BY JEFF PADILLA
Compassion Through Action
Espanola

I learned something recently and I’m overwhelmingly impelled to share it with all of you.

I am not formally educated in the intricacies of addiction. I started my charity journey years ago because I care about people who are suffering, people less fortunate than myself. That’s been my motivation.

Helping the homeless has put me squarely in front of addiction, in many of its shapes and forms. It has been shocking, frustrating, at times alarming, but always saddening.

In my rational and reasonable mind, I could never understand why most on the streets would choose the harsh environments of the sweltering heat in summer or the biting cold of winter, along with the other countless dangers, instead of getting into a program where they would immediately get a warm bed, shelter, food, clothing, and treatment.

Well, everyone, we need to understand what’s going on in the fentanyl era that we are in.

The Heroin Addict. The heroin addict can function, to a degree, in society. As long as they get a ‘fix’ in 6 to 12 hours, they can participate in the world around them. The ‘craving’, the need starts after this timeframe, but it can be manageable. That’s why we have either known personally or have heard of functioning heroin addicts, some who have been addicted for years or even decades.

The Fentanyl Addict. The fentanyl addict, however, finds themselves beholden to a very demanding monster. As we’ve all heard, fentanyl is significantly more potent than heroin. Couple that with the fact that the stuff on the streets today has additives like xylazine (a veterinary drug), methamphetamine, cocaine, and/or junk chemicals as binders.

Consequently, the fentanyl addict has 60 minutes to find the next fix before the symptoms of withdrawal take hold. 60 MINUTES.

Take a moment and think of something you ingest into your body. Something simple, like water. Can you imagine, for one moment, what it would feel like if sixty minutes go by in your daily life and your body tells you that if you don’t find water very soon, it’s going to start shutting down? In an excruciatingly painful way?

THIS is why. Why they walk the streets endlessly. Why they steal. Why they prostitute themselves. Why they don’t seek something different. The 2000 lb. gorilla on their back lets his presence be very well known when 61 minutes have passed by since the last fix. Nobody chooses this.

They are trapped in an endless cycle. The clock resets at sixty minutes and starts counting down. A true living nightmare.

Am I making excuses for these individuals? No. What I am trying to convey is the need for YOU and ME to have a little sympathy, a little empathy, a little understanding, a little compassion.

Instead of berating them, mocking them, or, as one local politician shared with a group who were seeking answers, that he was ‘completely disgusted’ and wished that they just went away. Or the not-so-clever jackass who suggested on social media what Española needed was a ‘junkie genocide’. Or those who post videos of individuals doing things in the community that they deem inappropriate or immoral or funny.

And one important note, those who insist that they homeless population in Española is mainly comprised of people from out of town or out of state, or that they were bussed in from somewhere else. This is simply not true. The vast majority of people we see are from here. They are our family, our neighbors, our classmates, our coworkers.

And even if this was the case, if most were ‘not from here’. Is that a reason to not help? To not care?

Fentanyl is affecting us all, whether we choose to acknowledge it or not. I may not have the answers to this problem, but I’m willing to collaborate with my community to try and figure it out, for everyone’s sake.

As Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote many years ago, “Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.”

Let’s work together to find our creative altruism.

Editor’s note: Compassion Through Action is a volunteer run 501(c)3 non-profit organization whose purpose and mission is to help those experiencing homelessness in our communities by providing goods and services.