BRATTLEBORO-There is no single perfect lens through which to observe and understand the drug epidemic.
Addiction looks very different depending on where you are standing. The person actively using drugs, the person who has fought their way into recovery, the parent who has lost a child, the family member whom someone's addiction has repeatedly hurt, the first responder, the social worker, and the community member watching their neighborhood struggle may all see the same crisis differently. None of those perspectives, by itself, tells the entire story.
I believe we make a mistake when we insist that compassion must look the same for everyone.
For some people in recovery, compassion and connection become part of staying sober. They find purpose in helping others who are still struggling because they understand that struggle personally.
For others, maintaining distance from active drug use may be essential to protecting the life they have rebuilt. They may continue to feel anger, disgust, or a strong rejection toward the drug culture and behaviors that once surrounded their addiction. Those feelings may reinforce a boundary between who they are today and a life they are determined not to return to.
We should be careful not to tell someone in recovery what they are supposed to feel.
Anger is not necessarily the absence of compassion, just as compassion does not require accepting destructive behavior.
We can recognize that addiction involves suffering without pretending that its consequences are harmless. We can care about the person who is using drugs while also acknowledging the harm that can be experienced by families, businesses, neighborhoods, healthcare workers, first responders, and entire communities. We can support treatment and recovery while still expecting accountability and maintaining reasonable boundaries.
One of the most difficult parts of responding to the drug epidemic may be accepting that several things can be true at once: a person struggling with addiction can deserve dignity and help, the people affected by that person's behavior can deserve safety and accountability, and someone who has escaped addiction can have compassion for others without being expected to emotionally embrace the culture or circumstances they worked so hard to leave behind.
Understanding addiction requires compassion, but understanding its broader impact requires listening to more than one perspective. There is room for empathy, boundaries, accountability, grief, anger, and hope in the same conversation.
Alisa Arroyo
Brattleboro
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