This is a hard story to write, and an even harder one to post. I’ve resisted for several months now, but feel pressed to get on with it. I certainly do not intend to condemn anyone, and even more so, do not want to cause pain to an already hurting world. But these thoughts keep going round in my head, and when I read the news or hear of yet another young person succumbing to drugs, I know I must say this.

I attended the funeral recently of a young man who died of a combination of alcohol and pain meds. Family and friends said God was in control, God knew what he was doing and this was all part of His divine plan. But I have a different take on it – he wandered into the enemy’s camp and became a casualty of war.

Did God want him to die? No! Did God warn him? He probably tried, but you see, Neil was tuned to a different frequency. Drugs and alcohol are at Depression 90.3. God’s signal is way over there at Life & Peace 107.7. Think about it: Can you hear a radio station you’re not tuned to?

Maybe in the beginning Neil’s radio dial was tuned to Life & Peace 107.7 but something happened, something lured him away. So he started drinking, and perhaps God tried to warn him. And maybe he was warned by that inner voice when he started to use drugs, and again when he began mixing the two for that higher high. And then several more times along the way and so many times until he got so far off the dial from where God’s signal was broadcasting there was no way he could hear it because he’d ceased to think much about Him anymore.

Did he go to hell? It’s not my place to decide, and I’m glad. I wouldn’t want that responsibility. What I see is the devastation left behind, a trail of broken hearts strewn along the ground. A culmination (or a new chapter?) of years of hearts cracking: a broken home, a broken marriage, children choosing sides, families siding with ex’s over their own flesh and blood, parents alienated from their children until those hearts crumble into so many grains of sand. He was a good person. There were those who loved him. Where is the line between good and good enough and who decides?

And the faces, dead faces, mouths not speaking. The faces that gave him the drugs, witnessed his death struggle, and now must live with his loss, and their role in it. It was the quietest funeral I’ve ever been to. No one spoke. Faces without hope or expression. And their answer to all this? After the funeral a lot of the people got drunk/bombed. When alcohol or drugs is the problem, why do we go there for the answer? It isn’t going to happen.

Afterward I was asked, “Why do they do people take pain meds? Mix drugs and alcohol?” My answer reflected my years in the drug culture: They need that next higher high to numb the pain, emotional pain, to shut up the voices in their head telling them they’re no good, and nothing will ever change. They have no hope, no vision for their future and where there is no hope or vision the people perish.

The fact is, a battle rages. Each of us is engaged in battle, not the helpless pawn we’d sometimes like to think. And whether we want to or not, we are on a side. Our actions align us. If we consume alcohol and drugs, we lead others the wrong way; we open the wrong doors. Buying liquor and drugs causes the wrong people to prosper. They become powerful and influential, propagating all the heartache associated with the many tragedies that go hand in hand with this lifestyle. People envy them their affluence and influence, want what they have, and sometimes get it and more.

So with our money and our actions we make a choice. People are watching us. Are we our brother’s keeper? Yes, we are.