The Chronicles of Loving A Heroin Addict: Church Pew Bar Stool

Sunday, March 19, 2017

Church Pew Bar Stool

This past week a Facebook friend shared a video with me called, The Church Pew Bar Stool. As I listened to the words spoken it sure sounded like the speaker Clayton Jennings was talking about me. Not just me but in general people I know. What church has ever lovingly accepted us? What church would ever lovingly accept our addict child into the flock?

Then today, a story in our local paper about the heroin death that hit close to home for a local pastor. Right in the first few paragraphs, "According to Snyder, the funeral was different. Not only
because it was a friend, but because it was the last thing anyone would have thought. The man was not a junkie, just someone trying to manage his pain."

I hate that word, junkie as it references those with substance abuse problems and disorders and what makes this one heroin death different from all the hundreds or thousand of others here in Martinsburg, WV or Berkeley County?

Because the pastor personally knew him? Just because the man went to church? How is that one man different from all of our loved ones who suffer from this heroin epidemic here? This is the type of stereotype that keeps those hating those with substance abuse problems. That stereotype, that hate, that stigma is why people continue dying...