Letter to the Editor

Your View: two from 2/17

Monday, February 17, 2003

Editor's note: Mike, my daughter is in a drug rehab facility and she has to read the enclosed letter every morning. I thought maybe if it was published, it might make a difference in someone's life and save them from having to go to such a place. Thank you.

Dear residents of this rehab facility:

I case you don't know why you are here, I thought I would take the time to tell you. Plain and simple, you are here because you allowed me to take complete control and cause nothing but chaos in your once-upon-a-time stable lives.

Let me tell you a little on how I operate. I sometimes come in subtle ways, lulling you into a false sense of security, but then again I appear in more drastic ways, feeding off those emotional things that have happened in your life that you continue to hold onto, and that they become so overwhelming that you have to seek some form of relief, and that's when you opened the door and let me in.

I was your first drink, your first joint, your first line, your first needle, your first rock. Yes, you were a virgin and I whispered in your ear, "Trust me. I'm what you need," and you did and I entered your innocent little world. And guess what? You haven't been the same since.

I allowed you to think that you were having fun and that you were in complete control, and this is the part that I like. You actually thought you were using me.

Well, my vulnerable little fool, you are so, so wrong. I have used you. I am the one who has been in complete control. Let me break it down for you. It was me who made you go out and sell your body. It was me who made you continuously miss work after paydays until ultimately I took your job. It was me, working in you, and that is why your children are no longer with you. It was me that sent you to prison, but that's nothing because I have not achieved my primary purpose - and that is to kill you. That's right. I want you dead.

Now that I've laid it all out for you, what are you going to do about it? Before you answer, I must tell you this. I am working on you while you are here. While you and Sally Sue are busy winkin' and blinkin' and making plans to slip off some place and give others a sexually transmitted disease, that will be me. When Billy Bob and Joe start to argue about stupid stuff, that will be me.

I want you to focus on any and everything, except you and me. There are 60-plus people in this facility. Two, maybe three will hear this message and will be free of me for an extended period of time - maybe for the rest of their lives. I will kill one of you before the year is out. Before this time next year, I will have sent at least five of you to prison for a very long time, and I will have killed another three more of you. The rest of you, I will continue to destroy everything in your lives, take away your families and just make your remaining days a living hell. I want you DEAD, but if I don't kill you, you will wish that you were dead.

Now that you know about me and my plans for you, what are you going to do to stop me?

Signed, Your Addiction

A large and growing segment of the U.S. population agrees with the premises in your recent editorial that (a) Saddam Hussein is an evil dictator; (b) that he has biological and chemical weapons; (c) that he may well use them in the future against his neighbors; and (d) that he is in violation of U.N. resolutions including 1441. Yet, we strongly oppose the invasion because its consequences are much more damaging than the problems it is seeking to solve.

Here is a limited list:

(a) The invasion will set the precise timing for the use of the dreaded biological and chemical weapons as well as their targets: American troops and Israeli and Kuwaiti civilians.

(b) The invasion is sapping financial, military and "first response" resources that should be used against the real threat to our security posed by al-Qaida and North Korea.

(c) The invasion will activate al-Qaida "sleeper" cells to sow terror upon U.S. civilian population

(d) The invasion will sow terror upon Iraqi civilian population and disrupt the fragile food distribution system, leading to massive famine.

(e) The invasion is distracting the administration from dealing with the real economic, educational, medical and shelter problems confronting our people.

(f) The invasion will burden our children and grandchildren with a huge national debt incurred in paying for the massive military and "nation-building" costs.

(g) The invasion will isolate us further from world public opinion, the United Nations and the NATO Alliance and will cast the U.S. as the world's bully, rather than the champion of peace and justice.

The invasion is not inevitable. To be sure, we have invested a great deal in preparing for the invasion, but this effort served a purpose of impressing Saddam Hussein and other evil dictators with our ability to mobilize our military might in far-away lands.

Iraq is not our top problem, and even most of its next door neighbors are not worried. It certainly cannot strike while the inspectors are roaming. Let the United Nations and the inspectors do their job as we focus on our real problems at home and abroad.

Steve Dunlop