I watched the movie The Hungry Heart last night at the Vergennes Opera House. This documentary depicts the epidemic of opiate addiction in Franklin County, VT among young people and one pediatrician's work to try to offer help to his patients. Fred Holmes, who is now retired, was one of the first doctors in Vermont certified to prescribe Suboxone®, which is the drug buprenorphine, that can help addicts calm the cravings for opiates, such as percocet or oxycodone.
I worked at the Franklin County Early Childhood Programs and Dr. Holmes was one of the pediatricians I regularly received referrals from when he suspected that a child in his care may have a serious developmental delay. As I watched the movie, which featured teenaged patients of Dr. Holmes as well as older addicts who described addiction and recovery, I was struck by the familiar faces. This movie hit so close to home.
What it did brilliantly was humanize the the story of addiction. These people were not "the other." They did not fall into our stereotype of the drug addicts. Represented among them were the farmer's hard working son, the exuberant boy with a great smile, and the girl we all go to school with.
There were examples of kids who got their first opiates from a parent, from friends at school, or from medications to control a diagnosis of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. Another common theme was that the opiates helped them to not feel pain (emotional or physical). Some were children of addicts or kids who had been bouncing around in
the foster care system for years. A common theme was that they did not
feel like they had adults in their lives that loved them.
Dr. Holmes ended up being a person for these kids who was willing to listen to them and offer them help to make it through recovery. He talks about how using Suboxone® is controversial in helping addicts. Some people think it is just substituting one drug for another. And, it is a drug that is abused by addicts in an injected form. However, one of the addicts in the movie made the point that if you broke your leg, you'd get a cast, and then when the cast was gone you may still need crutchs while your leg is regaining its strength. She said it was fine with her that people referred to her Suboxone® as a crutch because a crutch was exactly what she needed to kick her addiction.
When the movie ended, the audience had an opportunity to talk with six of the people from the film, including Dr. Holmes. Of the many things they said can help with this problem in our community is reaching out to people who are in crisis and treating people with humanity. Included in those options were making sure early intervention services for kids and families were stronger to help both paretns who may be struggling as well as not letting young kids head down a road with little or no positive connections to adults. One of Dr. Holme's nurses said that her daughter, who is a kindergarten teacher, was in tears after reluctantly viewing The Hungry Heart because she could see kids in her classroom who were at risk for being addicts in their teens. I understand her reaction, because I think I could even see this possible future for some of my preschool students.
The message I took home from the movie was to not cast a blind eye to the problem. It is alive and well and growing. When the panelists asked the audience if they knew of anyone struggling with addiction, most of the hands in the room went up. When they asked the audience if they thought addiction was an issue in Vergennes, they got the same response. It is difficult to ignore a problem when it stares you in the face.
Issues that face addicts are that they are made to be outcasts, rather than people who have a disease that needs treatment. And, when they do get to a point where they want treatment, there are often waiting lists for up to two years for space in treatment facilities in Vermont. There are also a limited number of doctors who, like Dr. Holmes, are treating patients with Suboxone® to manage their cravings.
But we are not helpless. We can ask our own doctors to consider treating addicts to increase the number of options that those addicted to opiates have for treatment. We can put pressure on our state and federal representatives to fund more treatment facilities for addicts so there are less wait times. We can safely dispose of our old prescriptions of Vicodin, Percocet, and Oxycodone by bringing unused, legally prescribed pills to our local police station for proper disposal. We can also question the amount of these drugs that are legally prescribed to us. Do we really need 30 pills to recover from that surgery, or could we get by with ten? We can reach out to people we know who might be struggling with addiction and let them know there are options for treatment.
Here is a link to the movie trailer: The Hungry Heart Trailer
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