NEW YORK TIMES ESSAY –

April 12, 2023 – He insisted he was fine and said he could stop using on his own if he wanted to, but he didn’t want to. Once he was 18, I couldn’t force him. He had to decide for himself — and yet he was in no condition to do so. “I was completely out of my mind, unable to make rational decisions,” he says now.

Most people who are seriously ill want to get better and, if given the opportunity, will choose to be treated. However, addiction can defy logic.

“You can only understand what it’s like to be addicted if you imagine being deprived of air,” a boy addicted to opioids once told me when I visited an adolescent treatment program for book research. “You’ll do anything in order to breathe. You’ll kick, punch, knock down walls. I didn’t want drugs; I needed them — that’s how it felt — and I did whatever it took to get them. I lied, cheated and stole. I would do anything for drugs.”

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