By Theo Fountain
A few days before Christmas, I went to the wedding of a former Prevention Point Philadelphia (PPP) participant, my friend Devin. It was a pretty ceremony that moved everyone in the audience. When the bride and groom kissed, couples in the pews pulled each other closer, like ripples from a big splash.
Their reception was crowded by glad faces, of loved ones come to share this seminal moment with the newlyweds. The room swirled with a joviality freed at life’s big occasions, when the fullness and splendor of getting together is undeniable. There was dancing, laughter, and professions of gratitude shouted over loud pop music. To be included in this excitement, belonging among the happy people, was as marvelous as it was surreal.
I remember sitting beside the groom in PPP’s Drop-in Center, waiting for the next round of free coffee. There wasn’t much else to look forward to then. Hope was a useless frivolity, a term for muralists and political ads, not for us on Kensington Avenue.
Experience gave reason to despair; our every attempt at a different life had ended the same way. Strung out. Eventually, returning to the streets felt like coming home.
There are countless people we both loved who died working toward something better. Deserving people who fought hard.
A perception exists of addicts, especially those unhoused in Kensington, that they’ve given up on themselves. That homelessness was a consequence of our despondency, as if we were bad pilots in command of workable machinery. Capable of rejoining the world but instead choosing to be addicted and unhoused. Presumptions like these, about the willingness of people to find effective treatment, are harmful. They misidentify the problem, labeling people in need as uncooperative rather than sick.
Seated in that Drop-in, homeless, nursing a costly fentanyl habit, I wanted change. I’d wanted it since my first rehab stay at age 17. It was one of many sincere efforts. Next to me, Devin, who I had befriended in a recovery house, wanted change. He also struggled for years trying for a freer life. There are countless people we both loved who died working toward something better. Deserving people who fought hard. That they didn’t find their solution doesn’t mean they were weak, or didn’t love their families enough to stop.
Seeing a friend you were homeless with in a mother-son dance at his wedding doesn’t feel real.
There are words that often come up in stories like Devin’s and mine, like “inner strength” or “blessed,” that I’ve heard mentioned hundreds of times. Those terms haven’t resonated with me. I don’t feel strong or highly favored, and when people say that I think of the friends we’ve lost. What separates us from them doesn’t have anything to do with character or fairness. We are alive because of other people who made a choice to carry Narcan, treat our wounds, and offer medication for opioid use disorder (MOUD), among other things. Words like “supported,” “heard,” and “treated” do a better job capturing my experiences in recovery.
Standing at the edge of Devin’s wedding party, I was uneasy. It’s a feeling that comes often, like I’m not supposed to be where I am. Seeing a friend you were homeless with in a mother-son dance at his wedding doesn’t feel real. It evokes this rosy sense of completion, like it’s the ending of a sappy movie. Devin had crossed a milestone, and like every other time one of us reached a new place, a pang of guilt followed.
Because we aren’t special. We weren’t any more motivated, we didn’t work any harder than the people lost to addiction. We just found the right help.
Prevention Point gave us the opportunity to find that help to have the lives we wanted but never thought possible. Through trial and error, we found what works. The support of the community gave us that chance. It is nothing short of a miracle that we are here. A miracle made possible by a group of harm reductionists in an old church building at Kensington and Monmouth. Thank God for them.
Photo courtesy of the bride and groom, Casey and Devin Kloss.