Rent-A-Friend –
"Small & Simple" Sample
from "Kitty"
How could an experienced junkie overdose?
i'm glad to see your site for questions and answers. my husband died of a heroin overdose
in april, his second go round in 5 years with it, but is it normal for me to be so pissed
off at him for such stupidity. i mean he was a pro how could you accidentally o.d. when he
had so much practice. i loved my husband dearly and had always been able to separate the
junkie from the man and i have maybe forgiven the man but can't forgive the junkie for
stealing my whole life away. i don't feel like i've done much mourning no service, no
funeral just had him cremated and brought him home. didn't want to have to rehash the
drug thing a million times. as a pro, is this normal?
Kitty
Holly's Response
Hi Kitty,
I'm sorry to hear about your husband's fatal overdose. It seems very acceptable to me to
experience anger about that, and anger is an early stage in the grief process, anyway.
As for the overdose, skilled junkies overdose all the time. The quality and purity of the
street drugs varies greatly, depending on how much it was cut by dealers, and where the
drug was processed initially. When junkies hear of a deadly overdose, many tend to rush
out to try to cop some of the same stuff, because they know it is strong, and therefore a
good buy. No one believes it will actually be good bye.
Grief is different for each of us. Being married to a junkie, you likely had already done
some of your grief work during his active addiction, knowing on some level, that he was
in the process of killing himself. I understand loving the man and hating the addiction,
and that was exactly the right thing to have learned to do.
There really is no such thing as normal, as it is just a statistical average. I suspect
that you will have flashes of sadness about the loss of what might have been, the shattered
dreams, and unrealized potential of your relationship. That is all part of the grief process,
and it will find it's way in between your larger times of anger. Just be gentle with yourself.
His disease put you through enough – you don't need to should on yourself.
Holly
