Heroin* – A Mindless and Dangerous Predator

Heroin* – A Mindless and Dangerous Predator,

now seeping into our unsuspecting suburban culture

By David H. Kerr              November 30, 2014

“A mother told her young children, “They’re bad people, and that’s why you should stay away from drugs.” Ms. Sperring’s fall from life as a suburban mom and a wife played out with dizzying speed. By the end, her modest condominium was a locus for a borough’s ravenous heroin demand. Dealers set up there; Staten Island’s bands of addicts, linked by word of mouth and cellphone connections, descended en masse; the police followed.”  NY Times, 11/29/14

In order to be badly wounded or killed by a shark, a person must choose to swim in water that is the shark’s territory or neighborhood.  Only the most stupid or impaired person would try to swim with the shark in an area of water that is marked “shark infested.”  The shark’s eyes have been described as “vacant” and with only one purpose; to find and to kill anything in its path.  The music from the movie “Jaws” is the perfect accompaniment to the shark’s deadly mission of survival.  If you’re too close, swimming away will be futile.  The shark will follow you and quickly bite and maim or kill all foolish enough to get close and even those smart enough to try to swim away.  The shark is a mindless and nearly blind predator.

I use the deadly shark’s bite and grip as an appropriate metaphor, in an attempt to describe the irresistible and often fatal grip of the illegal drug heroin.  Unlike the shark though, heroin is attractive but just as deadly.  Its “indescribable high” is discussed and spread by users and addicts.  Now in 2014, heroin appears to be blanketing our suburbs.  Spread by word of mouth, its’ often lethal grip on many unsuspecting parents and youth is moving us to an epidemic un-paralleled in the suburbs since the early 1900’s. 

What users and addicts don’t talk about is the creeping hold heroin begins to have on every aspect of their life.  Their children, their friends, their work, their relationships, their goals and dreams; all will be sacrificed to the powerful and exquisite seduction of heroin.  There is no power on earth that can compete with its’ “high” and nothing will describe the total devastation that it will bring to everything and everyone we love and hold precious.  For too many, death is the only way out.  No hyperbole here, just plain facts and experience with thousands of heroin addicts, suburban and urban, rich and poor. The result is the same.  Incapacitation and self-imprisonment to the craving for heroin.

In my opinion, people can and should stay away from most opioids including the present day commonly prescribed painkillers.  There are other ways to reduce or eliminate pain that don’t cause addiction as a by-product, however, take the advice of your doctor. 

Heroin must be off limits though!!  Those who have fallen prey to its seduction will soon understand what I am saying about its destruction.  Please don’t even try it once!  Often that is all it will take to cripple and disable all of what you see that is good and worthwhile in your life including your family.  Unlike the shark though, heroin will take you a little at a time so that you won’t see it as such a threat until it takes you down. 

My recommendation for pain: yoga and/or meditation, prayer and changing your lifestyle.  Faith and religion are often a strong antidote and preventative for the instant but short lasting gratification of heroin.

Trust me, stay away from heroin!