The excitement is overwhelming the time is here. I am about to be a father, soon my child will be born and life will be okay.

I will have the family I never had. I will get off this dope and begin to have a normal life. We must get the baby home.

Unfortunately, that never happened because the baby was born with drugs in its system. The social workers were called and they took it from us. They gave my mother physical custody, the very woman who kicked me out of the house and let me be abused when I was small was now responsible for my child. How could this be, how could I have let this happen? Why did they take it from me?

I am feeling sick again, I need a pill, not to get high but just to not be sick. I cannot go through the sickness, just a little bit to hold me over. I can wean myself off a little at a time. I can get clean I can pass the test. I can get my child back…then it will be okay my life will be whole. I can forget all the pain, all the hurt, all the anger. What have I done…I did too much. I am so high, I have ruined everything. I failed another test, they told me this was my last chance. They are going to take my child…my hope, my future, my everything, what will I do. I will get high really high. I will get numb. Today is my baby’s birthday. I am still high, I am still numb.

The above story is just a small excerpt from a real life, a real child who now has different parents than it was born with. The person depicted is still using and still trying to numb the pain. This person truly loves his child and is still trying to get off the dope.

I sat at my desk and cried as I wrote this because I know this person. I know they are not just a story on a page but another human facing their own set of struggles. A set of struggles that include a cost that never can be paid. A loss that can never be regained.

This story has been repeated multiple times with multiple children being raised by someone other than those humans they were born with. Maybe if we begin to look at addiction from the point of view of the person that is affected by it maybe then we will join the battle to end the Plague.

Ken Metcalf is a transplant to Winchester of 9 years and has been working with the addicted for over 10 years.

He can be reached at  theplaguewinchester@gmail.com.