Reader’s Choice: H. By Sarah Resnick

Angelina Duran & Rosa Edwards

*Rosa’s writing is italicized

H. is simultaneously a story about learning about what heroin really means as a concept and dealing with a family member who is recovering from an addiction to it. Specifically, Sarah Resnick’s uncle ended up in a shelter in New York as a result of him being a recovering addict and long term methadone user. As mentioned, this story is centered around her dealing with her uncle.

The essay goes in depth on the topic of safe injection sites, something that’s highly debated in Seattle (there is currently an effort to make them a reality, as of now there’s only safe syringe exchange sites). There is a lot of evidence to suggest that they do more harm than good, and that much of the resistance can be explained by current societal stigma that’s not backed by evidence.  Also, as I read this essay I noticed that i took a lot of pauses, hence there was a lot of paragraphs. But the point I am trying to make is that these pauses are somewhat significant in portraying this story. The way the author tells her journey with her uncle and the events in her life in order and with the dates involved really shows the connection she has with this pandemic. It draws my attention even more. Also, as I read I noticed that there was a rise in how many people were dying from this pandemic.

One point the author makes is that no one really knows what addiction is, and the “exceptions” sometimes outweigh the “rules”

A quote that stood out to me is “Yet even after all this time, I still find that certain ideas I’d taken for granted throughout adolescence and early adulthood, ideas about what a good society tries to make available for its citizens , are here not to be taken for granted”. This grabbed my attention because it is true for everything in life. When we are younger we never take anything as serious as we should, however as we get older these situations that were taken for granted are now situations that cannot be fixed.

This essay hit home for me in a major way because of my experience with this topic, and I can see a lot of H.’s behaviors reflected in that of my aunt, who is recovering herself. Near the end there is a character named Judith whose son died of methadone overdose (a drug used to get people off of heroin). She is cynical and looks at methadone users as people still trapped in the heroin mindset. She suggests the author cut her uncle off, he is taking from her and not giving anything in return. I used to think like Judith, and I think that mindset stems from anger about the way things turned out. In absence of anything substantial to focus our anger on in these cases we sometimes turn it toward the very people who were taken from us, how could they let themselves get sucked in? Why did they not utilize the help we offered? Why did they start using in the first place? We don’t understand these things, it’s frustrating, but we need to keep (or sometimes regain) our compassion for the people we love. My aunt will never be the same as she was before, she’ll always be kind of weird, in a fog. She is not any less deserving of the emotions we feel toward others though. Somebody who smokes and develops cancer is not looked at in the same way, and that says something about the stigma surrounding drug use.