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According to a new Salt Lake tribune article (click here) - Utah has “the country’s highest rate of nonmedical painkiller abuse.” 

“Utah in 2007 recorded 317 deaths related to nonillicit drugs - double the number six years earlier and far more than died from heroin, cocaine and other infamous drugs.”

Here’s the beautiful thing, the reason why I want to make out with attorney general Mark Shurtleff:  he went there–oh yes he did…Here’s his quote:

“Mark Shurtleff on Wednesday attributed part of Utah’s problems to the Mormon culture, which discourages alcohol and illicit drugs but is more tolerant of prescriptions.  “In some societies, they have a problem and they self-medicate with alcohol,” said Shurtleff, who said he took painkillers during his long recovery from a 2007 motorcycle crash but was careful to use the medication properly and no longer uses it.

Shurtleff said Utah also suffers from a communication problem where people with problems and addictions do not want to discuss them.

“We are a pill-popping society,” Shurtleff said.

Actually the funniest thing about this is how he is careful to let you know that *his* painkillers are gone…Hahahah.  But he said this thing OUT LOUD, which is awesome.

One of the first things I noticed when I moved to Philadelphia from Utah was that my Weight Watcher meetings I was leading were, well, quite different than the ones in Utah.  I’ll never forget my first meeting….a woman raised her hand and said that she was having a hard time sticking to the plan because she was having a difficult time with her son being in jail.  WHAT?!?  Another leader brought her grandchild to work and told everybody in line that she was babysitting while her daughter was at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting.  I think my jaw dropped…I didn’t even know what to say….You don’t just SAY STUFF like that in Utah, especially to a group of strangers and more especially to a group of women strangers.  The foremost thought in every Mormon’s mind is “WHAT WILL PEOPLE THINK”?  As a woman, the only thing that is expected of you is to be a mother, and you better be a darn good one because geez, if you can’t get even that simple thing right, what good are you?  The only way to measure if you are a good mother is by your children and how wonderfully Mormon they are, how strong they are in the Church, how many grandchildren they have faithfully reproduced for your shiny happy Temple-loving family.  So if your child actually has *gasp* problems….it’s best to keep that a secret.   Hence, going back to this post–(click here)– appearance is everything.  Again:  APPEARANCE IS EVERYTHING. 

And I would have never ever realized that if I hadn’t moved out and seen how the rest of the world operates.  Philadelphia is so REAL.  It’s filthy.  It’s dirty.  People are loud. People are mean.  People honk a lot.  People laugh really really loud.  People curse at each other on the street.  I LOVE IT.  It is absolutely raw….and profoundly refreshing.

Mormons feel that they are misconstrued in the media, they feel that they are misinterpreted and misunderstood.  In a lot of ways, they are.  But, to any Mormons out there–the way that you feel about bars and alcohol is ALSO misunderstood and misconstrued to YOU.  Most Mormons have never set foot in a bar, or even drank tea–let alone alcohol.  Here’s what you don’t understand:  Alcohol makes you talk.  Alcohol makes you talk FREELY.  So when people go to bars, they are not just going to get “wasted” and pass out in a pile of their own vomit….they are TALKING.  They are opening up to each other.  They are freely discussing their problems, their lives, what’s going on…a bar can be a sort of therapy session.  Of course there are people who drink too much, there are some that go overboard, but my heck, Utah–NUMBER ONE IN THE NATION FOR PRESCRIPTION PAINKILLERS?  You want to talk about abuse?  Of course you don’t.  Because then you’d have to talk about what’s REALLY going on.  And nobody wants that.  You aren’t even allowed to talk about the Temple, the very heart of your religion– if you happen to feel a little *uncomfortable* with the rituals and how truly unprepared you are for what goes on there.  You can’t even talk about it amongst each other.

It is so hard to have a therapist and tell her stuff.  It’s hard but I LOVE it–and she’s AWESOME.  “Okay, Crystal….so….answer the damn question.”  Hahaha she doesn’t say it that way but she only lets me skirt around things for so long.  It is hard to talk about my feelings, especially the “forbidden” ones.  And I even came from a family of people who DO talk about things more freely than most–my mom is great for that.  But the Mormon wall comes in, and there’s just a lot of things that are off-limits.  So Mormons have no outlets.  They are bottled up inside….the pressure is building….and “self-medicating with alcohol” is something that Mormon’s look down on you “others” for doing.  Being dependent on alcohol is a horrifying thought to a Mormon.  But Pain pills…a tiny pill you can take that TAKES AWAY THE PAIN- and you can keep up appearances?  Bravo. Pain pills make you smile.  And that’s what everybody wants to see.  

So Utah is creating a new task force to deal with this problem.  Doctors will be forced to prescribe less pain pills….so my question is…what are Mormons going to do?  Considering the abnormally high suicide rate…I am genuinely concerned for these people.  317 non-illicit drug deaths in 2007…DOUBLE the number of 6 years ago?  This pressure is growing stronger and more intense, especially with bankruptcies, foreclosures, and large families to support on one diminishing income–and if you take away Mormon’s only “legal” outlet, what’s going to happen?

I’m afraid.

So, Mr-I-don’t-have-any-pain-pills-at-my-house Mark Shurtleff, I commend you for taking that ONE step forward, for acknowledging the Mormon influence in this hot mess…because I’m sure you are going to get a lot of crap for it. 

If there’s one thing Mormons DO talk about, it’s about how NOT OPPRESSED they are.  Excuse me, it’s time for my yellow pill.

<This is one of my best friends, John, who I’ve known since 1996….taken in NYC…I consider him to be my favorite drug :)  >

When I was 17, I was friends with this girl who lived across the street from my grandparents in Orem, Utah.  I’ll call her Heather.  When we were growing up, we’d go to church together, and play together when I’d visit.  Her family was the typical Mormon family, like everybody else’s on that street.  But then her parents got divorced, and one of her brother’s friends started hanging out at the house.  The neighbors started to feel a little uncomfortable, these guys were clearly not the church-going crowd, and drugs were rumored to be over there.  Heather had stopped going to church, so I didn’t see her as much, and by then I had already made my own judgments about her family.

Then something crazy happened.  A body was found in a church parking lot.  A 911 call had been made from a young girl who had “found” it.  Eventually the whole story came out… Heather’s older brother was on heroin, and he had injected his girlfriend with it.  She died.  He didn’t know what to do, so he had his little sister, Heather, help him load her up in a sleeping bag and they drove around looking for a place to dump her body.  The  anonymous 911 call was made by Heather.  Her brother ended up going to jail, she was underage.

But what happened next, what I said and THOUGHT about the situation makes me physically ill to this day.  The neighbors were talking.  Some had found candles in their backyards, and they all came to the conclusion that Heather, who had gone through this traumatic experience that quite frankly, none of us could possibly comprehend-was now into satan and satanic rituals.

I remember saying….(oh this makes me sick…)

…I said that I thought it would have been better if Heather was dead, if Heather had physically died before any of this happened, because now she was not going to be able to go to the Celestial Kingdom with the rest of us.  She was screwed.  Her physical death would be much better than her spiritual death.

How Andrea Yates can you get?

And when I said that, nobody thought anything of it.  None of the adults around me thought that I had said anything disturbing in the slightest.  They may even have agreed with me.

But that’s how Mormons think.  And that’s how I thought.  And if I were to ever run into “Heather” again, I would give her a huge hug and tell her how sorry I am that I wasn’t there for her at a time when she needed support in her life, and not condemnation.

“Heather”….I’m sorry.  I am so sorry.

**this pic is my little devil, vegas**

**he promptly ran off and hid the costume after we took it off**