Who I’m giving money to today

A Giving Tuesday Request That Will Cost You $0

Content Note: This email mentions drug use and overdose. Skip this one if you came here for business advice. I’ll get back to that next week. 

Last Giving Tuesday I wrote an email called “drug money (donate today!),” offering to match any donations to charities that offer harm reduction and housing programs for drug users. 

Together we donated $1100. I had no idea that, just four months later, I would lose one of my favourite people in the whole world to overdose. 

When we cleaned out my brother Quentin's apartment after his death, I found a huge drawer full of Narcan, unused syringes and foil pipe kits, plus a sharps bin sitting out in the living room, all items he would’ve acquired for free at either a local pharmacy or the consumption site near his home. 

Harm reduction programs, including access to prescription opioids, most likely added years to my brother’s life – quality years where he could do things like attend family dinners and school plays, crack jokes at my table and bring gifts for the kids at Christmas. 

Not everyone in my life is a fan of programs like the ones we raised money for last year, or the mandate of PHS Community Services Society (Canada), DanceSafe (USA)  and Drug Policy Alliance (USA), but I’m learning to be comfortable with people I love having different opinions than mine. (A skill for our time.) Some saw my brother’s doctor as an enabler, and I don’t blame them. I’m angry too, and scared that fentanyl is a spring snake that we will never be able to cram back into the box. 

But I also see fighters, incredible stories of hope like you wouldn’t believe.  

I have another brother who has more than 18 months of drug-sobriety. He is putting his life back together with support from a 12-step program, learning to ask for help and receive support, paying off debt and repairing with people he hurt, and giving back as a sponsor to others in the program. I used to think 12-step was bullshit. I am happy to be proven wrong, and crazy proud of my brother. His bravery inspires me.

My new partner is very involved in 12-step, and has a decade of sobriety from drinking and drugging. We’ve had many healthy arguments about whether or not safe injection sites and free syringes are a good thing. We disagree and that’s okay. His activism in recovery is far beyond so many keyboard warriors arguing about the right and wrong ways to deal with the fentanyl crisis.

Last Friday I watched A Christmas Carol with a couple of guys in recovery, drinking Dr. Pepper and eating homemade enchiladas. One of them had his daughter there, a 4-year-old kid getting to know her father who somehow got himself sober and into a recovery program. I looked at those tough guys with their skinny bodies and face tattoos and thought, “Holy hell. It is a goddamn fuckin’ miracle they are here right now.” Choosing sobriety, to face life without blinders on. Choosing to be in connection instead of whatever else they were doing on their Friday nights, sleeping under train cars trying to beat back life. It thought about how much courage it took to get where they are today, and the long road ahead. 

This Giving Tuesday, I won’t ask you to support my cause or join my movement. I want you to tell me about yours. I want you to tend to your own movement with your money, your words, your time. And with your honesty and bravery, because, as I’ve learned, that’s the surest way to win support for your mission.

If you don’t know what your movement is, keep looking for it. We all need something to fight for that is bigger than us, that keeps us connected to our communities. Now maybe more than ever.

If I could ask you one thing, it would be to learn to recognize the symptoms of Opioid overdose, get a Narcan kit and learn how to use it. Most overdose deaths happen to people using drugs alone in their homes. Everyday people who live in houses and could be using drugs they bought on the street or ones that were prescribed. 

Narcan (Naloxone) is a nose spray you can get at the pharmacy for free. It comes in a kit that looks like this, which contains two doses.

Just ask the pharmacist, who can also show you how to use it. You spray it up the person’s nose if they’ve stopped breathing and they wake up (and also go into instant withdrawal). Fentanyl is so powerful that sometimes it takes two or three doses.

I will get off my soap box now and say thank you for your time. I’m serious when I say I’m interested in the causes you care about, and how I can support that too. 

My inbox is all ears.

Tarzan

Tarzan Kalryzian [she/they]
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