Teachers, mechanics, nurses, corporate managers — opioid addicts come in all forms.
But once addiction to painkillers or heroin takes hold, people develop remarkably similar habits. They squander money, relationships, health, reputations.
That’s what peers and neighbors tend to remember — the awful and exhausting downward spiral.
For Lori Swadle, though, addicts are so much more than their addiction. A wedding photographer based in Martinsburg, West Virginia, Swadle has lost 13 friends to opioid addiction.
Each loss has been devastating. But the trauma she’s felt and witnessed isn’t unique in this part of the US.
“Most people around here do know somebody that has struggled with [addiction],” Swadle told Global Citizen. “The trouble is that a lot of people, when they’re struggling with addiction, they become someone who they wouldn’t be, they lie, they steal, they do horrible things, they alienate their families.”
The toll of opioid addiction in West Virginia is staggering. More people die from overdoses in the state than anywhere else in the US.
Yet the severity of this public health crisis hasn’t triggered a proportional medical response. More mothers, fathers, sisters, and brothers know how to use Narcan — a cure for overdoses — than ever before, but treatments and paths to recovery for addicts are hard to come across.
The closest rehab center is more than two hours away, according to Swadle, and it’s usually filled to capacity. Further, unless someone has private insurance, getting into a rehab center is extremely difficult. Many addicts end up poor, without jobs, and are on Medicaid.
As a result, many addicts end up dying while waiting for a spot to open up.
Swadle said she was angered by the seeming complacency surrounding this ongoing tragedy.
Many people, jaded by crisis, adopt the mantra: “leave ‘em lie, let ‘em die,” according to The New Yorker. This means that people should be let to die when they overdose, rather than being revived with Narcan.
In particular, Swadle remembers a community meeting in 2015 for a potential rehab center. She was hopeful that the center would be approved and progress would be made in the fight against the health crisis.
“So many people came to the meeting and spoke against it,” she said. “They said they didn’t want [the rehab] in their backyard,
“A lot of people with that attitude think that people should be able to quit on their own,” she added. “There’s this whole group attitude of negativity, so I wanted to basically show that addicts aren’t what they had envisioned.”
So Swadle set about combatting this mentality by using her platform as a widely respected photographer.
She started a series called “52 Addicts” to tell stories of people who recovered from addiction or people who have loved ones who struggled.
It’s part education, part inspiration, part “Humans of New York.”
Swadle wants to show that addicts come from all walks of life and that they all have unique backgrounds. She wants to show that if they’re given a helping hand, addicts can bounce back and become positive member of society.
“My initial goal here was to show those people who have that negative attitude against addiction that these people are just as human as they are,” she said. “They could be your nurse at the hospital, your kids’ teacher, it can be anyone.”
After launching the project, the response has been powerful. Above all, she’s inspired by the fact that her work has helped addicts speak up and share their stories.
“At least you can get a little glimpse of their personality or what they’ve done in their lives,” she said. “Especially the people who have become clean and have done so much for our community."