Addiction and the abyss of loneliness

Everyone knows someone struggling with addiction. Functional addicts are all over the workplace. There are alcoholics with vodka in their iced tea, people who swallow morphine, percoset or vicodin for pain and still perform their jobs, post-op patients being endlessly medicated by legal prescription for rather than being healed and, yes, heroin users. People in addiction are right next to you.

What’s your drug? Food? Shopping? Sex? Everyone has something but few are brave enough to name it.

Addiction breeds separation, and separation births loneliness. Loneliness can cause a soul to scream so loudly for attention that it will literally kill to get it.

Among the late Rev. Billy Graham’s papers were yellowing stacks of letters from people all over the world who wrote to him seeking prayer for relief from the abyss of loneliness.

Don’t you dare sit there in smug judgment. Don’t you dare think you are immune.

Just as you need air to live, so people with addiction receive a physiologic imperative from their bodies demanding to be supplied with whatever the substance is they need.

The March 5 edition of Time magazine is dedicated to one topic: The Opioid Diaries. Use it as a tool. Learn from it. Let your heart be broken and have nightmares over the stark black-andwhite gravity of the photo-journal. Use those realizations to make a difference in someone’s life, known or unknown.

Or, do nothing and wait for the phone call. KATHY LOVEJOY

Ross drive out of their driveway than they do by living or going to schoolnear a pipeline.

The current natural gas opportunities being pursued are improving safety, the environment and the economic flourishing of all our region’s citizens.

The legacy of how Pittsburgh steel impacted the world is one we embrace. Working together to encourage the development of our natural gas resources gives us a unique chance to impact the world in a very significant way once again. DAVID CRANSTON JR.

President Cranston Material Handling Equipment Corp.

Robinson

I received an automated phone call from Pittsburgh Public Schools Superintendent Anthony Hamlet Monday evening, with his response to the Pittsburgh Federation of Teachers’ strike announcement. Of note was his message that the end of the strike would be determined by the Pennsylvania Department of Education based on when teachers would have to return to class for 180 school days tobe completed by June 15.

Nothing in his message indicated that the school district would work diligently to find a resolution satisfactory to both sides. Nothing was said about good-faith negotiations taking place. Nothing in the message instilledme with confidence that our teachers are being heard and that the school district is considering how best to meet their needs.

Our teachers are an invaluable resource, and this scenario playing out against the backdrop of a Supreme Court considering loosening protections for public service unions makes me worry on many levels for not just our school district but our nation. JESSE SHARRARD Greenfield