<p>A large crowd gathered at the Oak Bluffs School Friday that focused on heroin addiction. The organizer was Billy Pfaff, founder of the Facebook group Heroin Is Killing My Town.</p>
A large crowd turned out for an event at the Oak Bluffs School Friday evening that had the overtones of a camp meeting revival. But the subject was heroin addiction and the leader was Billy (Inkslinger) Pfaff, a mainland tattoo artist-turned advocate who is attracting attention in the region with his tough-talking public road show that grew from a Facebook group called Heroin Is Killing My Town.
Emily Wells, 21, spoke of her addiction and rough road to recovery.
Emily Wells, 21, spoke of her addiction and rough road to recovery.
“The tourists aren’t going to come to this beautiful community. It’s going to be wiped out,” he warned the gathering of about 200 Islanders.
Mr. Pfaff recently closed his tattoo business to devote all his time to helping addicts find treatment and stay clean. Using social media as a home base, he focuses on finding people who might otherwise fall through the cracks of traditional support and treatment systems. Heroin Is Killing My Town has 45,000 followers. At the end of the Vineyard event Friday, a new Facebook page was announced called Vineyard Support Network .
The Friday program included wrenching personal stories from heroin addicts and their families.
“Heroin doesn’t compromise,” said Emily Wells, 21, from Vineyard Haven. “I’ve slept in more hospital beds this year than I have my own. At the end of the day, the choice is always going to be my own, and I choose to live.”
Tracey Wells, Emily's mother: "In the blink of an eye my world came crashing down upon me."
Tracey Wells, Emily's mother: "In the blink of an eye my world came crashing down upon me."
She credited Mr. Pfaff with finding her a treatment facility off-Island, only to be turned out on the street late at night in a strange city, because the center would not accept her health insurance.
Her mother Tracey Wells also spoke. “I had a great life. Great job, great husband, two wonderful children. I had it all,” she said. “In the blink of an eye, my world came crashing down on me. I had a heroin problem. It robbed me of everything I held dear to me. Heroin stole my job, rocked my 30-year-old relationship to the core, almost broke up my family and crushed my soul. Funny thing is, I’ve never touched heroin in my life. I am the parent of a heroin addict.”
Kaleena Searle was another addict who described a life of arrests, jail time and addiction, crediting Mr. Pfaff with starting her on a path to sobriety 14 months ago.
When he took the stage, Mr. Pfaff had changed from his earlier dress of sleeveless T-shirt and backwards baseball cap into a tailored gray suit and tie. “I clean up pretty nice, don’t I,” he told the crowd. “My mission is to break the stigma about drugs and the epidemic, and I have people talking about the way I look. Do I need a three-piece suit to go under a bridge and save your child’s life? So what does it matter what the hell I wear? I’m here to kick in some doors and rip up some rugs.”
About 200 people attended event at the Oak Bluffs School.
About 200 people attended event at the Oak Bluffs School.
He spoke bluntly and at length about his own struggles with depression, homelessness, suicide attempts and the loss of his best friend and his daughter’s boyfriend to heroin addiction. He spoke about gaps in treatment and the stigma of heroin addiction.
“I’ve brought numerous people into hospitals,” he said. “I have yet to see anybody put in a room, in an emergency room, with a door on it. They get put on a gurney in the back hall. If one of you walked in and said you had diabetes, or cancer, or a bad heart, do you think you’re going to go on a gurney in a back room? No.”
He said in large cities the heroin problem is out in the open, but on Martha’s Vineyard it mostly stays behind closed doors.
Speaking to the Gazette by phone the next morning, Mr. Pfaff said the Vineyard Facebook page will serve as a contact point and a place where people can learn about Island-based resources.
“I have a good network,” he said. “I have an amazing group of people around the world. The people that I help save, the families that I help, they all join my team. They’ve all lived it. That’s how I build my network, it’s people that are really affected by it hitting the streets. But we need everyone to hit it, not just people that are affected. That’s why we’re not getting anywhere, we’re hitting road blocks. The stigma is stopping it.”
Comments
You are wrong on your
Kaleena searleYou are wrong on your statement of me. If you listened to what I had said you'd have hurd that I got clean before billy. But that his video's helped save me from relapse many times. Might want to get your facts straight. And if your going to say things make sure it is the truth. And my picture looks great too by the way. I am the only native that was on that stage.
I hope that as part of this
Parent EdgartownI hope that as part of this much-needed effort people on the Island start turning in the dealers/pushers. They're profiting at the expense of our children and safety. There should be an Islander bounty on all of these scum. Will it stop the problem? No, there's still the doctors that over-prescribe pain pills, but it's a start. We should be pointing them out as well and complaining to the State Board.
We complain about a bad waiter, a bicyclist rolling through a stop sign, or someone charging too much for gas, but nary a word is ever spoken about the poison pushers that infest our home. I guess no one knows who they are...right?
They're killing your children, costing your community a fortune and making everyone unsafe...just to make money. Please turn them in...please.
The facts in this article are
Tracey wells EdgertownThe facts in this article are wrong. Words twisted. We count on our newspapers to get the FACTS. Should we try again ??
You're invited to our MVP
Jason PAYou're invited to our MVP Recovery Community, www.MVPrecoveryhomes.com check out our facebook.com/mvprecovery for an inside look.
MVP is a Recovery Community in Delaware County, PA that offers a safe, sober, and structured living environment for individuals who want to embrace a life of Recovery, free from the use of alcohol and other drugs.
Sadly, heroin or any other
Rex Treadwell EdgartownSadly, heroin or any other form of substance abuse is a symptom of a deeper underlying malady that never gets mentioned, and attempting to fight the chemical outright is a futile, Sisiphean effort doomed to failure, a modern day version of fighting the hydra by cutting off its heads(look it up, ye of little classical lore...)
After reading this article it
Peter An off island, islanderAfter reading this article it struck me that Bill Pfaff should be thanked for what amounts to offering strangers a chance to get sober, begin a new path and to start pursuing a long forgotten dream. Also you may have noticed he seems to have done it with motivation from a departed friend, perhaps this should be a lesson for all of us to find something positive out of tragedy. I wish him and those addicted continued success.
"The tourists aren’t going to
Concerned OB"The tourists aren’t going to come to this beautiful community. It’s going to be wiped out”. This is a binary, zero-sum problem that our island is faced with. Ignore it at our own peril. This will not go away on it's own, it will grow like a weed. The answer lies in law enforcement and residents holding neighbors accountable. #scorched earth
Interesting prediction- while
Rex Treadwell EdgartownInteresting prediction- while the opiate epidemic is certainly a concern in the community, it's hardly an existential threat. The vast majority of islanders are not, nor will they ever be, opiate addicts. This doesn't mean that we shouldn't devote resources to combatting the problem, but I highly doubt that the island is truly at risk of becoming the bleak wasteland indicated here. I'm willing to extend the benefit of the doubt and assume this statement was made out of emotion, not pure reason....
I agree with the assessment
AndersI agree with the assessment that tourists will stop coming to the island. People have less disposable income these days, and will go elsewhere for vacation if the perception is that MV has a heroin epidemic. The wealthy will go to more exclusive places, like ACK and the rest will stay on the cape and save the ferry headaches. The island has gone downhill since the 1990s.
Nonsense. While the
Rex Treadwell EdgartownNonsense. While the individual stories are tragic this is a marginal issue in the context of the population as a whole. Numbers don't bend to emotion or jeremiads.
Add new comment