The Weight of Silence

Every day, people are struggling with addiction in plain sight, but most of the time we don’t notice. Or maybe we don’t want to. It’s easier to turn away than to stop and think about what someone might be carrying.

Addiction isn’t always what people picture. It’s not just someone passed out on a sidewalk or holding a needle in an alley. It can look like a coworker who’s always “just tired.” It can look like the guy next to you at the bus stop who doesn’t meet your eyes. It can even look like someone who seems to have everything together but is fighting a private war when they get home.

The silence around addiction is heavy. People who use substances are often weighed down twice: once by the struggle itself, and again by the judgment of others. That judgment pushes them further into isolation, which only makes it harder to find a way out.

We can’t solve everything in one moment, but we can start by changing the way we see people. People are more than their struggles, we can’t let them make us forget the humanity in everyone.