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By Ben Jones
Rappahannock News Writer
She was the sister of a good friend. I only met her once. She was pretty, vivacious, bright and talented. She was funny and artistic. She was also a troubled alcoholic and a drug addict. And now she is dead.
She had battled her addictions with only sporadic success. There were occasional months of sobriety, then the call of the monster and its overwhelming cravings pulled her back into selfdestruction.
She was clean and sober when I met her. And she seemed happy. But those brief moments of joy were erased when she drank and used, and according to her sister, she would do anything to get her drugs and she would do anything when she was under their influence. And that pretty, happy face became a mask of confusion, grief and torment.
Last week, just a few hours after checking out of a rehab unit, she was dumped at an emergency room by a couple of junkies. The junkies left, taking her car and her purse. She was dead from a heroin overdose.
No point in telling her name. In fact, we can all fill in the name of someone we know, perhaps a family member or an old friend. These stories are so commonplace now that our society is in danger of becoming hardened I to it. We have become so accustomed to hearing these daily tragedies that at most j we flinch and go on, trying to comfort the victims’ families and praying that we are spared their pain.
Some blame the dead. That person was “weak”, or “stupid”, or “criminal”, they
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