My Niece was Treated Nicely in a Job Interview

My niece was treated nicely in a job interview. Yes, it comes as a surprise. She got addicted to Meth. I’m not going to apologize and neither should she. After 3+ years clean, she had a relapse. She was caught with drug paraphernalia and spent a couple of days in prison. She explained all this to both companies that interviewed her. One brilliant hiring official said all that matters is that you got clean. Both companies hired her.
It shouldn’t be so shocking, but people have treated her terribly in the past. Some called her a junkie. I’ve heard people refer to her as garbage. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), by the time individuals reach their senior year of high school, 70 percent will have tried alcohol, 50 percent will have abused an illicit drug, 40 percent will have smoked a cigarette, and 20 percent will have used a prescription drug recreationally, or for nonmedical purposes. With the OxyCotin scandal dragging down the national life expectancy and driving up the number children in foster care due to parents in rehab or worse, in morgues, we need to rethink how we classify people who are fighting addiction of any type.
Traditionally addiction has been viewed as a discipline problem, not unlike the way we fat shame people under the assumption that they have any control over their body weight. Reading the Secret Life of Fat, I learned we don’t know shit about fat. In fact, fat fights to stabilize the body’s weight and chances are pretty good, if you see anyone obese, her or she is most probably suffering from an undiagnosed and very possibly unknown medical illness. https://www.amazon.com/Secret-Life-Fat-Science-Understood/dp/0393244830
But back to addiction. Everything from alcoholism to drug addiction is generally viewed with scorn in our communities. As a part of a sociology of health undergraduate class in 1996, I visited Narcotics Anonymous groups, and what I saw were people fighting a heroic struggle. While it’s true sometimes they stumble, they can and do win, and that’s an extraordinary achievement that I think no one outside that world can truly appreciate.
Now that OxyCotin has brought to light what has actually always been true, that doctors, lawyers, dentists and other highly educated and well-paid people also fall into addiction. It’s not only those on the lower end of the economic spectrum. Everyone is susceptible. Please be kind to people who tell you they are addicts. And try to understand what an incredible achievement it is for them to get and stay clean and sober.