The Hancock-Henderson Quill, Inc.
In our small towns, where everyone knows each other and word travels faster than the mail, we pride ourselves on showing up for our neighbors. We rally around families facing hardship, drop off casseroles after surgeries, and wear matching shirts for a cancer benefit. We pull together, because that’s what communities do.
But there’s a silence that settles over our streets when the struggle is addiction.
Why is it that when someone battles cancer, we offer prayers, donations, and open arms but when someone battles addiction, we offer whispers, judgment, and distance? Both are battles of life and death. Both bring pain to families. But only one seems to carry the weight of shame.
Addiction is a disease. It changes the brain, the body, the heart. It doesn’t care how someone was raised, how strong their faith is, or how much they love their family. And yet, we treat it like a moral failure instead of the sickness it is.
This article was inspired by a close friend who mentioned the struggles no support can bring to a family during these times. How close friends start not responding to text messages. How people in the grocery store quickly turn down another aisle to avoid you. It’s time to trade shame for support. To remember that Jesus didn’t turn away from the broken. He sat with the hurting. He didn’t say, “Get clean, then come to me.” He said, “Come to me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”
What if we treated addiction the way we treat any other illness? With compassion. With prayer. With resources. What if we checked in on the mom whose son is struggling with pills the same way we check in on the mom whose daughter is in chemotherapy?
There is no place for shame in healing. And there should be no place for judgment in a town built on faith, family, and front porch conversations. Reach out. Sometimes it can be hard to know what to say, but a simple “thinking of you” can go a long way for someone who is feeling alone in such a tough battle.