The United States is currently facing a deadly opioid crisis where people are prescribed painkillers to recover from surgery. 91 people a day are dying from opioid addiction which is more than car accidents and homicides. HBO’s short documentary “Warning: This Drug May Kill You” is about different families who were affected by drug addiction and just how dark addiction can go.
This short documentary first starts out with videos people shot of addicts who are high, including one when a woman passes out in a supermarket with her young daughter trying to wake her up. We learn that in 2007, Purdue Pharmacy had to apologize for lying to people saying that opioids were not addictive. We see addiction starts out innocently when someone is simply taking pills to relieve the physical pain they are enduring after facing an injury or coming out of surgery. No one is prepared for what is to come next.
Wynne Doyle became addicted to prescription painkillers after her third C-section. Her kids felt like she was becoming a different person when she turned into an addict. She got divorced and had to share custody of her kids. When she wanted to get better, she had kidney stones which brought her back to painkillers. None of her kids knew what to do to stop her from taking prescription drugs. Her sons found her in bed deceased from a fatal overdose. Her ex-husband blamed the doctors for this as they would keep on giving her painkillers without thinking of the habit-forming effects it could bring on Doyle.
Stephany Gay took Vicodin, Oxycontin, and Dilaudid after suffering from kidney stones at sixteen. It was expensive for her to keep getting them and she was sharing them with her sister who ended up suffering a fatal overdose from her addiction but Gay was still hooked on painkillers. When her supply was running low, she abused heroin as it was cheaper and you could get ten times high from a small amount. We see that she has a young daughter who gets adopted by her grandmother after Gay relapses. We see that the grandmother teaches her granddaughter what to do if someone overdoses and how they have a safety pack where she can find it. Hopefully after watching this documentary, you will see how easy it is to acquire opioids and how something needs to be done about it.
Located in downtown Midland, The Springboard Center’s mission is to offer programs and services to treat alcohol and drug addiction treatment using an evidence based curriculum, 12 step programs, diet, nutrition, exercise, emotional, mental and spiritual development for a long recovery. For more information, please call us at 432-620-0255 as we are open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
