‘Mommy Died of a Drug Overdose’

It is one of the most heart-wrenching scenes yet from the deadly nationwide drug epidemic — and it has played out over 30 million times since 9 p.m. on Monday, Oct. 10, on YouTube, Facebook and national TV.

Brenden Bickerstaff-Clark, an Ohio father, told his eight-year-old son this week that his mother died of a drug overdose. The father recorded the whole scene. He wrote on his Facebook page that he did it to try to get other addicts to realize what they’re doing to their kids.

“I think something positive can come from it, but at the expense of the little boy in this video,” said one addiction specialist.

“This [is] for any and every addict with children,” Bickerstaff-Clark wrote, as he shared the desperate video. “I had to tell my eight-year-old son that his mommy died from a drug overdose last night. This is the reality of our disease. Please get help so our children don’t have to suffer. I had someone record this so addicts with children can see the seriousness of our epidemic. I am a recovering addict myself with 94 days clean today. Please share [and] maybe help save a child’s parents’ life. #wedorecover #godblesstheoneswhocouldnt”

While it appears his intentions were in the right place, criticism has been swift. The child now has to live with a heartbreaking moment in his life having been taped and made public far and wide.

“It strikes me as gratuitous and unjustifiable to videotape the most traumatic and personal moment in a child’s life and air it for the world’s commentary,” said Gabe Fenigsohn, a research manager at Cardwell Beach, a Brooklyn-based digital design and development agency involved in substance abuse treatment outreach efforts.

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“That video depicting a child’s anguish does not help people struggling with addiction. Evidence-based care and access to that care are what help people with addiction,” he told LifeZette.

[lz_bulleted_list title=”Drug Overdose Deaths, 2014″ source=”http://www.cdc.gov”]From 2000 to 2014, nearly half a million Americans died from drug overdoses. Opioid overdose deaths, including both opioid pain relievers and heroin, hit record levels in 2014, with an alarming 14-percent increase in just one year.|Rates of drug overdose deaths were highest among five states: West Virginia, New Mexico, New Hampshire, Kentucky, and Ohio.[/lz_bulleted_list]

Others don’t necessarily agree with how it was done or why it was done — but hope some good may come of the tragedy nevertheless.

“I think something positive can come from it, but at the expense of the little boy in this video,” said Ryan Potter, director of clinical development with Ambrosia Treatment Centers, a nationwide network of addiction recovery programs. “I think it puts a face and a reality to the opioid epidemic occurring in this country — that it is mothers, father, brothers, etc., that are dying.”

There isn’t a single right way to address the epidemic, Potter said. It has to be a multi-pronged approach through awareness, community organizing, and access to treatment, among other steps that need to be taken.

“I don’t know how many children there are, but there were just under 50,000 deaths in 2014 from overdose in the U.S. per the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] … However, it is unknown how many were parents. I will say every one of those roughly 50,000 was somebody to someone,” Potter said.

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He added that he sees how his patients are more open to social media than ever before, so it really doesn’t surprise him to see more of these kinds of postings being shared widely. Millennials, he said, are experimenting with it — but the generation that has followed grew up in the Facebook age. So there is less awareness about keeping things within the family.

“I think people are compelled to share as addiction — the epidemic and overdoses have become a part of the current dialogue in this country. Often people in grief or with traumatic losses feel very committed to doing anything they can to prevent others from feeling the emotional pain. Just today I met with a father who lost his son to addiction, and now the father’s life work is getting those that need help and supporting parents,” said Potter.