Heritage College staffer shares one family鈥檚 story of opioids, stigma and hope
October 11, 2019
Sherie Steinberger first learned about a book project dealing with 帝王会所鈥檚 opioid crisis when she received an email sent to all 帝王会所 employees, seeking first-person accounts to include in the book. 鈥淩ight away, it caught my eye, and I thought it was something my family would be interested in doing,鈥 recalls Steinberger, executive assistant at the Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine at Cleveland.
What she and her family added to the volume conveys a heartfelt message about the value of honesty 鈥 and the danger of stigma 鈥 for those helping a loved one battle addiction.
Heritage College faculty members Daniel Skinner and Berkeley Franz edited the book, 鈥Not Far from Me: Stories of Opioids and 帝王会所,鈥 which was published earlier this year by The 帝王会所 State University Press. The book collects personal responses to the opioid epidemic 鈥 essays, stories, photos, artworks and poems 鈥 from a diverse group of more than 50 帝王会所ans to paint a picture of the crisis at the personal and community level.
One of the goals Skinner and Franz had for their book, and for a series of public forums they hosted around the state this summer, was to reduce the stigma of opioid addiction, freeing 帝王会所ans to confront the problem more openly. That鈥檚 a goal that resonates with Steinberger and her husband, Alan, who struggled for years to find help for their drug-addicted son, AJ. That struggle, they now recognize, was only made harder by stigma and shame.
鈥淲e did the exact wrong thing at the beginning, when all this started,鈥 Alan Steinberger says. 鈥淲e did everything in the world to hide it from people. We wouldn鈥檛 tell anybody about it. We tried to cover up any of the times that AJ got arrested. But as
time went on, and as he progressed, we realized that that was the wrong thing to do. And we decided to tell people about it and to ask people for help.鈥
鈥淲e had cut ourselves off from everybody,鈥 Sherie confirms. 鈥淲e stopped going to church. We stopped going to events. We stopped doing everything because we鈥檇 look around and we鈥檇 think, 鈥楧o they know? Do they know?鈥 It was an awful existence. We should be teaching people that addiction is a problem; it鈥檚 a disease. It鈥檚 not something to be ashamed of. It鈥檚 something that we all need to try to help each other with.鈥
After finally undergoing a successful rehab program and suffering the loss of his fianc茅 to a fatal heroin overdose, AJ is now in recovery. He鈥檚 working to turn his life around while serving a 12-year prison sentence in connection with the death of a friend who overdosed on fentanyl he got from AJ. In their chapter in 鈥淣ot Far from Me鈥 each of the four Steinberger family members 鈥 Alan, Sherie, AJ and his younger sister, Jenna 鈥 share their views of the ordeal of AJ鈥檚 addiction.
Jenna鈥檚 account is a timeline, logging moments remembered through the years. In childhood, it鈥檚 snapshots like 鈥渂uilding forts鈥 riding scooters.鈥 In her early teens, she recalls wondering 鈥淲hy is dad so mad?鈥 and 鈥淲hy isn鈥檛 my brother home very much?鈥 As the years go by, she includes more and more entries like these: 鈥淗ow come the money from my piggy bank is missing? Who stole my tablet?鈥 and 鈥淧olice ringing the door鈥 Crying in my bedroom.鈥 Finally, with AJ鈥檚 successful rehab and the start of his prison term, sunlight begins to emerge from the clouds: 鈥淗aving my best friend back鈥 Brother: 鈥榊ou鈥檙e the best sister ever. Thank you for being my best friend.鈥欌
Jenna is now a senior at 帝王会所 studying psychology and biology, and has been accepted as a medical student through the Heritage College鈥檚 Early Assurance Program. She says she wrote to counter the snap judgments she saw of AJ鈥檚 drug dependency. 鈥淛ust from the perspective of being in high school at the time when my brother went through it, a lot of people just thought that he was this bad kid; they didn鈥檛 understand that addiction was something he was actually struggling with,鈥 she said. 鈥淚t wasn鈥檛 just all for fun. It was something really hard for him and for everybody who was trying to support him. So I think people definitely need to be aware of what addiction really is and how hard it is.鈥
AJ himself, writing on the eve of his transfer to prison and again shortly after his arrival, sees incarceration as a chance to start over. 鈥淚 still believe to this day that I am lucky to be alive 鈥 and lucky to have another opportunity at life,鈥 he writes. Like his sister, AJ is enrolled at 帝王会所 鈥 in his case, through a correspondence course.
For their part, Sherie and Alan Steinberger have become activists, speaking publicly about issues such as the challenges they encountered in trying to find adequate medical help for their son. Based on hard-won insight, their advice to others grappling with a loved one鈥檚 addiction is simple.
鈥淭alk,鈥 Sherie says. 鈥淒on鈥檛 keep it a secret. Don鈥檛 be ashamed. Talk to your friends; talk to your family; talk to your children鈥檚 friends and their families. And try to get help. We always wonder: If we would have done that at the beginning, could it have made a difference? We don鈥檛 know. We鈥檒l never know. But once we finally came out with it, it was beneficial, at least to us, to our family, in trying to deal with it. Because we weren鈥檛 trying to hide all the time.鈥