According to the best estimates, opioids will kill another 52,000 Americans this year alone—and up to half a million in the next decade. The cost of untreated addiction to the US economy exceeds $700 Billion annually in healthcare, crime and lost productivity. Of course that means deaths, communities destroyed, and families torn to shreds.

As a person in recovery—I know from my own experience and from more than 40 years of hearing other people’s stories. Addiction is hard and it is hell. People with substance abuse issues have difficult lives and their addiction makes the lives or people around them a nightmare.

I don’t feel sorry for people with a substance abuse disorder—those who in less polite company we might call addicts and alcoholics. No, I don’t feel sorry for them, and you shouldn’t either. What we should feel is responsible.

Because WE created the community. WE created the economy. And WE create, and allow, a culture that supports and enables addiction. Yes, we know about the Sackler Family. But they couldn’t have done it all by themselves. That’s where we play a role--those who are engaged in our community.

Andrew Sullivan who writes extensively about our drug problem in the United States says, “To see the opiate epidemic as a pharmaceutical problem is to miss something: the despair that makes so many of us want to numb out. Drugs are just one of the ways that Americans are trying to cope with lives where the core elements of human happiness—faith, family and community—are missing.

Until we resolve these deeper social problems, drugs and the many things we can all be addicted to—will flourish.”

Despair. He’s talking about despair.

“Who has what you want?” In early recovery we are told to look around and see who has what you want? When we are trying to find a sponsor, we are told, “Look for someone who has what you want.” And when we are trying to figure out how to “do” this recovery thing we hear, “Look for the people who have what you want.”

But as a newcomer we don’t really know what that means… “Who has what you want?” We might go out in the parking lot and see who is driving the nicest car. But with a little bit of time in recovery we start to hear people in the meetings and they talk about how they got through something difficult or a hard day or a job loss or heartbreak or how THEY changed so that their relationships changed, and we started to think, “Oh, that’s what I want.” They are the people who have moved out of despair. Life may still be challenging, but these are folks who have moved out of despair.

Addiction is dark. It is very dark for the person with a substance abuse disorder-and dark for those around them. Every time a person enters recovery a light is turned back on. In one life yes, but that light spreads: To children who get their parent back. To employers who get a loyal worker, to communities that become stronger, safer and more whole. To remove despair. And that takes all of us. In and out of the rooms.