Alden’s mother lifted her eyes from the bottle to my face. "Did he ever talk to you about his addiction?"
"A little. Mostly what he said had to do with someone else I know who’s been struggling with fentanyl. He mentioned his rehab center in Canada and going to see the Churchill polar bears."
"I just wondered… he never was able to articulate what had made him start using. My husband and I have tortured ourselves with the possibility that we were at fault somehow."
I didn't want to repeat what he'd said to me: If someone feels they aren’t good enough, not worthy enough, and they believe—or they’re made to believe—that they can acquire that worth from something external to them, then whatever gives them that feeling becomes their addiction.
What I told her was true as far as it went. "I
