The Hidden Epidemic: Overdose Deaths In America

“There are all kinds of addicts, I guess. We all have pain. And we all look for ways to make the pain go away.”            --Sherman Alexie

One hundred thousand deaths.

That’s equivalent to the whole population—every woman, man, and child—in places like Quincy, Massachusetts and South Bend, Indiana and Albany, New York and West Palm Beach, Florida.  One hundred thousand deaths: that’s forty-thousand more deaths than happened in the entire Vietnam War, from 1956 to 1975. Thirty times more deaths than happened on September 11^th, 2001. It’s equal to three full capacity baseball games at Fenway Park or two sell outs at Yankee Stadium.  No matter how you add it up, 100,000 people dying is a huge number.

One hundred thousand souls lost. That is how many people died in the United States in 2020 from drug overdoses, the most overdose deaths in one year in the history of our country.

In just twelve months, more people died from this cause than in car accidents (38,680) or by suicide (44,834). That’s 273 deaths by overdose every single day last year in our nation.  West Virginia had the highest death rate at 53 deaths per 100,000 people and Nebraska was the lowest at “just” 8 deaths at that rate.

Though, of course, there is no “just” when it comes to the pain left behind for loved ones and communities when someone takes drugs, ingests, or shoots up, to the point where it kills them.  As a pastor I witness first-hand what drug deaths and drug addiction do to people and families and communities. It guts a family, splits it apart, causes so much misery. It can hollow out a neighborhood. I’ve seen the hell that it is to live as a drug addict, people who wrestle with that demon and sometimes can get clean and sober and begin to recover, but far too often, are instead overcome by this disease, and eventually taken by it.

There was a time when drug addiction was viewed as a moral issue or a question of a person’s character or lack of will power. Thank God that is not, for the most part, our society’s attitude anymore.  The truth is that drug addictions and other deadly addictions, like alcoholism, are a mental illness. Addicts are caught in the grip of a mental obsession, as powerful as any other affliction of the mind or soul.

One of the saddest parts of this overdose epidemic is how little our media is reporting about it these days and how unaware so many of us are about a problem that is not very far away from any place in the United States. You’d think 100,000 deaths would warrant a national outcry. An overdose could be as close to you as your neighbor’s house next door or on Main Street downtown or in the city you visit for work or play. Drug addiction doesn’t care how big your bank account is or where you went to college or the color of your skin or the place you call home. It is everywhere among every class, in every zip code, among all demographics.

I’m sure part of the reason this story has flown under the radar is because of COVID and all the other intense stories that have dominated our collective lives in the past 18 months. A wacky and weird election. Climate change becoming all too real. The collapse of Afghanistan. We are all living through unprecedented times and yet, we must not allow the tragedy of drug overdoses to remain invisible, in the shadows.

Nor should we forget that so many overdose deaths and struggles with opioid addiction are a product of despair. Human despair and spiritual suffering. People losing all hope because they can’t find a job, or the factory closed for good, or they were evicted from their homes, or they can’t feed their kids, or they feel trapped in an unsafe neighborhood. There are so many people in so much pain in our world.

We could just turn away. It’s tempting.

Addiction is so ugly in how it plays out and yet: as humans and fellow children of God, we can’t ignore the truth that 100,000 of our neighbors and friends and co-workers and children died in 2020 because of this national scourge. We can pray for those who struggle, absolutely, and we can act as well. Advocate for more and better and less expensive treatment centers. Show compassion for addicts. Push for anti-addiction education in schools and houses of worship and in our communities. 

A single death by overdose is one too many but 100,000 deaths is catastrophic. Lord have mercy. God help us all to do something, to do anything, to help and maybe even save, these suffering souls. These our fellow Americans. 

One hundred thousand deaths. Lord have mercy. Lord have mercy.