Framingham FORCE holds first event to raise awareness of opioid addiction | Metrowest Daily News, Dec 2, 2018
Originally posted in the MetroWest Daily News, Framingham, MA on December 2, 2018. By Cesareo Contreras
FRAMINGHAM – Lynne Johnson Grynkewicz has experienced the toll addiction can have on the life of a loved one.
In April, Grynkewicz’s 33-year-old son, Christopher Thomas, died in Colorado after battling with opioid addiction for much of his life.
“The disease had taken control of his brain, and it was a formidable enemy,” said the Framingham resident. “His innate sweet nature had no power to fight in the opiate war that has forged our country.”
Grynkewicz shared her son’s story at Scott Hall Saturday during a vigil honoring the thousands of Americans who have lost their lives as a result of substance abuse. The event was organized by Framingham FORCE (Fostering Opioid Recovery Compassion and Education), a new local group that has made its mission to spread awareness about the opioid epidemic and provide support to those it has affected.
About 60 individuals made up of residents and government officials attended the event.
They placed 2,000 purple flags – meant to honor the more than 2,000 lives lost in 2017 to substance abuse – on the Framingham Town Green during the event. The flags also serve as visual markers of the epidemic’s rising death toll.
Framingham FORCE was founded by Framingham residents Joan Grzywna and Cathy Miles, who both have children in recovery for opioid addiction.
“Addiction is a family disease,” Grynkewicz said. “It takes practice to recover both for the addict and the family.”
The Framingham Board of Health serves as the group’s fiscal agent, which grants Framingham FORCE the ability to request grant money for future events and campaigns, Miles said.
The duo said they are in talks of starting a Words Matter campaign, which would focus on calling out derogatory terms often used to describe people suffering from drug addiction.
“It’s just to end the stigma and foster compassion,” Grzywna said.
Throughout Grynkewicz’s son’s last years, he found himself in correctional facilities often as a result of his substance abuse issues, she said. During that time, she learned that the judicial system was more concerned with mandating “punitive” actions and less interested in providing addicts a road for recovering, she said.
“As a result, the feelings of anxiety, guilt, shame and self-loathing only added fuel to a fire that was burning fuel out of control in our son’s damaged mind,” Grynkewicz said.
In addition to hearing Grynkewicz’s story, audience members heard from Katie Truitt, whose son, Matthew, died in 2012 after overdosing.
In learning to cope with her child’s disorder, Truitt said she needed to learn how to take care of herself.
“I realized the best thing I could do for my loved ones was to get help for myself,” she said.
In Mathew’s case, Truitt said, he tried to overcome his addiction on his own and did not seek out help.
“I think that is one of the saddest things about my son’s story. He tried to battle this battle on his own,” she said. “When you are battling addiction, you just can’t stop this on your own. I can’t go what I’m going through alone.”
Matthew died in a hospital bed several days after he had overdosed at a friend’s house in Rhode Island.
Although her son is no longer with her, Truitt lives by a few words her son shared with her in a Christmas card.
“He wrote, ‘Keep faith no matter where your life is headed. You taught me that.’ How can I not live by live by faith, and that’s what I try to do every single day.”
