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Back in July a close friend of mine died from a long battle with heroin addiction. And I’m still trying to figure out ways to not cry like a baby when I’m reminded of her. Which is constantly. Maybe we all need more time to heal. But it’s not getting easier like everyone says it will.
I’ve always had a strong distaste for drug abuse and drug addicts in general. And then I met her. I met someone who didn’t make excuses for their behavior, who always owned up to the shit they did, who did so without shame and without letting what other people thought get under her skin. And I loved her regardless. She never compared her addiction to having a disease like cancer, and thought of me when others did saying what I go through having cancer was far worse than what she was choosing to do to herself.
She just couldn’t stop doing it. She made this amazing impact on my life, and I always thought I had more time with her never just accepting that the path she was on was going to be a short one. You couldn’t stereotype her like you could so easily countless others. But when a poem she wrote went viral after her death, the outreach of support was overwhelming… as were the numbers of strangers sharing her story condemning her. Before I knew it and within days of her untimely death, she was viral news content for every media outlet that could get their 10 seconds of her for clicks and traffic to their pages. Headlines were misleading, purposely written to incite argument and fuel the disease debate. When that wasn’t the point to be made. The point was my friend had died, and wasn’t here to defend herself to countless strangers. Now that the media circus has died down I want people to know how much she was loved, and how hard it is for us to cope with the loss of your trending topic of the week.
I miss my friend, and I wish that she were still here. There’s never enough time to say the things you want to say, and we take time for granted that the ones we hold the closest will be there tomorrow. I didn’t get to see her before she died, and I have to live with that. I think about what I should’ve done every single day, just take some time and GO see her because I knew this would happen. There are no photos of her and I together, I have nothing but her memory to look back on. We were in the middle of a film project highlighting the big disease debate over addiction, with her to be the concluding argument. The footage has been sitting collecting dust. She’s gone. What do I do now? Take nothing and no one for granted, ever.
Delaney Farrell was more than a statistic, I want everyone that googles her name to remember that. And that just as so many did, I loved her dearly. Her absence opened such a hole that cannot be filled. So the next time you comment on social media that some heroin addict deserved to die, remember this.
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I lost someone I loved to a heroin overdose…
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Kathy Manning 7 years ago
I lost my son, tom cashman 6/16/16... devils poison 666. Not one day, one hour, one minute or one second I don’t think of him. He would be 35 this year. The pain.. the tears.. insomnia.. nightmares! How I still hurt. I’m sorry for your loss. I get it!
Robin Rivera 7 years ago
This was heartbreaking. Del touched so many in her life and accomplished in her death what she had hoped to accomplish in her life. I wanted so much for her to get that chance to tell her story because I knew she would grab ppl...Im just so sad it was this way! I pray God gives you and the Farrell family peace and strength. Prayers for your recovery as well Shawn.
Nancy E 7 years ago
I can relate to the pain you are experiencing for my best friend & husband of 35 years died in June . The sadness comes in waves , but, there is time spent with friends, books , &, hobbies which help. What I wanted to convey to you as a RN, is that drugs change the pathways in the brain , making stopping them extremely difficult. My daughter in law lost both her children to opioids. They were well educated & brought up in a middle class home. I was on a grand jury for a week & one morning we toured the jail . 2/3 of the men & women were there for results of drugs.... burglary , shoplifting , assault , drug dealing, child abuse .... I saw these types of cases on the grand jury, too. The FDA has now approved a Probuphine implant for drug addiction . It seems to be effective. Accept the emotions you are having. They are healthy , but, don't wallow in them .
Dani Donovan 7 years ago
I’m so sorry. Thank you for telling us about Delaney. It sounds like she was a lot of fun. Wishing you the best with your cancer treatments. <3
Megan King 7 years ago
Calling a Substance Use Disorder a disease in no way discounts the pain or trauma of any other disease. Calling it that only describes SUDs accurately as something that can be treated by medical professionals and as something that causes profound chemical and physical changes in a person's body and brain. Calling it a disease opens the doors to effective treatments like Suboxone and Methadone - the only treatments that have been shown to be effective in treating people with Opioid Use Disorders. My brother also died of an opiate overdose. If only he had seen it as a disease and not a moral/spiritual failing and got actual medical treatmane in the form of medication assisted treatment rather than "choosing not to" by going through AA and abstinence only rehabs, perhaps he'd be here today.
Kathy Manning 7 years ago
I lost my son, tom cashman 6/16/16... devils poison 666. Not one day, one hour, one minute or one second I don’t think of him. He would be 35 this year. The pain.. the tears.. insomnia.. nightmares! How I still hurt. I’m sorry for your loss. I get it!
Robin Rivera 7 years ago
This was heartbreaking. Del touched so many in her life and accomplished in her death what she had hoped to accomplish in her life. I wanted so much for her to get that chance to tell her story because I knew she would grab ppl...Im just so sad it was this way! I pray God gives you and the Farrell family peace and strength. Prayers for your recovery as well Shawn.
Nancy E 7 years ago
I can relate to the pain you are experiencing for my best friend & husband of 35 years died in June . The sadness comes in waves , but, there is time spent with friends, books , &, hobbies which help. What I wanted to convey to you as a RN, is that drugs change the pathways in the brain , making stopping them extremely difficult. My daughter in law lost both her children to opioids. They were well educated & brought up in a middle class home. I was on a grand jury for a week & one morning we toured the jail . 2/3 of the men & women were there for results of drugs.... burglary , shoplifting , assault , drug dealing, child abuse .... I saw these types of cases on the grand jury, too. The FDA has now approved a Probuphine implant for drug addiction . It seems to be effective. Accept the emotions you are having. They are healthy , but, don't wallow in them .
Dani Donovan 7 years ago
I’m so sorry. Thank you for telling us about Delaney. It sounds like she was a lot of fun. Wishing you the best with your cancer treatments. <3
Megan King 7 years ago
Calling a Substance Use Disorder a disease in no way discounts the pain or trauma of any other disease. Calling it that only describes SUDs accurately as something that can be treated by medical professionals and as something that causes profound chemical and physical changes in a person's body and brain. Calling it a disease opens the doors to effective treatments like Suboxone and Methadone - the only treatments that have been shown to be effective in treating people with Opioid Use Disorders. My brother also died of an opiate overdose. If only he had seen it as a disease and not a moral/spiritual failing and got actual medical treatmane in the form of medication assisted treatment rather than "choosing not to" by going through AA and abstinence only rehabs, perhaps he'd be here today.
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