Heroin Addiction

On May 22, 2002, my brother died from a heroin overdose.

Since then, I've come to terms with his death that beautiful spring day, slumped over the wheel of his girlfriend's minivan, overlooking a marina of sailboats with rigging ringing against the masts. My journey of acceptance has navigated the shoals of family, faith, addiction, anxiety and depression, and especially the choices we make  . . . and their consequences.

Few in America today are untouched by opioid addiction. The nation's opioid epidemic, driven by vastly over-prescribed narcotics like Oxycodone, Hydrocodone and Fentanyl, is now known if not understood by nearly everyone.

But the recent death of Scott Weiland, member of the bands Stone Temple Pilots and Velvet Revolver, in his tour bus, put heroin in sharp relief once again.

In 2005, Weiland was interviewed by Esquire writer Mike Sager for an article, The Devil Gives You the First Time for Free, where he described the rapture, and selfish deception, of heroin.

It came on Thanksgiving 1993. We went over to Jannina's parents' house. Tony lived in a room in the garage. After dinner, he's like, "I've got a couple of rigs. You wanna fix?" So naturally I was like, "Sure." He tied me off and shot me up. And then he said, "Now you've got your wings."

I remember just lying back on his mattress, and there was something barely on his TV, which was right by his bed but had bad reception, just static and snow. Complete warmth went all the way through my body. I was consumed. Like in Siddhartha, when they say there's that feeling of a golden light. There's that moment when he's sitting there, and there's this feeling of warmth, a golden light that just goes through his entire body. I can't remember exactly how they describe it, but there's this feeling in Buddhism where they say there's a golden glow that goes from your fingers all the way through every appendage and into the pit of your stomach. And that's what if felt like to me, slamming dope for the first time. Like I'd reached enlightenment. Like a drop of water rejoining the ocean. I was home.

All my life, I had never felt right in my own skin. I always felt that wherever I went . . . I don't know, I always felt very uncomfortable. Like I didn't belong. Like I could never belong. Like every room I walked into was an unwelcome room.

After doing dope for the first time, I knew that no matter what happened, from that day forward, I could be okay in every situation. Heroin made me feel safe. It was like the womb. I felt completely sure of myself. It took away all the fears. It did that socially; it distanced me from other people, made me feel less vulnerable. And it did that for me musically, allowing me to sort of go for it, you know, to dare to succeed. And it gave me a certain amount of objectivity. You don't have any more connection to the heart, to the body, to anything real. You kind of cease to exist. All that exists is the need.

Like my brother, Weiland rehabbed several times, but never beat the deceit and ultimate cost of his addiction. His wife, Mary Forsberg Weiland, and their two children are now left behind to try and make sense of it all. Last week she sent a letter to Rolling Stone magazine, with a poignant plea: Don't Glorify this Tragedy.

Many of these artists have children. Children with tears in their eyes, experiencing panic because their cries go unheard. You might ask, "How were we to know?" We read that he loved spending time with his children and that he'd been drug-free for years!" In reality, what you didn't want to acknowledge was a paranoid man who couldn't remember his own lyrics and who was only photographed with his children a handful of times in 15 years of fatherhood. When writing a book years ago, it pained me to sometimes gloss over so much grief and struggle, but I did what I thought was best for Noah and Lucy. I knew they would one day see and feel everything that I'd been trying to shield them from, and that they'd eventually be brave enough to say, "That mess was our father. We loved him, but a deep-rooted mix of love and disappointment made up the majority of our relationship with him."

Noah and Lucy never sought perfection from their dad. They just kept hoping for a little effort. If you're a parent not giving your best effort, all anyone asks is that you try just a little harder and don't give up. Progress, not perfection, is what your children are praying for. Our hope for Scott has died, but there is still hope for others. Let's choose to make this the first time we don't glorify this tragedy with talk of rock and roll and the demons that, by the way, don't have to come with it. Skip the depressing t-shirt with 1967-2015 on it - use the money to take a kid to the ballgame or out for ice cream.

Let's hope.