Between Two Pages: Children of Substance

A collection of wounded parents whose children have died from a drug overdose or suicide related to substance abuse came together on the website GriefNet org Each one was damaged by misplaced blame and guilt because they couldn t rescue their children So deeply filled with sorrow they were unable to find a life after death They have become a family in grief crying together and comforting one another The public must be educated to the reality of the War on Drugs There are people who still believe in the junkie stereotype Many presume that these children were weak willed and deserved what was coming to them Some people are judgmental uneducated mean spirited or have blinders on Drugs created a helplessness in these children that is hard for outsiders to understand Kicking the drug habit is incalculably difficult Also powerless are the secondary victims those who are left behind to cope with the losses this dreadful disease has caused Each child that died left behind a parent whose life is now changed forever They cannot erase the horror of that moment when they first heard that their child had died The nightmares and the visions of their children dying continue to haunt them