Need a Light?

Sometimes there is help for pain.

I. Ask, and it shall be given (sometimes)

I've been suffering from The Crud and I didn't go to work this whole week: the idea of handling dusty books in a cold warehouse was horrible. But yesterday I did go to the opioid training I'd registered me and Big Boss for (free, open to the community). 
It was excellent!

I've been saying––even before I called 911 for the guy od'ing in our parking lot––that the store should get Narcan (naxolone = blocks the effects of opioids). 
Big Boss had told me, "That could be difficult...".

The first thing the trainer did was to dump a boxful of Narcan kits on the table and tell us to help ourselves.
Any individual can get Narcan at the pharmacy, she said. You have to ask for it, but it's over the counter, not prescribed, and your insurance should cover it, even though it's not for yourself (to keep on hand to help others).

"What about getting it for my workplace?" I asked.

"I will come and do a training at your store and bring all the Narcan you need," she said. 

So, yeah. Another case of something being deemed "difficult" because NO ONE ASKED.

Ya go around as if you're living on Dover Beach, where there is "neither joy, nor love, nor light/ Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain"
. . . and then someone says, "Hey, want a match?"

This happened to a friend the other night.

II. Offer, and it shall be received (sometimes)

This friend bikes home from work at night without lights on her bike. Hers got lost or stolen or ran out of batteries, and she hasn't bothered to replace them.
Every so often a biker will yell at her, "GET LIGHTS!" which, she said, makes her feel more resistant to doing so.

(Isn't it funny how yelling at people doesn't win them over?)

The other night when she was biking home in the dark, a biker coming toward her yelled, "Hey!" 
My friend braced herself...

"Do you need some lights?" the biker called out.

Turns out this biker keeps cheapy LED bike lights with her to give away. My friend said she did need lights, and the biker stopped and helped attach them (they wrap and snap: no tools required), with no accompanying lecture on safety.

These two examples are how I want to be.

I want to practice being the sort of person who can...

1. Ask for help.
There may be help available, there may not be. If you don't ask the answer is no.

2. Offer help. 
Try to make it help that people actually want.
(Unasked-for advice or information is often not help; it's control.)

Both asking and offering and  can be risky. I hate being shamed or yelled at, and that can be the response.

The opioid trainer talked about that. 
"After they come around," she said, "people might be mad at you for interfering. I don't care if people are mad at me. I care that they're alive. If you didn't help, they'd be dead." *

III. Try, try again

Before I got sick, I mailed out a lot of Christmas cards. (Then my head filled up, and I couldn't handle addressing the rest of them, so if you haven't gotten one, I apologize.) I wanted people to have my new address---after 17 years in the old place. 

I decided to contact a few people I don't usually--in particular an old friend out of town who'd drifted away a dozen years ago. 
I think I'd hurt her in some way, but she never said, so I never knew. I wasn't sure she'd welcome a card, but I thought I'd try.

Yesterday evening, I stepped outside to check the mail, and on the stoop was a package from this old friend.
She is a chocolate maker and owns a chocolate house, and the box was full of her chocolates, including a tin of Sicilian Hot Chocolate––"dark chocolate blend brightened by orange zest"..

Some people who live here think all things that come in the mail belong to them:

___________

* P.S. A few good things I learned about helping someone who's overdosing:

1. Narcan only works on opioids. If you mistake a heart attack or something for an overdose and give narcan to the unconscious person, it won't hurt them.
When in doubt, use it.

2. Call 911 also.

3. The Good Samaritan law protects you, the helper, AND the person in need of help from legal repercussions. 
(But not the other people around:
"If the person has friends carrying drugs, tell them to go walk around the block when the cops come.")

4.  Narcan is temporary. (I didn't know that!) The person can slide back into an od 20-30 minutes later. Don't leave them alone or let them go off alone.