Is Anyone Safe? –
June 3, 2018 – While America was diverted by homegrown terrorism, economic stress and mass shootings, another scourge quietly moved to the fore. Drug addiction is nothing new. What is new is which part of the population it strikes. All have been hit at different times but right now, it seems to be middle-aged white Americans battling opioids. Opioids come in many forms, including the street drug heroin and garden-variety prescription pills found in bathroom cabinets. The latter have been making headlines and dubbed a gateway to addiction.
President Trump declared America is in a state of emergency. But while the battle rages, real stories are left untold in every pocket of America. Addiction can happen to anyone and it can be conquered by anyone. Just ask 57-year-old Allen, a former Houston police officer. He fell prey to opioid addiction not under a bridge, but in a dentist’s chair. “I had some pretty extensive dental work done to my teeth. And the doctor prescribed me Vicodin for the pain. It started extremely innocently,” he said. Allen had struggled with alcohol abuse since his early twenties, a compulsion that was still with him at the time of his oral surgery.
