Got a resentment? Maybe someone in your past did something awful that hurt you, and you’ve carried that memory for years. Or perhaps you resent yourself for something you did or for something you didn’t do when you should have. Resentments attach themselves to us like lint on a coat: easy to take on, hard to take off.
You can get a resentment while innocently relaxing at home, like I did as my wife and I we watched the Hulu drama miniseries, Dopesick, which documents how Purdue Pharma and the Sackler family triggered what some think is the worst drug epidemic in American history. Based on Beth Macy’s 2018 book, Dopesick, the series dramatizes how the family, particularly Richard Sackler, “turbocharged” the sale of OxyContin, targeting rural areas of Maine, Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia, and Massachusetts. Even when addictions and overdose deaths were surging, Purdue continued to make the false claim that the drug was non-addictive when taken as prescribed.
To this day, the Sackler family has denied any wrongdoing. Although they have agreed to contribute more than $4.3 billion in a legal settlement, they profited more than $11 billion from sales on the drug. The agreement includes a much-disputed condition: it provides for a legal firewall, shielding the Sacklers of opioid-related liability, enabling them to remain among the wealthiest families in the country.
National Public Radio recently quoted Ryan Hampton, who is recovering from Opioid addiction: “When they’re done paying this settlement after nine years, there’s a model out there — it shows they’ll actually be richer based on their investments and interest rates that they have.”
It’s a heart-wrenching drama series and cathartic for people like my wife and me who have lost a loved one to addiction. In our case, Harrison followed a fairly typical pattern of many OxyContin addicts: Beginning with an OxyContin prescription after a car accident, which resulted in an addiction to the drug, Harrison eventually substituted heroin, a cheaper, more powerful drug, for OxyContin. It’s a hellish addiction. Harrison was in recovery and “clean” almost two years when he slipped, dying of fentanyl.
In one episode of Dopesick, DEA agent Bridgett Meyer (played by Rosario Dawson) shares a fantasy with her husband: “I have Richard Sackler handcuffed to a chair. And I force him to watch a video of all of the victims who have died from OxyContin. Make him face all of his victims. All the lives cut short for profit. All the tragedy that he brought to families. All the communities destroyed for his family’s greed. I just want him to see it all with his own eyes, exactly what it is that he has done.” And her husband responds, “Do you think he’d even care?” She answers: “No, he wouldn’t, would he? Anyone who would do this in the first place probably wouldn’t at all.”
I have my own fantasy: Richard Sackler has to have surgery. As he is about to go under the anesthetic, the nurse whispers, “After your surgery, we’re starting you on the maximum dose of OxyContin, and oh, by the way, the surgeon performing your surgery is addicted to the drug and is a bit unsteady. Best wishes.”
This is a resentment, I readily admit. And as anyone familiar with addiction will tell you, resentment is the number one offender.
My remedy for resentment is prayer. Blaming Richard Sackler, or anyone along the drug’s delivery pipeline, from Purdue Pharma headquarters in Stamford, CT., to rural Kentucky, is pointless. As Carrie Fisher put it, “It’s like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die.”
There are sick people in this world. The best I can do is pray that I might somehow help them and that God will keep me from being angry. Colossians 3:13 admonishes us: “Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others.” It’s easier to read those words than to practice them, but it is possible.
It’s not a perfect antidote because I’m not perfect, so it’s a daily struggle. But prayer works for me, even for the smallest resentments. I like what author Elizabeth Gilbert said, “As smoking is to the lungs, so is resentment to the soul; even one puff is bad for you.”
So, for today, I’m not stoking the fire of resentment and inhaling its smoke. Instead, I’m taking a fresh breath of God’s grace and walking on, leaving the smoldering embers of anger to die.