As The Founder and Executive Director for IHS, I know the pain of losing a loved one to this crisis. I am the youngest and only girl in a family of three older brothers. With an Irish and German background, my family didn’t communicate our feelings much growing up, but my brother David did. He was the most loving one in our family. He always said “I love you” and would literally give you the shirt off his back if you needed it.   

I remember moving into the college dorms as a freshman. We brought three cars of my stuff and it was all over the parking lot. My father saw the size of my room for three girls and got overwhelmed and upset wondering how I would fit everything. I began crying and started putting everything back in the car and there was David, on the opposite side of the car, taking everything back out. He said, “Don’t worry about Dad. He’ll calm down. We’ll get it all in there.” That is David: always trying to make you happy, always giving love even at his own expense with the hopes of receiving true love back. Unconditional love is all he really wanted, needed and deserved.    

On 10/09/2008, five  o'clock in the morning, my 71 year old Mother went downstairs to let her dog out when she found my 43 year old brother, David, dead on the floor. He died of an opioid and alcohol overdose following his 20-year battle with addiction.    

My brother was a typical high school kid. He played sports, had lots of friends and loved to laugh and have a good time.  He was a 3rd class Petty Officer and an acoustics operator in the Navy when he injured his back. That is when he was given his first prescription for opioids... the beginning of the end. The disease of addiction took control of him and for 20 years my family struggled and suffered with David through his addiction. As addiction does, it caused many issues and heartaches in our lives, including him missing my wedding. As his addiction progressed,  David eventually started having detoxing seizures when missing his "fixes."  The first one happened when he was so stressed out thinking my father (with Small Cell Lung Cancer) might die on his birthday.  As my father went into a coma like state, my brothers and I went into the living room to give he and my Mom time together. David's detox seizure happened in the middle of our living room floor while we were waiting for my father to die. My father did die on David’s birthday, Valentine’s Day. My Mother had to manage David’s seizures alone without my father as he continued to struggle with his addiction and these continued unannounced for the last four years of his life.  

My brother is a good person and didn't want to suffer and die. He wanted to be healthy and make the right decisions but this disease had him and he didn't get help for his body, mind and spirit. If only I knew what I know today maybe things could have been different. Even if not, I could have been more compassionate and empathetic at times but back then, I didn't know addiction is a disease. I thought it was a choice. I now know the truth and hope that together, David and I, can help others with our story.  May he now rest in peace.