If this is a general RIP thread I would like to add someone I had never heard of and you probably haven't either.
As a young man, Jason Albertson was a heroin addict. He got into rehab, went to school, eventually received a master's degree in behavioral psychology. He became a street counselor among San Francisco's homeless and addicted. For decades. There were never enough resources for medical care, drug treatment, food, a place to stay. Especially for those whom many consider human garbage. The people on the street trusted Jason because no matter how down and out they were, he saw them as people. He would sit down on the street with them and talk about what they needed. He was able to get some homeless people reunited with relatives. He didn't just help drug addicts. The San Francisco
Chronicle relates a story of a man blind, deaf, and mute who was dumped by a Reno mental hospital into the streets of San Francisco, alone without resources. Jason found him sobbing. He was able to get the man into an assisted living facility where he lived the rest of his life in dignity.
I really only know about addiction second hand. But there are many who say the craving never leaves.
No one, including his partner and their son, knows why, after decades of sobriety, Jason at age 63 took a hit of fentanyl. It was the last thing he ever did. He died of fentanyl overdose on November 7.
By the river of Babylon/There we sat down/Yeah we wept/When we remembered Zion/Let the words of our mouth and the meditations of our heart/Be acceptable in thy sight here tonight
