The Riverbanks of Belvidere
The Low-Well River Rats
I find it very interesting how social norms and behavioral trends form and stigmatize to the point of inciting sociopathology. Yes, we are all prone toward becoming sociopaths, by simple innocent or sometimes intentional, propagated falsehoods. The River Rats were never really an organized gang, just a bunch of teenagers living on the outskirts of the city. Local law enforcement coined the label for us. Like most teenagers do, gathering together to be social and have fun amongst friends, we would rally and compete for attention from the overall group. Sound volume would increase in decibels, rough housing would escalate and then we’d end up damaging things around our neighbor’s properties. Eventually, local law enforcement would be called out from their inner-city comfort zone in order to corral us, a group of kids down on the corner. Maybe having to leave their downtown comfort zone generated some bitterness and disdain.
We always seemed to gravitate toward a corner, an intersection within our neighborhood seeking neutral turf, not belonging to any one particular neighbor’s house. The one that got us noticed the least was always gravitated to next, with Fetherston Ave and Russel Street becoming a fav. The “Wall” was for the older generation of River Rats, at the bottom of Burnham Road, where Belvidere’s raw human waste, untreated feces and some occasional cheerios, dumped straight into the Merrimack River. As these rats matured into cars and motorcycles, law enforcement moved them out of our otherwise quiet neighborhood. Their new home was closer to downtown on the outer edge of Belvidere. Their congregation gathered at Kitteridge Park.
Stigma = disenfranchisement = isolation = freedom from norms, rules, and regulations. The Rats were merely seeking freedom to explore and discover their true humanness, outside of assigned labels and identities as prescribed by societies’ cultural norms and authoritative worldviews, often governed by misinformed bureaucratic ideologies. We found it on the corners and at the park. From there, we slowly dissipated into the same stigmatizing stereotyping oppressive beings we had previously disowned. Just a few years earlier, the Rats strived to refrain from the hypocrisy of their elders. Were they done exploring or did we sell out to the highest bidder?
Now let’s fast forward to current day, where propaganda governs our opioid overdose crisis and where society as a whole becomes socio pathological. Yes, it seems the Rats have sold out to the highest bidder. We believed what money told us to believe. Go big or go home. You need one of these if you want one of those! It’s so very true, you tell someone something long enough, they will come to believe it. The crap was Piled higher and Deeper, until we could no longer see ahead of ourselves. Now ready for retirement, amidst an overdose crisis, it all seems clear.
While earning my PhD in addiction psychology, I was amazed there were no peer-reviewed research articles covering the topic of addiction. It was as if it didn’t exist, only catch phrases like alcoholism, substance misuse and dependence, or drug abuse were the only topics coming close to the concept. It was 2012 and no professional understanding of what an addiction consisted of had been developed nor was it even being considered. Really, didn’t anybody hear Willie Dixon back in the 1960’s “could be a spoonful of coffee, could be a spoonful of tea?” I mean, I know Eric Clapton got the message, “some of them dies about it, some of them cries about it.” Or could it be the word’s relationship to slavery from back in Ancient Roman Law, where one human could own another in order to have a debt repaid.
Look closely, I will show you how today’s overdosing addicts are societal slaves of propaganda? I hear our city council members are at a quagmire, and not at our River Rat’s gully. It’s at, what can be done with all our homeless addicts. Sounds a bit like “how do we corral some River Rats doesn’t it? Oh boy, now it all hits home! These are our children and not human waste to be simply discarded down the Merrimack River, like our so-called CSOs. With my academic degree for piling things higher and deeper, I realized my shame in it all. I sat on the riverbank and simply watched as the river was destroyed right before my eyes and not by us River Rats. I then did my best to join the norm and become professionally certified. I still knew though, that I would rather poop in a hole than in my own drinking water.
As I worked the front lines of our opioid overdosing crisis, opening my office downtown in 2012, I humbly began accepting my role in it all. Go to where I’ve been and look in the eyes of these human beings. Smell the stench of their days-old, mildewed socks and dirty filthy clothes reeking of rancid body odor. They stay there within their little group of peers to receive the only source of genuine love available to them. The love they share is not an oppressive one either, it’s not labeled as love and stereotyped into what love is supposed to be either. It’s their own true genuine love for each other with an understanding of where they have been. They know what has led them down their hellish path and do all they can to repress their understanding of true human sociopathology. Their love understands that if my spoonful runs out, I am going to steal yours soon as you look away. At the same time, they protect one another and each other’s belongings from outsiders.
Not too long ago, I got a call just after nightfall, she was asking me to bring her back to her haunt downtown. She was in a warm house, with clean clothes, a hot shower, refrigerated milk, bread and butter for toast. She loves milk and toast! She also had enough of her own supply to last through to the next day. As I hesitated with bewilderment, she interrupted my delay with: “I know it’s warm here but he’s still out and probably going to come home drunk and start yelling at me.” “I would rather be in my comfort zone,” were her convincing words. Of course, this is in a tent in the woods off the road somewhere. I was out the door to bring her to her perception of comfort and safety. I recalled how River Rats were labeled and treated with disrespect. I recalled having fallen into deceptive ideology over the years. I saw how my own delusional thinking incited by propagated nonsense left me bewildered for a few seconds. All she needed was a spoonful of love so hard to find these days!
Very Powerful!