‘No one asks to become addicted’: mother who lost son to drug overdose goes to war against opioids and ignorance of the dark side of painkillers
- Cammie Wolf Rice shares her struggle to make sense of losing her son to opioids in her new book, and how she helps parents take steps to prevent similar deaths
- Addiction to opioid pills, while a problem in the West, is not common in Asia, but Wolf Rice urges parents to warn children who may be going to study overseas
Cammie Wolf Rice is a woman with a fire in her belly. Every opportunity she has to speak her truth, she does not hesitate to take the microphone. She knocks on doors, determined to strive for change. If she did not, the pain of loss would overwhelm her.
“There is no worse pain than losing your child. I had a choice – I could either stay in the fetal position or take that pain and turn it into purpose,” says Wolf Rice, who lived in Hong Kong for seven years from 2011 and was back this month to speak at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club in Central, Hong Kong Island, about her new book, The Flight: My Opioid Journey.
He was sent home with 90 OxyContin pills, the new wonder drug. It was a big operation and her son was in a lot of pain, so Wolf Rice did not doubt the doctor’s orders.
“I gave them to him every four hours as prescribed. I didn’t think to question if it was OK or safe,” she said.
But it was not safe. Twenty years ago, no one had heard of the risks of opioid addiction. Christopher was given another prescription and then another; it led to an addiction that he fought for the next 15 years.