Vanity: Honest Obituary of Heroin Addict

Vanity ^

[TigerClaws]

Isabella Marie Sammartano

With deep sadness we mourn the sudden passing of our dear daughter Isabella (Bella) Sammartano, age 20, who succumbed to her battle with addiction and died from a heroin overdose in our home on March 24, 2017. Showing strength, determination, and a love for life, Bella lived clean for the last 16 months before her sudden relapse last week, succumbing to this terrible disease, now an epidemic and taking far too many of our loved ones from us every day.

Bella will be remembered as intelligent and full of love, conviction, empathy, and with a sense of humor well beyond her years. Bella loved her family first, and here at home was where she felt safe and truly loved. Her empathy for others knew no bounds, and Bella was always quick to come to the defense of others. Bella loved the outdoors, the woods, and all the animals that lived there. She loved bones, fossils, rocks, feathers, mushrooms, and was generally in reverence of everything in the natural world. Bella could be found exploring the woods, observing nature, and reflecting on the science of things with a passion. Bella was also a talented artist who though secretive and modest about her abilities, was occasionally proud to share her amazing sketches with her family or closest friends.

After graduating from Kirkwood High School in 2014, Bella soon found herself struggling with the disease of addiction, and entered a number of recovery facilities in Minnesota, California, and Missouri, before returning to her Kirkwood home in 2016 and to her supportive and loving family. Here she attended St. Louis Community College at Meramec receiving the highest grades, making Dean’s List last semester, and where Bella was preparing herself for a future in the biological sciences. Bella had dreams. She spoke of graduate school and of working in a lab someday, and all of this seemed possible until her life was tragically cut short last week.

Bella is survived by her devoted and loving mom and dad, Christy Hathaway Sammartano and Dan Sammartano, and her adoring sister Francesca (Frankie) Sammartano, all of Kirkwood, Missouri. She also leaves behind her loving grandmother Carolyn Clark (Grandma Lyn) of Turners Falls, Massachusetts, and a loving and supportive family of Aunts, Uncles and cousins in Missouri and Massachusetts. These include her Aunt Valery Griffin (Uncle Pete) of Gill, MA, uncles Michael Hathaway (Katherine Mitchell) and Matthew Hathaway (Jessica Hathaway), of St. Louis, MO, and her uncle Chris Sammartano (Ann Fitzgerald) of Ipswich, MA. She also leaves her cousins Lexi Griffin of Gill, MA, Cooper Sammartano of Ipswich, MA, and Lucy, Romy and Ivy Hathaway all of St. Louis, MO. She also leaves behind her loving godmother Missy (Michel) Lewis, and “Aunt” Angela (Buckley) Martin, both of St. Louis. Bella is also survived by a lifetime of schoolmates, close friends, and people she came to know in and out of recovery.

Visitation: A Visitation will be held for the public at Bopp Chapel in Kirkwood, on Thursday, March 30, 2017 between 4:00 and 8:00 PM. A private service will be held in Massachusetts for close family.

Bella was a strong-willed woman choosing to fight the addiction her own way, but who would ultimately succumb to this terrible disease. It’s her family’s hope that her passing will bring awareness to heroin addiction as a treatable and organic disease, and to drug proliferation in our communities and homes. In honor of Bella’s short and wonderful life, please consider a donation to the Harris House Foundation, harrishousestl.org.

[submarinerswife]

I’m so sick of addiction being called a “disease”. It’s a choice to get high. That’s where it begins every single time with every single addict.

By calling it a disease, they take away the bad choice and blame it on a condition beyond the addict’s control and responsibility.

(my brother is/was a meth addict, don’t care if he is still alive or not. I have zero sympathy)

[ProtectOurFreedom]

One other thing that I personally think is a HUGE contributor to the epidemic is a complete absence of moral leadership the past 8 years (at a minimum). Democrats will never, ever criticize somebody’s “lifestyle” or personal decisions. Leftism / progressivism demands that you never judge another’s life or decisions. Hence, we have had zero national moral leadership on any issue. Remember Obama saying abortion was “above my pay grade”?

Nancy Reagan’s “Just Say No” campaign worked. I’m hopeful that Trump and Christie taking a moral stand on drugs might turn the nation away from this scourge.

[VTenigma]

Clueless

[Chickensoup]

The Mexican cartels must be paying off our politicians to the tune of billions to keep the pipeline flowing.

______________________

When you think about it, this payoff must go to the highest of places. Look at the list of open border supporters.

[bert]

——I have very strong opinions about addicts——

Please tell us.

Most of us have no experience with addicts

[rockrr]

I agree. Personally, I believe that behind every heartless comment is an untold story.

[AppyPappy]

I remember the anti-smoking crowd told us that cigarettes were more addictive than heroin. That it was harder to quit smoking than quit heroin.

Well, quitting smoking was easy for me. So naturally, I see heroin as something that should be easy to quit but only because the “smart” people told me that. Everyone I knew who was a heroin addict was able to quit doing it for a time. If you can quit doing it, you can avoid doing it.

Heroin is a choice. However, it is a deadly choice. A deadly, stupid choice. So I am not buying the disease idea.

[cornfedcowboy]

If you can’t stop hitting yourself with a hammer you have a disease. Who would want to hit themselves with a hammer.
Most drug addicts wish they were t addicted. It is harder or almost impossible to break and will ultimately kill you.

[cornfedcowboy]

Thanks for chiming in with the expertise. Are you overweight and wish you were’nt? Have diabetes and still eat sugar? Ever had a kid that screwed up? Ever met a recovering addict who is an absolute wonderful person to be around?
I’m guessing you’re kids are perfect and your church bans people who have sinned.
Curious to hear your response.

[cornfedcowboy]

Yep. And many people don’t realize that alcohol to an alcoholic is deadly. An absolute killer.

[Bookwoman]

What often happens is that they get clean and then try “one more time” at the same level they had worked up to... and that is what kills them. Or they quit too late and it has damaged their liver beyond repair. Once a person starts, it is very difficult to come off it because it plays with the pleasure centers of the brain. It starts a choice but ends a disease. I have had two friends who lost children to addiction in the past year. These were kids who were raised in Christian homes with good values. Drugs leave a devastating legacy.

[ConservativeMind]

The word “disease” never used to apply to willpower issues. I refuse to allow that use in my own walk.

Is the sex drive a disease? One can't stop the feeling, it very often brings on disease and dysfunction, and it causes long term repercussions and responsibilities. So one’s sex drive is a disease, right?

You and I have the ability to not act as animals. We don't go around raping women and that same self-control is what stops us from over eating and buying and using drugs or alcohol.

Just because some choose to give help their own ability to control themselves, it does not mean there is any “disease,” there.

[cornfedcowboy]

Wow. Do you go to church with sinners? Curious. I want to be your neighbor cause you must be perfect.

[cornfedcowboy]

I agree. Personally, I believe that behind every heartless comment is an untold story.

---

Great stuff. Worth repeating.

[VTenigma]

I think what gets a lot when they relapse is the ever increasing amount and quantity of Fentanyl used as a cut. I listen to the scanner sometimes at work and I can always tell when a new batch of Heroin is in by the amount of OD calls the area rescue squads are dealing with and these are presumably experienced users. As a former EMT it astounds me. I’m in a very rural area and when a new batch hits it can be 50% of the calls for a few days. Unreal.

[Drew68]

And you know nothing of alcoholism. But it’s always nice to have an opinion even when it’s wrong

It's easy for people who aren't alcoholics to dismiss alcoholism as a simple weakness of character or lack of will power.

For 30 years, I tried to drink like "normal" people; knock back a couple, socialize, have fun. And then stop. Sometimes I could. Other times, I would "release the dragon" as best friend called it. These evenings usually resulted in embarrassing phone calls the next morning asking what I did and begging forgiveness.

Thing is, once I took the first sip, I had no idea what night it was going to be. My friends didn't either. Eventually, they stopped inviting me to do things with them. Wasn't worth the hassle to babysit a grown man. What used to be funny was now sad.

November 27th, 2015, Black Friday. I was drunk and putting up the Christmas tree, stumbling around, slurring, yelling at my wife and 2 small sons. The next morning I said to myself, these aren't the memories I want my kids to have and I've not since touched another drop. No AA. No therapy. No pills. Three weeks later I would give up smoking, another 30-year habit the same way.

I wish I could say it's been a struggle but it can't. It's like God Himself turned off a switch.

So, yeah, I have some sympathy for addicts because I know what it feels like. Sober, I can visualize the pain I put my parents, siblings, friends through who were always wondering when that phone call was going to come. When I read of drunks who killed people, I think "there but for the Grace of God..." I probably drove drunk thousands of times.

I pray my children don't have the same "weakness of character" or "lack of will power" as people like to assume I suffered from.

[EDINVA]

Most obits paint the deceased as a saint of the first order. Sometimes I actually laugh reading obits of people I knew personally who were, well, anything BUT saints.

The point of this post is that it’s an honest obit, acknowledging the deceased’s addiction that lead to her way too early death. Most times when a person dies of a drug overdose or alcoholism or other self-inflicted causes, the actual cause of death is glossed over.

[Repealthe17thAmendment]

I won't wade into the disease concept, because ultimately it's irrelevant to the process of recovery, which is really where most of the focus should be when it comes to addiction. The original 12 step program, Alcoholics Anonymous declares that selfishness and self-centeredness are the root of the trouble of alcoholics (and I would include addictions to other drugs). That program is designed specifically to create a psychic change in the mind of the addict from self-centeredness to a spirit-centered one. It is a deliberative and methodical process that is thorough and persistent.

In the throes of addiction, the moral character of a person is not erased, but it it reorganized. The selfishness and obsessions rise to the fore, and other traits sink.

So, while Bella was probably selfish, she most likely had all those other traits that her family used to lovingly describe her.

That is the true tragedy of addiction. The possibilities and potential of the addict's life withers away, while the ugliness emerges.

But that is why a 12 step recovery can be so joyful. It not only defeats the selfishness, it allows the wonders of a spirit filled life to grow. People who once seemed hopelessly doomed to live a lonely life, or fall to an early death can recover to raise families, have enduring and prosperous careers, and become pillars of hope and joy in their community.

It happens every day, and it might have happened to Bella. But it won't, and that is why her death is tragic.

[mountainfolk]

The obit described the life and death of a young girl with great potential who took recreational drugs at an early age and over time became addicted to the point that while her body recovered, her mind did not. The obit could have been written for two young people, one girl, one boy, whom I have direct knowledge of. Both came from somewhat dysfunctional families of college educated parents who were drug, or pot, friendly as well as alcoholics on and off. There is a distinct line between pain medication using drugs for relief and the use of drugs for a mind altering high. I have little sympathy for chosen addiction, young or old. Pain is not what is causing this national plague of drug addiction. Cutting to the chase as it were, I hope, and expect, the Trump administration to be unrelenting in destroying the forces whether foreign or in our own country, who are at the core of this drug epidemic.

[GailA]

The story is a oft repeated tragic one.

No mention of the METH epidemic.

But there is the other side of the story no one addresses. The 1.33 Million Chronic Pain Patients who are being forced into Pain Management at 60 or 80, who are not Specialist in those diseases, they have incurable diseases that are painful. Many are starting to commit suicide. The new CDC pain guide lines are not working and are even impacting our pets. Part of DUMBOCARE’s handiwork.

When you get misleading info driven by sad stories, facts don’t seem to matter. Most of these OD’s are from illegal drugs laced with Fenyatal. A few suicides may be in the stats as Chronic Pain Patients reach the end of hope and can’t take the pain any more. Try living 24/7 in level 10 pain? Then the feds/states mandate a 75% decrease. Your only choice is street drugs or maybe suicide by OD. Every bottle of that Crap NORCO even 5 mg states do not DRINK while taking, it could cause death. It is no better than 2 Arthritis strength Tylenol’s.

Maine veterinarians say new pain meds law puts animals, humans at risk
https://bangordailynews.com/2017/03/29/news/state/maine-veterinarians-say-new-pain-meds-law-puts-animals-humans-at-risk/http://www.fox4news.com/news/244510724-story

Survey Shows Doctors Shunning Chronic Pain
https://www.painnewsnetwork.org/stories/2017/3/14/survey-shows-doctors-shunning-chronic-pain-patients

Docs warn that Medicare crackdown will hurt pain patients
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/03/docs-warn-that-medicare-crackdown-will-hurt-pain-patients-235917

Doctors are cutting opioids, even if it harms patients
https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2017/01/02/doctors-curtail-opioids-but-many-see-harm-pain-patients/z4Ci68TePafcD9AcORs04J/story.html

Dr. Tennant. He basically summarized almost everything we have been saying regarding the CDC guidelines. It is very refreshing to read a more balanced view...
https://www.practicalpainmanagement.com/treatments/pharmacological/opioids/living-cdc-opioid-guidelines

Opioid Overdose Statistics: As Clear as Mud
https://www.painnewsnetwork.org/stories/2016/12/17/opioid-overdose-statistics-as-clear-as-mud?rq=pain%20statistics

Why the CDC Needs to Recognize Palliative Care
https://www.painnewsnetwork.org/stories/2017/3/28/why-the-cdc-needs-to-recognize-palliative-care

CDC: Painkillers Not Driving Spike in Fatal Opioid Overdoses
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/873481

Illegally Manufactured Fentanyl Linked to Rise in Overdoses
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/867986

Experts sound alarm after 40% increase of FENTANYL-LACED street drugs tested in Canada
http://globalnews.ca/news/3016218/experts-sound-alarm-after-43-increase-of-fentanyl-laced-street-drugs-tested-in-canada/

This is happening all over the US too.