To the Compassionate Strangers, the Givers, and the Believers,
We are writing this letter not just as 16 individuals, but as one collective voice of survival.
Between the 16 of us, we have lived through decades of darkness. We are sons, fathers, students, teachers, and neighbors. We are also recovering drug addicts and alcoholics.
We wanted to take a moment to put into words something that is often very difficult for us to express: what your charity, your kindness, and your willingness to give back truly means to us. It can be difficult to voice our gratitude, especially when for so long we have felt undeserving, but “little by slow” healing is helping us grow and learn to vocalize our newfound appreciation.
To understand our gratitude, you first have to understand where we came from. We want to be honest with you about what it was really like out there. Addiction is a thief that steals quietly at first, and then all at once. It took our homes, our families, our careers, and eventually, it took our dignity.
Many of us know what it feels like to be entirely invisible. We know the bone-deep chill of sleeping on concrete or in the backseats of cars that didn’t run. Or, very often not sleeping at all… We know the exhaustion of waking up every single day knowing that the next 24 hours would be a brutal, agonizing fight just for basic necessities. We fought for a safe place to close our eyes. We fought for a meal that wasn’t pulled from the trash. We fought the horrific physical withdrawals of a disease that told us we needed our substance more than we needed oxygen.
When you are living on the street, consumed by alcoholism or drug addiction, the world becomes a very cold place, void of empathy… Society often looks right through you, or worse, looks at you with disgust, we’ve felt the harsh sting the stigma of disease brings with it. You begin to believe that you are exactly what the world tells you that you are: worthless, a lost cause, a moral failure. You stop believing you deserve a warm bed, a hot meal, or a second chance.
But then there was you. CHARITY used to be just a word we heard around the holidays, but for us, charity became a literal lifeline. Charity wasn’t a check written to an organization; it was the pair of dry, wool socks handed to us in the freezing rain. It was the hot cup of coffee given with a smile instead of a sneer. It was the bed at the treatment center that we couldn’t afford, but that was fully funded by people who never even knew our names.
When we had absolutely nothing to offer in return – when we were at our most broken, unlovable, and desperate – people like you stepped up.
We are so profoundly grateful that people still exist who are willing to give back to those struggling with the disease of addiction. You understand something that most of the world still struggles to grasp; addiction is a disease, not a moral failing. It rewires the brain and breaks the
