![]() The price we paid for his life was severe Substance Use Disorder – aka addiction. In 2010, Luke was in a near-fatal car accident. Later in life, he would tell me that when the nurse gave him “that little white pill’ when he was 14, it made all his emotional pain go away. By the time Luke was 17, he had been prescribed narcotics four separate times: Pilonidal cyst surgery, wisdom teeth extraction, thumb surgery, and removal of a large sliver from his foot. They had bought into their lie that it was only 1% addictive. When Luke was 14 years old, the medical profession passed out Oxycontin like Pez. No one expected that it was an Ivy League student with a documented high tolerance due to multiple surgeries who could not find reliable medical treatment and felt forced to go to the streets to find relief from unrelenting cravings. ![]() When someone hears about someone dying of an accidental overdose, the stigma cultural image that usually pops up is that of a strung-out, undisciplined party animal. Little did my family know this distant correlation would one day steer the course of our lives into turbulent waters and eventual loss of life. My son, Robert Luke Paschal, was born in 1991, the same year Purdue Pharma was in preparation for the opioid launch centered around targeting Ox圜ontin to non-cancer patients with chronic pain. Early in my career, I was a Community Liaison Specialist at HCA Cumberland Psychiatric Hospital and Treatment Center, giving seminars on mental health disorders and addiction. Andrews University, and Methodist University. Grit Daily: Start by telling us about your background and the background of your son who inspired your latest book. In honor of National Recovery Month (September), we sat down with retired professor and author Susan Bartz Herrick to discuss her latest book “ Slow Dancing with the Devil.” The book dives into the facts around Substance Use Disorder (SUD) and the loss of her son Luke, an Ivy League graduate and successful entrepreneur. There’s no shortage of information on the lifestyle and pressures of entrepreneurship, but it is not as often that people address the risks of addiction that can come with high-performing career pursuits.
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