Addictions.com Spring 2025 College Scholarship

How to eat an elephant: A lesson in learning to love despite overwhelming anger

My brother’s death built and broke me all at once. It broke me like a bone breaks. It first shattered me, because a 15 year-old shouldn’t lose her 29 year-old brother to a drug overdose. But it then healed me like a bone heals, too. I could never have grown back the same, but I grew back stronger. This is a story about how my brother’s death taught me something about what it means to fight for love.

My brother Jordan battled with drug addiction his whole adult life. He was 14 years older than me. So his adult life– the one riddled with a vicious and cyclical overdose-to-rehab-to-relapse habit comprised the entirety of my lucid years as his little sister. I didn’t get the movie marathon, matching Halloween costumes, Christmas morning excitement, Sunday night family dinner kind of childhood with him. I was too young to be exposed to much of his habit, but I wasn’t too young to notice the havoc it wrought on our mother. By the time I was old enough to determine a relationship with him for myself, I held a hatred in my heart for him. I wouldn’t forgive him for what he was doing to our family and to himself. I had a shell of him to enjoy and a shell of him to mourn.

When we heard the complicated and challenging news of his overdose, I froze. I was standing in the kitchen– eyes fixed, ears ringing a deafening wave of tinnitus, stomach sick, all color evacuated from my face. All I could think was, “I missed it. I missed it. I missed it.” I missed out on the chance at a brother. And I missed out on the chance to forgive him. But how could I forgive his audacious, destructive, harmful life? The answer is the same as the one to a riddle I remember from my childhood: “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.”

My brother’s death built resentment in me for a while, and it broke my spirit for a while, too. But I started a journey of reflection and discovering what it means to forgive– one I am still very much on. So far, I’ve learned that forgiveness isn’t meant to be fickle– it’s meant to be absolute. I learned that death can break down a person’s spirit, but it can also break attachments to fear and anger. It can build resilience and fortitude of character. I have determined that this will be my brother’s legacy – that those he left behind will have learned that it is not too late to love him, learn from him, and be a family to him. It is with this renewed outlook that I vigorously pursue my education in Nursing and Counseling – to carry the mantle that he left for me.

Kelsie Nyman
[email protected]
Florida State University
Student ID: 201005604

Navigating the Depths of Tobacco Addiction in Rural India

As we step into the sunny dusty paths of rural villages in India, the stark reality of tobacco addiction hits you in every breath. I am a traditional medicine pediatrician who served in the rural villages of India, where the struggle against addiction is interwoven within everyday life. In this essay, I share my personal experiences and encounters with people of all ages, shedding light on the grip of tobacco addiction and its association with mental health in the remote communities of rural India.

The first time I encountered the depth of the tobacco epidemic was when I visited a nonprofit ashram that treats oral cancer in a small village in west Gujarat, India. Here I witnessed people of all age groups, as young as 4 year olds who were brought in for counselling to 80 and 90 year olds awaiting death owing to oral cancer.

On my many visits to these villages for medical camps and health awareness campaigns, I have seen young boys chewing tobacco and playing with makeshift tobacco sticks crafted from discarded butts. These innocent eyes’ held no clue of the struggles they would face later. Their addiction journey commenced at an age when most children are still mastering the alphabet. These children are robbed of a healthy childhood and face an uphill battle not only against the physical addiction but also the psychological toll of being trapped by a habit that steals their innocence. In my regular visits at their child health care center, I met a 16-year-old, eldest sister to three siblings with dreams as vast as the open sky. She remembers chewing tobacco for most of her childhood. I looked at her and asked her in a very friendly manner how she could get rid of this habit. With a red-stained, toothy grin, she replied that she couldn’t do it and that her problems were bigger than her tobacco use. Her spirit was eclipsed by the shadows of addiction and unveiled the impact of substance abuse on mental health, painting a picture of despair. Tobacco had woven into the fabric of her identity, worsening her adolescent struggles. The toxic relationship between substance abuse and mental health manifested in her anxiety, depression, and erosion of self-esteem.

Adults and older people suffered the same or even worse. Most of the oral cancer patients in the cancer center were between the ages of 50 and 70. Some of them were operated on to remove the mass, which left hollow cheeks with tubes inserted for food intake, and some had seriously metastasized with no hope of recovery. I have encountered ever so many adults rooted in the throes of tobacco dependency. The crushing weight of financial burden coupled with societal expectations are the breeding grounds for their anxiety and depression. Tobacco, initially a crutch for these people, transforms into a malevolent companion, exacerbating their mental health struggles. The elderly suffer in silence with tobacco as their getaway from their solitude and depression.

In my journey through these rural landscapes, the imperative to address the issues of substance abuse and mental health became glaringly necessary. The healing process demanded a multifaceted approach. We started with community awareness programs; through interactive sessions and engaging campaigns; we aimed to break the cycle of ignorance that often fueled addiction. Secondly, counselling through a holistic approach acknowledged the emotional scars that often lingered long. The third of our strategy involved collaboration with local leaders and influencers. By leveraging their influence within the community, we sought to create a supportive environment that encouraged individuals to seek help at our hospital and rural centers.

As I reflect on my experiences working with diverse age groups, the vicious cycle between substance abuse and mental health emerged as a central theme. My journey there was both heart-wrenching and inspiring. Witnessing the transformative power of community-driven interventions has solidified my belief in the resilience of the human spirit. Through empathy, education, and collaboration, we can hope to break the chains that bind individuals to addiction, thus paving a path towards healing and renewal.

Deepthi Viswaroopan
[email protected]
University of Texas Health Science Centre at Houston
Student ID: 2092310

A Message for Tyler

In 2021, I got a job working at a bike shop in central Ohio.

I learned a lot at the shop; mostly about bikes, but also about myself and my greater community. Growing up in a small town, I rarely got a taste of life outside of my little ecosystem; and this job helped educate me on, well, the lives of others.

About six months into working there, I got a new coworker. His name was Tyler¹. He was hired as a friend of the head service tech, who vouched for him and landed him the interview. Tyler was sociable, funny, and artistic. He told us stories about his time in high school (he was at the time a high school graduate, about two years older than myself), showed us his home-made skate videos on his phone, and did his best to learn the ins and outs of bicycles. He was a good salesman, friend, and coworker.

One afternoon, Tyler came in and shared something with us: that day, he was two weeks clean of drugs. He sheepishly explained that while he was still using nicotine, he had managed to stop using hard drugs and was planning on eventually weaning off of the vapes as well. I congratulated him on the two weeks. At the end of that shift, he and I rode recumbent bikes around the shop together. From that day onwards, we became closer; he gave me advice, telling me stories on the time he totaled his car (don’t drink and drive), and how he had got into the wrong crowds when it came to drugs. It was deeply personal, and I felt proud of him for working on overcoming his addiction. It wasn’t all sunny, though. There were shifts where he had shared how hard sobriety was- the shifts where he was more quiet, and jumpy. The times he told me he had to reset his sobriety streak. His addiction had been disastrous for his mental health- it riddled him with insecurity, toxic relationships, and skewed perceptions of others. Eventually, Tyler stopped showing up to work. He had gone silent- he wouldn’t pick up the phone for anybody, he wasn’t answering emails or texts, and it had been weeks since he had come in for his shift. They eventually took him off the schedule.

I never saw Tyler again. Some time later, a group of middle school-aged boys came into the shop, asking to see Tyler. When I told them he doesn’t work here anymore, their faces fell. They too hadn’t seen him in months. They told me he had been anxious and “weird” at the skatepark in the weeks before his disappearance. This is what addiction does to someone’s mental health: isolates them from friends, turns them anxious and depressed, and convinces them to love the drug.

Ohio has the 5th most overdose-related deaths in the nation². A boy who I went to high school with died of fentanyl as a sophomore in college: his family said that his depression worsened before it happened. My youngest sister, adopted from foster care, will have life long mental health issues due to prenatal drug exposure; a second hand-version of her biological mother’s addiction. As someone with foster siblings, I’ve seen the effects of addiction firsthand: children taken from families, left feeling empty, unloved, and abandoned. In some Ohio counties, 80% of foster children are put in the system due to opioid abuse and addiction³.

The foster care system is undeniably correlated with the addiction and mental health crises. Because of this correlation, addiction not only worsens the mental health of the user, but also of the user’s immediate family and children. In this way, addiction is a contagious disease in terms of mental health; and needs to be treated as such.

1: This name has been changed out of respect for his privacy.
2: “Drug Poisoning Mortality in the United States.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/sosmap/drug_poisoning_mortality/drug_poisoning.htm. Accessed 29 Dec. 2023.
3: “Opioid Crisis Causing Ohio Foster Care Numbers to Rise.” Ohio Addiction Resource Center, https://www.ohioarc.com/opioid-crisis-causing-ohio-foster-care-numbers-to-rise/. Accessed 29 Dec. 2023.

Grace Jones
[email protected]
Rochester Institute of Technology
Student ID: gj8212, 387008608