Recently you might have read about a rash of heroin overdose deaths all over the country. In Wayne County, Illinois they recorded over 50 in a two week period, with another 45 suspected deaths from the same cause. The overdoses have happened in large cities and rural areas. Near Pennsylvania they’ve happened as close as Phillipsburg, New Jersey.

The OD’s are the result of a combination of heroin and fentanyl, a substance about 40 times as powerful as heroin. In combination it is often deadly.

You might think addicts would run like hell from the heroin being sold in the areas where those deaths occurred. You would think they would avoid it like the plague. You would be thinking wrong.

On the contrary, addicts often run to those very areas.

Some of you may remember a few years back when the NBA's number one draft pick, Len Bias of the University of Maryland, died after using cocaine. The next day dealers were out on the streets in Baltimore hawking, "Len Bias Cocaine." That same year, an NFL football player on the West coast, Don Rodgers, also died from a cocaine overdose. The same sales pitch happened there. It worked. Addicts flocked to find it.

It tears at your brain. Why? Why would anyone do something like that? What happens in an addict’s mind? They hear about friends dying from an overdose and they run to find the drug? Why?

I had a conversation with a recovering heroin addict. He now has several years of sobriety. He explained to me about the "junkie's dream death." In the midst of a heroin addiction, the addict wants to get as high as possible and still survive. When a spate of OD's occur, it's the place to find it. "But", he explained, "even if they do survive, it won't be enough. An addict will return and return again. People don't understand that as addicts we don't live by logic, our lives are insane.”

Step 2 of Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous says, “Came to believe a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.” In recovery, the alcoholic or drug addict is urged to take a long, hard look at themselves and their behavior. One has to be more than a little insane to live that lifestyle.

A dear friend of mine, Tom M., was a recovering alcoholic. He passed away a few years ago, but he taught me a lot about Step 2. As he put it, “They told us we would die if we continued using, so we continued using anyway. We were told we would be fired if we didn’t straighten out, so we drank and used drugs anyway. Our families threatened to leave us if we didn’t get help, so we drank and used drugs anyway. We were put in jail for our behavior, so we drank and used drugs anyway. Look at us in our addiction and tell me our behavior was not insane.”

This column is not a call for sympathy for the active addict, far from it. While addiction is a disease, no matter how it started, the alcoholic or drug addict must take responsibility for treating it and dealing with the damage it caused.

No, this column is for the people who make themselves crazy trying to understand “Why?” “Why are they killing themselves? “ “Why are they hurting themselves and us?” “Why can’t they see what they’ve done?” “Did I do something to cause this?” “Don’t they love me or their children?”

Stop.

Please stop asking why. There is no one single “why.”

For the addict to change “What?” becomes more important than “Why?” “What has this cost me?” “ What problems do I have that don’t tie into my alcohol or drug use?” “What have I done that has hurt other people?” “What kind of person do I want to be, even if I don’t know how?”

For the family, it might become, “What must I stop doing to stop making myself feel crazy?” Then, find someone to talk to.

The article starts with the question, “Are these people crazy?” And the answer is yes, it’s the insanity of addiction, and it can come to an end.