TobyMac's loss of son: Is the Church prepared for the opioid crisis?

The opioid crisis has been heavy in our area, but it is slowly lessening in our community while meth is up.

The article is right in that the opioid crisis is not a direct extension of the drug crisis. Many of its victims began with pain medication (by prescription) for real problems. They cracked down on the doctors, which is why things are improving here. Still, this doesn’t explain the rise in meth.

…but also boredom, family troubles, and more. My church had a young man, new believer, who became addicted to heroin, doing a year long program at Teen Challenge, after (his words) getting super bored at work. Others at Adult and Teen Challenge report getting into drugs because of insecurity at home with their families and other factors.

Another point of reference is that the medical community has been working against these addictions for a while—my stepdad is a retired dentist in a town near Chicago, and I remember him getting a call from the pharmacist when he’d been tricked into prescribing some oxycontin about 12 years back. Suffice it to say that at least in my hometown (Chesterton), the pharmacists were getting an idea who the addicts were and had created an informal blacklist to prevent getting them killed. Might have somewhat more difficult implementation in a bigger city, but there was a good effort.

Condolences to Tobymac and his family. One often doesn’t see this coming unless one really knows what to look for.