This holiday season, like many other families who have lost someone to drugs, alcohol, or suicide, I am heartbroken. I miss my little sister Jenny, who died last year from prescription opioids and alcoholism. I am grateful for all that I have. But mostly I feel guilty, knowing I failed my sister in every way a person can.
I go through the motions of the holidays this year, spending many evenings at the Willard Hotel in Washington, D.C., which is magical at Christmas. Live music fills a small but grand lobby that is dominated by a 20-foot Christmas tree with blinking white lights and hundreds of gold ornaments and red ribbons. Nightly performers range from professional groups like the Congressional Chorus to local school and community choirs.
Tonight, it’s Georgetown Visitation high school’s all-girls choir. They are dressed in long, black stylish gowns. Their families and friends, hotel guests, and D.C. residents like me sit and listen, humming along remembering our Christmas pasts. It’s a festive and joyful atmosphere, but I’m teary-eyed during most of the classics, remembering my sister.
Our family’s story isn’t unique. It isn’t the saddest story. But it is a chilling example of the power of shame and stigma that prevents us from helping the people we love. In 2017, a record 72,000 people died from overdose, and my sister was just one of them. Jenny was just one of the 90 percent of 22 million Americans with substance use disorder who never get treatment. She died without our family ever having one honest conversation about drugs and alcohol. I experienced the entirety of her addiction, suffering, and death in just six gruesome days as she died an unexpected, heartbreaking death in Kenmore Mercy hospital, near Buffalo.
Every day for the past year, I have tried to understand how this happened to our family. Since Jenny’s death, I’ve done many hours of research on substance use disorder. I’ve met with Senate staff, given a TEDx talk, published op-eds, and volunteered at an outpatient addiction treatment center. The main thing I’ve learned is that the opioid crisis continues to metastasize across America largely due to shame and stigma.
I would have done anything to help my sister, but she never asked. Jenny needed medication-assisted treatment and a doctor who was board certified in addiction medicine. I’m not ashamed of my sister for having substance use disorder, but I’m so ashamed of myself for not educating myself about it sooner.
The holidays will never be the same for our family. I feel the tears coming as the girls start to sing “Silent Night.” Some of the younger children who are sitting on the floor up front sing along, and their quiet little voices quickly silence the bustling lobby.
For my sister Jenny, and too many others, “Sleep in heavenly peace. Sleep in heavenly peace.”
Kelly O’Connor is a product manager with the United States Digital Service in Washington, D.C. and recently gave a TEDx Talk, “My Introduction to Narcan.”
