Oh my God. Jesus Christ. Jehovah. Allah. Or whomever the hell you worship. Or don't for that matter. Please get a grip on reality! Are you kidding me, America?
On October 14, I published my latest blog on Huffington Post. The title reads, "Heroin is like licking the breath of God". It was a simile for heroin's euphoric power. And for its sick delusions.
It was a "hook" to grab the attention of those who will never use heroin, my creative attempt to show readers why 129 kids are dying in America every day.
Before I go any further, I want everybody to know. I love God. Without God, I would not have beaten a 10-bag-a-day heroin habit, survived covering the war in Bosnia as a journalist, written a bestseller about the Boston Mob - IRA connection, or received the du-Pont Columbia Award.
In fact, I talk to God every day. God inspired me to write this.
That said, hours after it was published, my phone lit up with texts, voice messages, and emails, all sending me to my ultimate damnation. The gist, "How could I invoke God's breath and equate it to heroin addiction?"
Moments later, I received a Facebook message from a writer friend from San Diego. It was a screenshot of my blog on Yahoo.com.
Curious, I went to the blog to investigate all the fuss. OMG. There were 143 comments, and although the majority were positive, some were pissed.
One commenter wrote, "I really resent you putting this headline and first paragraph on Yahoo! My son is in recovery and trying hard to resist heroin. This first paragraph would bring back the good memories and even make other people want to do it!!! You need to put only the UGLY stuff about this horrible epidemic!!"
Another wrote, "Heroin doesn't have anything to do with God; It is opening your soul and letting the demons sing to you and coax you into an un-Godly death."
Yes, it gets better. Wait for it!
One more wrote, "It's very irresponsible to glorify heroin in this article, comparing it to having an orgasm and seeing God. The truth is that after the addiction sets in, taking more heroin only gives relief from the terrible withdrawal."
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And now a message from God, "Shut the "front-door" up, America."
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Since the majority of readers have no clue what heroin feels like, but probably do know what and orgasm feels like, I was connecting the dots. I wanted ordinary, good folks to get a perfect view of why their child is an addict to euphoria.
This is about saving lives. Kids are dying. In fact, Robert (I changed his name here) read my article that was shared on one of the heroin Facebook pages. He wrote, "My son was clean for 6 months. He picked up just once. He did not survive. The pain hurts. It hurts. I don't know what to do."
America? What's really going on?
Every day our children are reading or hearing newscasters talk about Donald Trump's "p---y grabbing." Or the different ways Bill Clinton used a cigar in the Oval Office.
An editor from a major paper that was considering running my blog wrote me an email that read, "If I do run it, I might have to tone down the language for our readers ("Lady Heroin spread her legs and sucked me inside of her") - for better or worse, newspapers remain pretty old school. Would you be okay with that?"
Hey, education, exercise and God save my life. Now I am in a full court press to help save the lives of Americans being wiped out every day. Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump have to shut the "front-door" up and tell us all what they plan to do about Americans dying from heroin addiction.
Only in America, could Purdue Pharma, a major pharmaceutical company, initiate the heroin epidemic, suboxzone and methadone become a multimillion dollar industry in the fight to curb addiction, and rehabilitation hospitals in Florida selling potential heroin addicts patients for profit.
This epidemic is not about having Republican or Democratic ideals - or soft-pedaling the language I use to tell some tough truths. It's about being an American, and together, all of us - saving the next generation.
Thank you, God, for this message to America.