Brian Donaghue Simpson
Yet another story of how the stigma around mental health and substance use disorder ends with tragic consequences. Kate Donaghue shares her story about her son Brian's struggles with depression, which led to self-medication. Today, self-medication often means powerful prescription opioids that are chemically identical to heroin. Brian's addiction then led him into our broken (or nonexistent) treatment system that compounded his agony and despair. Sadly, the ending of Brian's story is similar to the hundreds of thousands of souls who have lost their life in the Opioid Epidemic, which continues to kill more than 50,000 Americans every year. Kate and we all must wonder; how can things be different? Haven't we learned anything?