Behind every obituary lies a story.
Susan Acord knows them too well: Alex, Ronnie, Laura Sue, Sal, Mike, Andrew, Clayton, James… These are just some of the people she has known in the Methow Valley that have died from drug or alcohol addiction in the past eight years.
Some of the people on her list she has known since childhood. With others, she sold or used drugs.
Acord has been clean for four years. She attributes her sobriety to persistent outreach and love from people in her life.
“That was God relentlessly pursuing me,” she says.
Acord survived, but addiction extracted its toll.
Her primary care doctor needs an ultrasound to find a vein for a blood draw. At 46, she wears dentures because of the damage to her teeth from smoking meth. Perhaps most painful, she had to face the consequences of her absence on her three children, including the guilt of not protecting her own daughter.
Acord knew all three men that died recently from drug overdoses in the Methow Valley, but overdose fatalities are just the tip of the iceberg. They don’t include deaths from medical complications from long term use.
Addiction usually isn’t mentioned in obituaries or death notices, but after speaking to Acord, I spend hours scrutinizing them, trying to reconcile the life on paper and the life I could only imagine behind the scenes.
Acord’s family has lived in the area for four generations. She grew up in the Methow Valley and her father was a logger. They didn’t have a lot of money. At a young age, she was sexually assaulted by her stepfather. Her mother, an alcoholic, refused to believe her. Acord told her school counselor, who told her teachers, but it didn’t go beyond there.
“Everything gets swept under the rug here until something happens to somebody that has a high stature in this community,” she said.
She married into another abusive situation that involved alcoholism and physical abuse, which led her into addiction.
“Working three jobs, I started out with just cocaine and it ended up being [necessary] just to be able to work the three jobs and it just progressed into something more to where I just had it and snapped,” she said.
Acord left her husband and children in 2008 to use drugs. She wasn’t a part of her children’s lives until about four years ago.
“It was a breaking point when I left. The drugs were a way to cope with what had happened to me in my past. The drugs were a quick mind eraser to not have to deal with the reality, because every time I would come down off the meth, I hated it. I hated how I felt when I came off of it. I’d want to get high just so as to not have to deal with anything in life or reality.”
“It was my medication to change my reality and not have to deal with life,” she said.
Acord lived in Yakima for nine years. She was clean for one year and went to college. She was six credits away from obtaining two associate degrees when her boyfriend brought drugs into the home and she relapsed. This led to homelessness and living in motel rooms.
Today, meth is no longer a trigger. Acord is working with a sponsor through a twelve-step program. Taking an inventory of her life helped her understand the root causes of her addiction and relapse. She is part of a Bible study fellowship, but it took time to find a place that was a good fit. Even among Christians, she has faced judgment and mistrust, which she says makes reentry into society more difficult. While she has the full confidence and support from her employer, others aren’t so lucky.
“Once you get them out of clean and sober housing, then there’s reentry into society. There’s reentry into the workforce, accountability programs and people willing to walk alongside them once they get to that point of reentering into society. And that’s where the fear needs to be lifted. It takes that to get somebody not stealing anymore. You can go to treatment, come back out and be right back where you are.”
Okanogan County doesn’t have a detox center. The time it takes to drive to a detox center in Spokane or the west side can sabotage a person’s decision for sobriety as cravings return.
“The referral process gives too much time to change their mind,” said Acord.
Coordinating care after treatment, including housing and employment, can also be challenging.
“The community needs to be more compassionate. I am so irritated by people and society that are on a pedestal and haven’t lost anybody to addiction,” said Acord. “If it’s never happened to them, they don’t see it as a problem.”
Referring to a local drug house, Acord said, “I know everybody that’s there. I either grew up with them, worked with them, did drugs with them, and know some of their life history and their trauma. That’s what is so disheartening for me is that I know these things. I know these things about these people that other people in our community don’t know, don’t have a clue. They think they’re just addicts, criminals.”
“When you get to know these people in active addiction, you also get to know them on a personal level other than just doing drugs with them.”
While in active addiction, Acord sold and used drugs with some of the people on her list.
“When you’re high, you don’t have feelings. When you’re high, I was about getting more money just to have enough to get my own drugs again.”
“I didn’t steal when I was in active addiction. I wasn’t robbing places. I wasn’t committing crimes other than selling and doing the drugs. I was at home with my drugs and at work with my drugs.”
Eight months ago, Acord stepped on a minefield for addicts. She relapsed following an act that triggered her dopamine receptors- gambling. She signed up for a twelve-step program. Taking inventory helped her find the true causes of her addiction and relapse. She says she has been delivered and credits her Christian walk with keeping her clean.
“It’s just in me where I don’t have to [use or] where I want to use. I have nothing to want to use over. I have nothing I’m trying to hide, nothing I’m trying to suppress, nothing that I feel guilty or ashamed over anymore.”
Acord shares stories about the names on her handwritten list. I’m reminded of Dr. William Henry’s semi-autobiography, Pay You in Hay, first published 25 years ago as an ode to some of his memorable patients in the valley. He pays tribute to people who died from alcohol and drug addiction even back then. Henry used pseudonyms. Acord doesn’t have to. As she touches each name on her list, names that could have belonged to anyone, she talks about her connection with them. Some she remembers as children. Some she knew as hard old-timers who couldn’t stop drinking or using until their bodies gave way. Some were barely out of school before they overdosed.
Acord shows me a picture of Larry Karvoski, or “Little Larry,” as she remembers him. He died from an overdose in March. The picture, posted on Facebook, shows his grieving mother holding his head in her lap.
“I just feel like another one of me is dead,” said Acord.
“Every addict has a heart. Every addict has a soul. Every addict has feelings. They have emotions. The have had something happen to them in their past that has traumatized them, severely, to where they don’t want to deal with life on life’s terms and they try to find any alternative route to hide and suppress that.”
If you or someone you know is struggling with addiction, the Recovery Navigator Program of Okanogan County can provide options- 509-426-3274.
