Addiction

Yesterday I went to work and barely got through half of the report before I had to take in a new admission. By the time my paperwork cleared up enough to be able to see over the top of it, I was busy assessing patients.
People withdrawing off of opiates like heroin and morphine have a decreased pain threshold, so everything bothers them. "My pancreas is on fire, I think I'm dying". "I have a splinter in my finger". "I miss my kids so much". "I hurt all over".
The withdrawal is tough; most of them turn into whining, sobbing babies. But I would be the same way, I know I would.
"The root cause of addiction", says Dr. Gabor Mate in his excellent book 'in the realm of hungry ghosts' "...is pain". Pain upon pain upon pain.
All my female patients yesterday had been sexually and physically abused. One young woman's father had taken a hammer to her head as a child, so now she struggled with multiple allergies and brain injury-induced epilepsy (daily seizures!) and coping with a drug addiction while trying to parent three active boys. She said she had a yeast infection and when I asked to examine her she refused, saying since she'd been sexually abused she had post-traumatic stress disorder and wouldn't let anyone touch her. (I've sanitized her reply a little bit!)
But the saddest story, the one that kept me awake last night, was a 58-year-old woman named Elise (not her real name) who was trying to detox off of alcohol. Her entire body was covered in bruises. Some of them looked like belt marks. She shook constantly and at the slightest touch or noise she would flinch. She was a little lady and she was unsteady on her feet and needed my help getting onto the examining table.
After we'd talked for some time and she was reassured that I wasn't going to judge her, I wasn't going to hurt her, I really cared about helping her, she told me that she lived with her elderly parents who were also alcoholics. When she drank her father would lock her in her room, and he often beat her. The details (which I'll skip) made me feel sick and I listened to her and comforted her and told her it wasn't her fault and that we wanted to help and that we could find her somewhere to stay. She was tearful at the thought of leaving her mother and said that her Mom needed her, and she couldn't afford to get her own place, and her Dad was always sorry the next day, and maybe she just needed to talk to them and lay out some rules for her living with them.
I encouraged her to write down what she wanted and later I saw her list. Point 1: No more locking me in my room.
Sandra was beautiful, too beautiful, and she radiated vulnerability and sleezy sexuality. Alone in the examining room with me her mask slipped off and she cried and told me that her common-law husband had given her an ultimatum for getting off drugs, otherwise they would break up and he would sell her show horse. But she was desperate to be taken care of. She told me how she had been sexually abused and how she needed to use drugs to have energy and happiness. She tried to stop her tears but they kept coming.
Last night I had a terrible dream and I was crying out and Robin woke me up and pulled me into his arms and held me. It was just a dream, he said. I told him about it and he prayed with me, and I lay there for a long time thinking about it and how lucky I was to have his arms around me, have him looking after me.
Isaiah the prophet talked about Jesus. "He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering."
I told Elise yesterday about Jesus, how he was a friend that stood by your side no matter what you were going through.
"Like one from whom men hide their faces, he was despised, and we did not esteem him."
Do you think that God cares about these people who are living with pain, upon pain, upon pain? Does he see through their masks? Does he reach out to them in their crippling addictions and offer them hope?
"Surely he took up our sicknesses, and carried our sorrows.... he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed."