Keep Him High, Sell Him Again

Here’s how it happens. 

A teenager is a little wild and rebellious. Maybe her parents are too strict. Maybe they just don’t care that much. Or maybe they care a lot but don’t seem to be able to get their child back on track. The kid tries a little alcohol, a little weed, then harder stuff. The people he meets in the land of lost boys introduce him to helpful dealers who give him free samples of the good stuff. Pretty soon he’s a full-blown addict.

There follow the lies, the fights with family, the stealing, more lies, more fights, more stealing, and pretty soon the kid is on the street, either by choice or by eviction from a home that doesn’t understand, can’t understand, what happened to their little boy. 

He has to want to change, they say. He has to hit bottom.

But bottom is rock hard, and it hurts.

Even if the kid wants out, even if he goes into rehab, the permanent exits are guarded by his addict homies, his dealers and, as it turns out, even the recovery system. He becomes a body for the body brokers who sell him to the highest bidder in the detox-sober-living system. The fees for his recovery are collected from health insurance plans he has or ones the body brokers enroll him in. He lives in a sober living house that often isn’t sober at all. 

Keep him high, keep him addicted, sell him again, and again, until there’s nothing left to sell.

This is what addicts and their parents are fighting. Recovery is tough enough, but nearly impossible if the game is rigged. Like those milk bottles at the state fair. No one can ever knock them down. Still they keep trying. 

And still the barker puts the money in his pocket.