addiction] with us,” the father said. “At first, I didn’t want to talk about it. But then I discovered that virtually everybody has a friend or a family member in trouble with drugs or alcohol. And once the topic was out on the table, people really did want to talk about it. My personal experience has been that talking has been very beneficial.”

Of course, conversation alone can’t cure the disease of addiction. Even with access to the best treatment programs in the country and all the emotional and material support his family could offer, Hamill’s beloved son still died of an overdose. But, as with HIV-AIDS, “owning” the disease is key to raising awareness, improving access to treatment and supporting research.

Addiction is not a disease that affects only the poor, the indigent, the uneducated, the disadvantaged. It doesn’t affect only other people and other families. It belongs to all of us. It is our disease, claiming the lives of our children, and it’s time we were angry enough to talk about it.

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