“We have to hammer on abusers in every way possible. They are the culprits and the problem. They are reckless criminals.”

This is what Richard Sackler, part of the family that runs Purdue Pharma, said about people who become addicted to OxyContin, the prescription painkiller his company distributes. It’s just one email uncovered by investigators working on a lawsuit filed against Purdue Pharma for its role in the opioid epidemic that has cost hundreds of thousands of lives across the country. In these documents, the Sacklers — a large, secretive family of billionaires who own and run Purdue Pharma — appear to double down on blaming “addicts” for the devastating crisis caused in part by their company’s product.

In 2007, Purdue pleaded guilty to misleading medical professionals and the public about the addictive potential of their drugs. But this new lawsuit, brought by the Attorney Generals of New York and Massachusetts, brings forward allegations that, since then, the company not only continued to aggressively distribute opioids, but also set their sights on addiction treatment, attempting to profit from a life-threatening disease they helped spread.

There’s so much to be angry about in what’s been exposed by this lawsuit. But to read that Richard Sackler called those battling addiction “reckless criminals, culprits,” and “the problem” made my blood boil.

I am one of those “problem” people whom Sackler targets. I don’t have a criminal record, and the only crime I would ever have committed would have been directly caused by my addiction.

I began using opioids and became addicted in 2010 after developing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in response to several years of physical and sexual abuse. Trauma and opioid addiction are closely linked, with some estimates saying as many as two out of three people with PTSD may also have a substance use disorder. This population is much more likely to be comprised of hurt, traumatized people in need of compassionate care than “reckless criminals.”

Addiction itself is a medical condition, caused by a mix of genetic and environmental triggers — such as an opioid prescription — that requires and deserves treatment. So for a pharmaceutical executive heading up one of the biggest opioid distributors to reportedly place blame on people with the disorder is particularly absurd.

“We don’t treat someone with a life-threatening, chronic relapsing illness as a criminal; we treat them with compassion and respect and get them the best care possible as quickly as possible,” said Justine Waldman, the medical director of the REACH Project, a harm-reduction-oriented health hub headquartered in Ithaca, New York. “Any derogatory term to describe someone with opioid use disorder is not only unhelpful, it’s stigmatizing and hurtful and contributes to increased loss of life.”

Environmental triggers go beyond opioid prescriptions. They can also include sexual trauma, the stress of extreme poverty, or exposure to the gang violence and street drugs that often flood low-income neighborhoods. It’s one reason why many experts say that hyperfocusing on companies like Purdue can be problematic if it leads to conversations that exclude populations that were not exposed through legitimate prescriptions. But that doesn’t leave Sackler off the hook for his derogatory and medically unsound statements.

Purdue and other pharmaceutical companies are currently facing a cluster of lawsuits, but the ones filed by New York and Massachusetts appear especially poised to make Purdue face its actions. For the company to significantly contribute to an addiction crisis, campaign to demonize its sufferers, and then plot to profit from treatment is hypocritical at best and potentially criminal at worst. (The Sackler family released a statement to the New York Times claiming that the investigation is full of false information.)

But the case is not clear cut, even if most people agree that an ethical line was certainly crossed. Leo Beletsky, an associate professor of law and health sciences at Northeastern University and the faculty director of the Health in Justice Action Lab, explains, “That’s the fundamental model of the US pharmaceutical industry: They oftentimes treat the disease and then treat the side effects of their own medication.” In this context, the question becomes not one of whether the Sacklers manipulated the public’s trust— which the evidence so far appears to affirm — but whether they did it in a way that deviates from the for-profit pharmaceutical model we all tacitly accept.

Regardless of the outcome of these lawsuits, one point bears repeating, as many times as it takes to make people understand: Richard Sackler’s comment about the blameworthiness of people with substance use disorders is totally off the mark. It reflects an attitude fueled by stigma, one that pervades nearly every system in our nation and which allowed the Sackler family to flourish for decades.

We see this myth in our drug court systems, which frequently deny clients access to evidence-based pharmacotherapies like methadone or buprenorphine, encouraging them to rely on willpower and morals, not medicine, to resolve their condition. We see that in jails, where pretrial inmates are dying from preventable, withdrawal-related complications, usually rooted in a guard dismissing an inmate’s complaint as “drug seeking.” People with this condition are viewed as criminals without ever seeing a day in court, and are blamed for any negative outcome that results from the addiction.

While it is important to hold the Sacklers accountable for their alleged predatory profiteering, there is a larger lesson to be learned from this debacle. Widespread misinformation about addiction has left so many of us floundering without care, often in jails and prisons simply for being symptomatic. At the same time, the Sacklers and others looking to profit from our pain have done so nearly unchecked. It’s time to put the War on Drugs to rest and start celebrating compassionate care and medical science.

Elizabeth Brico is a writer from the Pacific Northwest whose work often focuses on drug policy, treatment, and social justice. She is a 2019 Reimagining Communities fellow with the National Council for Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls, and a 2019 reporting fellow with Talk Poverty. Follow her on Twitter @elizabethbrico.

First Person is Vox’s home for compelling, provocative narrative essays. Do you have a story to share? Read our submission guidelines, and pitch us at firstperson@vox.com.

“It’s awful. I haven’t dosed in 5 days.”

The message popped up on my Facebook feed on August 29, a day after Hurricane Harvey first hit Texas. A woman named Clair, a methadone patient who lives near Houston, could not make it through the flood waters to get the dose she needed. She was going through withdrawal.

This was just one of several such stories populating my newsfeed. I’m a recovering heroin addict and former methadone patient who lives in Seattle, far from the paths of Hurricane Harvey or Hurricane Irma. But through a private Facebook group for methadone patients and allies, I’ve witnessed a crisis develop: the inability of people in addiction recovery to access methadone due to the storm.

“It happened so fast and took a turn for the worst so fast we didn’t have time to prepare,” Clair wrote. “Keep us in your prayers.” A day later: “Today is day 6. I’m very sick.” She stopped responding to replies after that.

The desperation of Clair’s comment reminded me of my own experience trying to obtain methadone doses in the middle of a natural disaster. It was the Fall of 2013 when Boulder was hit with record floods that destroyed 1,500 homes and took the lives of eight people. On the day of the flood, I was stranded at home with no way to access a methadone clinic. I was five months pregnant. Missing my dose wasn’t just about being in pain — it was about my unborn baby, who might not have survived the physical toll of withdrawal.  

Not having access to methadone was my worst fear. It’s a fear that consumed both body and mind, fueled by memories of nights without heroin, and rumors shared in the clinic waiting rooms that methadone withdrawals are even worse.

Methadone is a long-acting prescription opioid primarily used as a replacement therapy for opioid addiction. Patients are prescribed controlled doses of the drug to help them recover from heroin or painkiller addiction. There are an estimated 360,000 methadone patients in the United States and approximately 1.4 million worldwide, according to the addictive diseases laboratory at Rockefeller University.

I enrolled in a methadone program in 2013, when I became pregnant while battling heroin addiction. Methadone was a safe way for me to ensure I wouldn’t go into withdrawal, which might have ended my pregnancy.  

Methadone regulations in the United States are extremely strict.  New patients must take their daily dose at a dedicated clinic, racking up single “take-home” doses over months and years of satisfactory urinalysis results that signify they aren’t taking other drugs. Even though methadone does not have euphoric effects, it is more regulated than other prescription drugs like oxycodone.

When a natural disaster hits, these strict standards often become impossible to maintain amid the chaos. With so many people in acute danger, methadone quickly becomes deprioritized. Though state authorities sometimes allow for shelters and hospitals to dispense doses, or for clinics to allow patients to take the drug home, protocols vary from location to location. The stigma that drives the strict regulations still exists during a disaster.

And methadone is just one drug. Countless other pharmaceuticals are necessary for people to stay healthy during natural disasters. Storms, floods, and wildfires create unforeseen complications that can prevent people from accessing needed medication. These stories are too often overlooked.

As natural disasters continue to batter our nation, stories like Clair’s will become even more common.

The flood that almost made me miss my dose

When the creek water surged from its banks and spilled onto the streets of Boulder, Colorado, I was five months pregnant, and taking 40 mgs daily of methadone. By Friday, September 13, 2013, Gov. John Hickenlooper had already declared Boulder County under a state of emergency. My university was closed. Shops were dark and empty.  All of my schoolmates were inside keeping dry, but I couldn’t miss my dose. So I trudged through town while the rain quickened.

What people never mention about floods is the silence. We’re used to imagining floods as noisy events, the way we see on television, where every shriek and surge is amplified. But what I remember as I walked to the clinic was the total quiet.

The clinic was just a few blocks from my bus stop. “Hey, are you going to be open tomorrow?” I asked the receptionist.

“We’ve never closed for rain,” she answered.

I wasn’t convinced. What would I do if she was wrong? Methadone can take up to two days to leave your system, but once the withdrawals begin, they are extremely harsh. People commonly describe opiate withdrawal as feeling like an intense flu that you know you can instantly cure with a dose. That’s technically accurate, but it fails to capture the full scope of the experience. Withdrawal feels like being deprived of something you need in order to survive. I asked the receptionist to see my case manager, who could potentially authorize “take-home” doses to last the weekend. He was willing to see me, but did not authorize the take-homes, certain the clinic would not close.

That evening, the phrase “100-year flood” made its first appearance on my Facebook feed. The next morning, I was greeted by a text alert from my clinic’s emergency communication service. As I suspected, it was closed. I was told to go instead to a clinic in Denver, which would be open till 3 pm.

I swore and shook my husband awake. We checked the bus routes and learned they weren’t running. I spent hours that day back and forth on the phone with my counselor, and the State Methadone Authority. I was near tears, begging them to find a way for me to dose as rain pounded on our windows. After hours with no results, my husband began scrolling through his phone, trying to locate contact information for a heroin dealer who might be able to serve me. We’d been sober for four months, but the prospect of losing our baby if I went into withdrawal was unbearable.

My counselor called back. “I got through to FEMA,” she said, “they’re going to helicopter you to the Denver clinic. I’ll call you back soon with the details.”

I stared out our small basement window, shocked. How was a FEMA helicopter easier to obtain than a methadone dose? And while this was the solution to our biggest problem, it was one that came with other issues. Our landlord, who lived in the main portion of the house, had made it clear to me that she held little sympathy for addicts. She didn’t know about my prescription, and it was going to be really hard to explain the helicopter in her front yard.

When my counselor called back, the phone lines were beginning to fail. She told me the Lafayette hospital had agreed to dose me and give me take-homes for the rest of the weekend. She helped me arrange a cab ride, paid for by emergency funds, and I was able to dose at the hospital. My nightmare was over for the time being.

When I stepped back into the clinic on Monday, open again as promised, the lobby was abuzz with stories from listless, sweat-slicked patients who were waiting to dose for the first time in days. My pregnancy had led the hospital to agree to dose me, but many other people were left stranded. Not everyone was as lucky as me.

Methadone patients in Harvey

Colorado’s “100-year flood,” now known as the Front Range flood, lasted eight days. The single Boulder County methadone clinic was closed for two. Compared to the devastation caused by Hurricane Harvey in the state of Texas, or the havoc that Irma will almost certainly unleash on Florida, it was a minor event.

As the weather settles over Houston, the storm’s toll is still being assessed. At least 17 people are dead, and more than 30,000 in the Houston area have been evacuated from their homes. For those enrolled in methadone maintenance treatment, evacuation also means leaving their home clinics, sometimes without any doses.

I reached out to several people from my methadone patient Facebook group who got hit by Harvey to get a sense for how they are coping. Clair, the methadone patient who went a week without dosing, told me on Facebook messenger that her Houston clinic remained open during most of the hurricane and its aftermath. Still, flooding prevented her from reaching it. She was only able to dose when a friend gave her a take-home. She says the withdrawals were like nothing she ever imagined.

“Don’t get me wrong,” she explained, “I’ve detoxed many, many times before. But this time was different. My family, my town, my state was going through a disaster like we’ve never seen before. And knowing an ambulance couldn’t get to me because water was up to our red lights was the most bone crunching sense of panic I’ve ever felt.”

“If I could have made it into Houston, I would have relapsed in a heartbeat,” she added.

Tyler, a methadone patient in Corpus Christi, told me on Facebook messenger that his clinic provided him with just three take-home doses, enough to get him through the weekend. When Monday came around, roadway flooding prevented him from accessing his clinic. He tried calling his program to get help, but the lines were down. He describes those two days without medicine as hell.

“I woke up next to my 2-year-old daughter and immediately had to go to the bathroom,” he reports, “I was in there for about 45 minutes. I came out and was sweating … I could barely move.”  “

He tried his best to help with their 2-week-old son, but the jitters, lethargy, and gastrointestinal problems that mark opiate withdrawals prevented him from holding the baby longer than five minutes. By Wednesday, the roads were clear enough that he could get to the clinic. There he learned it had been open but without power since Monday. No more take-homes were being dispensed. What about other patients in the areas that are still affected by flooding?

Substance abuse services need to prioritize methadone patients during natural disasters

When I think about my own experience in the Boulder floods, I remember clinic workers who just weren’t prepared to care for patients during a natural disaster. I began to wonder how national organizations dedicated to treating substance abuse think about this issue.

Nicole Smith, who oversees certifications and wavers to dispense methadone at the national Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, or SAMHSA, told me over the phone that all methadone programs are required to have emergency contact services in place to reach patients, like the text message I received during the Colorado flood. If they had been successful in locating Clair, Smith said, she may have been able to have a dose delivered to her by boat, or to dose daily at a local shelter.  

Still, Smith admits that while all Texas and Louisiana hospitals are authorized to dose verified methadone patients during Harvey, it is ultimately up to the hospital’s discretion. When asked to provide statistics about how many patients received methadone in hospitals during the disaster, neither Smith nor the two other SAMHSA colleagues on the phone could do so.

Joycelyn Woods, the executive director for the National Alliance for Medication Assisted Recovery, a methadone advocacy group, offers a different opinion.

“When you go to a regular doctor of medicine, they don’t view [addiction] as a medical issue,” she tells me over the phone from New York.

It is historically common for methadone clinics to be ill-prepared to dose patients during disasters. During Hurricane Katrina, shelters were not authorized to dispense methadone, so displaced patients going through withdrawal found themselves quarantined by inexperienced care workers. New York City was unprepared for the longevity of Hurricane Sandy’s aftermath, and many patients suffered unpredicted clinic closures and other dosing disruptions. Besides the discomfort of withdrawal, these types of inadequacies during traumatic disasters leave patients vulnerable to relapse. Tyler, for example, admits that the only reason he didn’t get high was because he couldn’t reach a dealer.

Numerous studies confirm that opiate addiction is a physical disorder that results from a combination of environmental and genetic factors, not the outcome of moral weakness. The deprioritization of methadone patients during crisis situations is a result of long-standing stigma. Now that Tyler has been able to dose, he is heading out to a neighboring town that is still flooded to help with relief work. But he could never have done that while he was in withdrawal. Denying these patients their medication needlessly disables a population that could otherwise contribute to the relief efforts.

It will likely be months before we know how well the teamwork between SAMHSA and the Texas and Louisiana State Opioid Treatment Authorities worked during Hurricane Harvey. Now, as Hurricane Irma heads toward Florida, we can only hope that area patients are able to get their doses.

For now, many of them remaining waiting, posting Facebook messages to see if anyone can help.

Elizabeth Brico is a freelance writer living in the Pacific Northwest. Her blog, Betty’s Battleground, focuses on living and parenting with PTSD. She recently joined Healthy Place as a contributing writer for Trauma! A PTSD blog. When she isn’t actively momming or blogging, she can usually be found reading, writing, or watching speculative fiction.

If you are experiencing psychological distress during Hurricane Harvey or Hurricane Irma, or you need help accessing medication, please call the 24-hour Disaster Distress Helpline: 1-800-985-5990.

First Person is Vox’s home for compelling, provocative narrative essays. Do you have a story to share? Read our submission guidelines, and pitch us at firstperson@vox.com.

She wouldn’t stop crying. Lying in her crib in the NICU, her tiny body clenched into a ball, she let out a shrill, eerie wail that no infant should ever make. I instinctively went to comfort her.

“No,” said the nurse, picking her up and out of my reach.

“Let me hold her,” I said. The nurse refused.

I was a new mother. I was an opioid addict. And my nurse wouldn’t let me hold my baby.

I became pregnant in the summer of 2013. I was addicted to heroin. I told my husband — also an addict — his parents, and his two brothers that I was using. No one else.

I knew the stigma surrounding addicted mothers. I’d taken part in it. I remembered the pregnant cocaine addict who used to stand on the street corner near my apartment, begging for change, her pregnant belly protruding into traffic. I’d judged her as much as everyone else. I didn’t want to be thought of like her.

When I told my doctor I was pregnant, I was told to take methadone, a legal opioid often used as an alternative to street drugs. The drug helped ensure my child would be born nine months later — alive, but struggling with her own dependency.

When my daughter spent a month and a half being weaned in the NICU, I made up other reasons for her hospitalization. When Child Protective Services questioned my mom about my ability to care for my child, I deflected blame onto a brother-in-law with an arrest warrant. When that nurse wouldn’t let me hold my baby, I felt like a criminal.

And most of all, I felt guilty for drugging my growing baby.

Taking methadone while pregnant is my biggest shame. But it is a shame built by stigma, a shame that tramples on the backs of other opiate-addicted women who are trying their best to do what’s right for their children. And it’s a stigma that affects medical caretakers, seeping into the way my pregnancy and aftercare were handled.

My shame is an acquiescence to the idea that heroin addicts are bad people who don’t care about their kids. That those of us who have experienced addiction can never change. But that isn’t true — everything I did was to protect my future child. I gave birth to a “methadone baby,” and I wouldn’t change anything I did to bring her into this world.

"Whatever you do, don't go into withdrawals"

My husband stole the pregnancy test from the pharmacy down the street. We didn’t want to use the money we’d begged off my mom — that was for heroin. I didn’t expect a positive result. Street drugs are notorious for disrupting periods.

I cooked my dope sitting over the toilet with my panties around my ankles. I peed on the stick, took a shot, and lulled into the warm embrace of the rush. When my vision came back into focus, I was staring at a little plus symbol.

In that state of mind, addiction wasn’t even my first concern. I was worried that traveling home by bus would somehow harm the baby. I was in Seattle then but lived in Colorado, where I attended grad school. I’d gone to Boulder to get clean, thinking school would finally give me the motivation to get back on track. Of course, it hadn’t worked out. I was self-medicating my PTSD due to domestic violence; distracting myself wasn’t the cure.  

The doctor I visited to verify my pregnancy must have seen the addiction on my face. He asked, and I told the truth.

“You need to get on methadone,” he said.

I was shocked. I’d heard nothing but terrible things about it from fellow addicts. They told me it was harder to get off than heroin. The withdrawals lasted months. Everyone I knew who had tried it ended up relapsing.

I remember my own mother talking disdainfully about the rash of “methadone babies” in the ’80s, the result of the lascivious ’70s. I asked the doctor if methadone was really necessary. Wouldn’t it be better to just get off opiates?

“No,” he insisted. “Any withdrawals you go through, your fetus goes through. They could cause a miscarriage or growth abnormalities.”

“You need to get on methadone,” he continued. “I’m not licensed to prescribe it, so you’ll need to enroll in a treatment program when you get back to Colorado. Until you do, you need to keep yourself from going through withdrawal.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “So you want me to keep doing heroin until I get back home?”

I remember how he looked down at his chart, began fiddling with the pages. “It would be better if you could ingest something. Vicodin or Oxycodone. I understand those can be more difficult to come by, and I can’t write you a prescription.”

I smiled then. It was the addict in me. I didn’t want to do heroin while pregnant, but it’s every addict’s dream to have a doctor condone their use. “So you want me to keep doing heroin.”

This time, he met my eyes. “Whatever you do, don’t go into withdrawals.”

Methadone makes you sleepy, not high

I quickly learned that dosing on methadone is not like taking a regular prescription. Methadone patients have to go to the clinic every day to get their dose while a nurse watches to ensure ingestion. After several months of clean urine tests and consistent daily attendance, patients can earn “take-homes”: doses that come in sealed plastic bottles inscribed with their names and clinic numbers. My clinic was closed on Sundays, so all patients got take-homes on the weekend.

I will never forget the sour pink syrup in which the methadone was dissolved, a failed attempt to mask the bitter taste of opiate.  Every day the dispensing nurse greeted me with a smile, a plastic cup of thick pink methadone fluid, and a paper cup of water that was supposed to wash away the foul taste.

I understood, almost immediately, why so many people believe methadone patients are “getting high on the government’s dime.” I spent several hours each day struggling to stay awake. I remember lying on the lawn next to the public library, nodding out for the hour and a half between dosing and going to class. In school, I could barely stay awake. When my dose peaked, about three hours after ingestion, I fell asleep. Sitting at a desk in writing class, knees crossed for meditation group, slumped against the bus window — wherever I was when that medicine hit, I slept.

I want you to understand one thing: Methadone makes you sleepy, but it does not get you high. Opiate addicts don’t take drugs like heroin or Oxycodone to fall asleep. We take them for the euphoria — for that three-minute buzz when our entire bodies hum with pleasure, and for the few hours afterward when our minds lapse into a numb, calm blankness.

Methadone doesn’t do that. It makes you sleepy. It makes your thoughts a little fuzzier. I remember it was harder to concentrate in class, but I was never high. 

Even if my body wasn’t going through withdrawal, I missed heroin. I missed having that good feeling to look forward to every day, even if it only lasted a minute or two. Even more than that, I missed feeling sane. As soon as the heroin flushed out of my system, my PTSD symptoms returned with a vengeance. It was when I finally got clean during my pregnancy that I had some of the worst flashbacks of my life.

Despite these regulations, and a few close calls, once I started methadone, I never missed a dose

I was 38 weeks pregnant when my body decided to go into labor without warning. My husband said I’d been tossing and groaning in my sleep the night before. He thinks the painkilling effects of the methadone may have masked my early labor. Whatever the reason, I ended up giving birth unexpectedly on my bed.

My husband started the delivery via instructions a 911 operator gave him over the phone. Paramedics showed up in time to complete it. I’ll never forget the way everyone at the hospital burst into applause when I was wheeled in, new baby in arms.

I vomited my daily dose during labor, but my body was so flooded with pregnancy hormones that I barely missed it. My daughter, on the other hand, began experiencing withdrawals almost immediately.

How can I explain the heartbreak of watching my newborn go through methadone withdrawals? This tiny little creature was curled into herself, sweating and shaking. She was fussy. She refused to latch to my breast. Her skin yellowed with jaundice. I wanted only to hold her to me, to take her home and soothe her, but instead the nurses came to our room with a small wheeled crib and brought her to the neonatal intensive care unit.

There, the doctor started her on morphine therapy. My husband and I were devastated when we learned she was being prescribed morphine. We’d been warned of this possibility already and coached through what it would look like. Infants with severe enough withdrawals receive tiny oral doses of morphine, which are slowly decreased until the baby is weaned off of opiates. This means a stay of at least two weeks, and possibly longer. Our daughter stayed for a month and a half.

What people who pity the plight of “methadone babies” don’t understand is that whatever sorrow they feel is amplified a thousand times within the mothers. We are not heartless monsters. I sat in that unit wracked with guilt over my daughter’s pain and the knowledge that my actions caused it.

But paired with that knowledge was the understanding that the methadone also saved her life. Even if I had managed to make it through cold-turkey withdrawals, she could have died in the process. Methadone saved my baby’s life.

The stigma of addiction

Would you be less judgmental if I told you that I am a survivor of domestic violence? That I was raped and strangled to the point of seizure more than once when I was a teenager? Would it help if you knew that I discovered opiates through a prescription? Should these facts matter? I don’t think so. The reasons people become addicted to heroin and other opiates are as various as the number of addicts on this planet, but the reason a pregnant woman engages in a methadone program is always the same: to do what’s best for her growing baby, under the guidance of a doctor.

But addiction stigma is rampant even within the medical community. At one point, the NICU nurses refused to let me hold my own baby. One of them called CPS, though I had my urinalysis records to prove my program compliance. I was not allowed to breastfeed. Later, I would learn that the amount of methadone that enters breast milk is negligible, and that if I had breastfed while tapering, it may have helped my daughter’s weaning process.

My "methadone baby" today

It was not until we spoke to the NICU doctors that my husband and I learned the potential long-term effects of methadone on children. I’d tried to get information throughout my pregnancy, but every professional I asked had been vague and reassuring. The goal was, clearly, to keep me on methadone, no matter the cost.

Now we were learning that potential side effects included hyperactivity and a higher likelihood to be diagnosed with ADD or ADHD later in life. At age 3, my daughter has an intense temper and shows signs of possible hyperactive behaviors.

But she is also an ambitious, creative child who loves making people laugh. She impressed her pediatrician by speaking her first words at 8 months, and continues to show a proclivity for language, now almost fluent in both English and Spanish. My husband and I are treated to daily concerts, which always begin with a Sally Bowles-esque exclamation of “Hello, darlings!” Her eyes are hazel green. She tells stories all the time. Some days she hopes to become a doctor; other days, a singer.

She was born with a drug dependency, but without methadone, she may never have been born at all.

Correction: This piece was updated to change the word “addiction” to ” dependency” when referencing the author’s baby’s dependency on methadone.

Elizabeth Brico is a freelance writer living in the Pacific Northwest. Her blog, Betty’s Battleground, focuses on living and parenting with PTSD. She recently joined Healthy Place as a contributing writer for Trauma! A PTSD blog. When she isn’t actively momming or blogging, she can usually be found reading, writing, or watching speculative fiction.

First Person is Vox’s home for compelling, provocative narrative essays. Do you have a story to share? Read our submission guidelines, and pitch us at firstperson@vox.com.