I Need My Medicine

Click here to be directed to my most recent blog.


I Need My Medicine.

"How are you?" is a typical and a rather sterile question that everyone asks everyone else when we first see each other each day.  It's come to mean not much of anything.  Do we really care how the other person is?

I'm guilty of it just as much as anyone else.  When I was first getting to know the men and women of the community under a bridge in Kensington, I would say "Hi, (first name), how are you today?"   The most typical answer that I receive has been along the lines of "Not well.  I'm sick.  I need my medicine."  And here's where my lack of understanding due to never being an addicted person myself shined bright like a spotlight on a foggy night...

I would look at each person and ask them what type of cold they had, chest, head, allergies?  Out of the politeness that I've discovered in almost every person in this community, they would respond with,  "No. I'm dope sick and need my medicine."  I still didn't really understand what they meant until just a couple days ago when a member of this community explained through word and example exactly what was meant by this phrase.

I sat down on the sidewalk with one person who was feeling dope sick.  He told me that it had been far too long since his last heroin injection.  Dope sickness can manifest itself differently in different people.  His dope sickness was something like allergy becoming flu.  In the few minutes we sat together, I observed his symptoms going from mild to severe allergy to a headache and nausea.  He apologized in advance for the possible accident he may have in his pants.  "I'll be better as soon as I get my medicine."

He excused himself from our conversation to get his medicine.  I saw him again not even half an hour later and he was completely healed.  All symptoms were gone!  

"All I needed was my medicine." 

I finally got it... At least to a small degree, I finally understand the desperate need of a person trapped in addiction to continue to "need their medicine" to keep from becoming increasingly outrageously physically sick.

What's missing from the above description?

Nowhere did I mention getting high from their drug use.  I sat down with another person on the opposite sidewalk from the above discussion as he prepared four or five packets of heroin for one injection.  As he was doing so with the skill of any R.N. preparing a shot for a patient in a hospital, this man looked at me and said, "Chris, I've built ups such an immunity that I don't get high any more.  I continue to do this to keep from getting sick."  

"I need my medicine."

For some but not all of the lady members of this community, their source of income for their medicine is their body.  One woman told me that to keep from getting sick, she will stand on a street corner or walk around on Kensington Avenue for hours as dope sickness settles in until some 'man' makes an offer.  

"One was an important lawyer who picked me up in his Cadillac, took me to a center city hotel, tied me to the bed, had his way with me, got dressed, untied me and left the room.  I had to use some of the money he gave me for public transit just to get back here to buy my medicine."  

With tears running down my own cheeks just as much as her tears running down her cheeks, I asked: "Why do you do this?"

"I need my medicine."

**********

Chapter 2: The Compass of Shame

The phrase "I need my medicine" was a gut-punch of a lesson. It stripped away the last of my naïve assumptions, replacing them with a stark reality: addiction, in this context, was not a choice. It was a desperate, constant act of survival. But as I continued to sit under that bridge and on those sidewalks, I began to learn about another kind of sickness—one that was not healed by a syringe or a pill.

I started to notice a pattern in the stories. It was a theme that ran deeper than the physical pain of withdrawal. It was the crushing weight of shame.

I saw it in the way people avoided eye contact, even when telling me their deepest truths. I saw it in the man who, after preparing his shot with surgical precision, lowered his head as he confessed, "I don't get high anymore." That line wasn't just about his tolerance; it was an apology, a defense against the imagined judgment he expected from me. He was telling me, "I'm not doing this for pleasure, so please don't think less of me."

I heard it in the woman's story, her tears a testament not just to the pain of her situation, but to the self-humiliation of it. The lawyer's Cadillac was a symbol of a world she had once known, and the hotel room wasn't just a place of danger; it was a stage for a violation that stripped her of her dignity, leaving her with just enough change for a bus ride back to her shame-filled reality. When she told me, "I need my medicine," it was a physical necessity, but the tears in her eyes spoke to the deeper emotional wound that her medicine could never heal.

Shame is a compass that points inward, convincing you that you are fundamentally flawed, worthless, and undeserving of help. It’s the voice that whispers, "You are a bad person." And for so many in that community, it was shame that kept them from reaching out for help even when it was offered. It was shame that made them believe they were not worthy of a bed, an ID, or a second chance. It was shame that told them that the judgment they saw in my eyes was real, even when my heart ached with empathy.

And so, as I continued to ask, "How are you?" I learned to listen for a different kind of answer. I learned to look past the physical symptoms of dope sickness and see the deeper pain of a heart and soul in turmoil. I realized that to truly help, the first dose of medicine had to be a powerful and unconditional counterpoint to the shame—a simple, loving affirmation that their life matters, no matter what.