美国国家公共电台 NPR Battling Heroin With A Hearse And A Prayer

 

KORVA COLEMAN, HOST:

Here's a number that shows just how bad the opioid crisis is in Huntington, W. Va. The rate of babies born there with a drug dependency is 10 times higher than the national average. We're going to meet two people in that community who have said, enough. Their methods of getting heroin¹ addicts³ into recovery are unorthodox. One uses brown bag lunches and the Bible, the other an old black hearse and a casket. For our Take A Number Series, NPR's Elizabeth Blair reports.

ELIZABETH BLAIR, BYLINE⁴: It's an ominous⁵ sight parked in a rundown neighborhood where there have been a number of drug busts⁶. A black Buick hearse with the words inject heroin, reject life stenciled⁷ on the side. On the back, it says heroin kills. Is this your last ride?

DWAYNE WOOD: There's nothing around quite like this that I'm aware of. I wish they were on every corner.

BLAIR: I meet Dwayne Wood (ph) from outside a building he's trying to turn into a community center for recovering addicts. It's about three miles from downtown Huntington. Wood drives the hearse thousands of miles through nearby Ohio and Kentucky to raise awareness⁸ about heroin addiction⁹.

What year is this?

WOOD: 1988.

BLAIR: Dwayne Wood grew up in Huntington. He originally bought the hearse to carry his motorcycle.

WOOD: I love my Harley. How cool would that be to see those ape hangers¹⁰ sticking out the roof of a hearse going down the road? You know, cut the roof out.

BLAIR: Ape hangers. I had to look that up. They're handlebars. But Dwayne Wood scrapped¹¹ those plans when he turned on the radio on the drive home.

WOOD: Radio airways¹² once again filled with overdose and death. And that's when I knew the true calling of the car.

BLAIR: The true calling of the car.

WOOD: The true calling of the car. The car that was designed to haul death was revamped to give life.

BLAIR: Huntington is a mid-sized, blue-collar town on the Ohio River where West Virginia, Ohio and Kentucky meet. It's home to Marshall University. A number of factors have contributed to the city's opioid crisis, including the loss of factory jobs, a depressed¹³ economy, a high addiction rate. There's a lot of work to be done. In about a year's time, he's gone from driving the heroin hearse to raise awareness to organizing fundraisers for treatment centers and talking to addicts directly, like Sarah (ph) and Thomas (ph). For privacy reasons, we're only using their first names.

THOMAS: Dwayne's actually the one that got us into rehab, and here we are today.

SARAH: Six months clean.

BLAIR: In 2016, police raided Sarah and Thomas's home. Child protective services took their two children. After serving jail time, they started using again. A neighbor suggested they talk to Dwayne Wood.

SARAH: When I walked in here, he already had my Facebook page pulled up and pictures of my daughters. The first thing I seen facing me was my daughters.

BLAIR: Dwayne Wood uses a combination of compassion¹⁴ and fear to get through to addicts. The room where Brooke (ph) saw her daughters' faces looks like it belongs in a haunted house. Black walls, a mock jail cell with iron bars and a black casket donated by a local funeral home.

WOOD: This is where you'll make your choice of life or death.

BLAIR: Do you remember what you thought when you saw heroin hearse?

SARAH: I was scared. My first thought was, is he going to put me in this casket? Because I don't think I could do it. Thankfully, he didn't. And all it took was for me to see it.

BLAIR: Now, there isn't a lot of research on the best way to get an addict² into treatment. It's not clear if using fear works. And with his garish¹⁵, black hearse, Dwayne Wood has his critics. But in a town like Huntington, W. Va., where resources to fight the opioid crisis are scarce, everyone needs to take ownership, says Huntington Mayor Steve Williams.

STEVE WILLIAMS: When I hear individuals, they'll come and say two - one of two things to me. Somebody needs to do something. And I say, well, look in the mirror. But most people come and say, what can I do? That's heartwarming.

BLAIR: Dwayne Wood figures in the last year, he's helped get 43 addicts into treatment. Some went to programs that included medication to beat cravings, others went to abstinence programs. Medication assistant treatment has a higher rate of success, but Wood says any treatment is hard to find. He doesn't know if the people he's helped are still in recovery. He says as a recovering alcoholic¹⁶ himself he's compelled to help addicts because he relates to them.

WOOD: They had dope sickness. I had alcohol sickness. Same symptoms they've had when their legs were shaking and their stomachs was tied in knots and everything else that goes along with it. I've been there. I've been beside them.

SARAH: We are all one bad choice away from being who we're helping¹⁷. You know, one bad choice.

BLAIR: Necia Freeman also lives in Huntington, W. Va. She and Dwayne Wood don't know each other, but she, too, spends a lot of time trying to help heroin addicts, specifically prostitutes working to feed their addiction. Freeman is a realtor. As we drive around, Freeman points out evidence of Huntington's opioid crisis. We pass a small building with the sign Lily's (ph) Place on the front.

NECIA FREEMAN: Our neonatal unit is so full that we've had to open up a whole new facility called Lily's Place to take care of drug-addicted babies born here.

BLAIR: Freeman is a devout¹⁸ Christian¹⁹. About eight years ago, she started Backpacks & Brown Bag ministries²⁰. With help from her church, she delivers brown bag lunches and backpacks to poor children in local schools. And this is partly what led her to work with heroin addicts. One day she came across a small news item in the local paper that really bothered her. Just a couple of lines. The body of a known prostitute had been discovered in a cornfield near Huntington. She'd been shot.

FREEMAN: It bothered me that that was the end of the story. So I was burdened for this woman that I didn't even know. And then come to find out a couple days later, she was actually one of the mothers of one of my backpack kids.

BLAIR: Freeman realized the moms of some of her backpack kids also needed help. So now she gives brown bag meals and scripture²¹ to prostitutes. I meet Heather and her new baby at Freeman's church.

HEATHER: And I'm forgetful. I cried yesterday because I felt like a bad person because I forgot his bottle.

BLAIR: This is Heather's fourth pregnancy²² but only the first child she's been able to keep since coming out of rehab. Others in her family are also addicts. She says the first person to put a needle in her arm was her father. Heather has been in and out of jail and relapsed after more than one treatment program. She says she couldn't believe Necia Freeman kept trying to help her even while she was in jail.

HEATHER: She was helping - trying help me get into rehab while I was incarcerated²³. And they thought she was trying to help me escape or something.

FREEMAN: (Laughter) They did.

BLAIR: Heather believes Necia Freeman is the reason she's alive. Freeman jokes that when she first started doing this eight years ago, she thought getting women into treatment would be easy.

FREEMAN: I'm just going to give them a brown bag lunch with a gospel track, and they're going to get saved. When I get to heaven, they're going to tap me on the shoulder and say, oh, my gosh, you don't know me, but - and it hasn't happened that way (laughter). Not even close.

BLAIR: But you get the sense that in a town where so many people need help, doing nothing is not an option. Elizabeth Blair, NPR News, Huntington, W. Va.

1 heroin   

n.海洛因

参考例句：

• Customs have made their biggest ever seizure of heroin.海关查获了有史以来最大的一批海洛因。
• Heroin has been smuggled out by sea.海洛因已从海上偷运出境。

2 addict   

v.使沉溺；使上瘾；n.沉溺于不良嗜好的人

参考例句：

• He became gambling addict,and lost all his possessions.他习染上了赌博，最终输掉了全部家产。
• He assisted a drug addict to escape from drug but failed firstly.一开始他帮助一个吸毒者戒毒但失败了。

3 addicts   

有…瘾的人( addict的名词复数 )； 入迷的人

参考例句：

• a unit for rehabilitating drug addicts 帮助吸毒者恢复正常生活的机构
• There is counseling to help Internet addicts?even online. 有咨询机构帮助网络沉迷者。 来自超越目标英语 第3册

4 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

5 ominous   

adj.不祥的，不吉的，预兆的，预示的

参考例句：

• Those black clouds look ominous for our picnic.那些乌云对我们的野餐来说是个不祥之兆。
• There was an ominous silence at the other end of the phone.电话那头出现了不祥的沉默。

6 busts   

半身雕塑像( bust的名词复数 )； 妇女的胸部； 胸围； 突击搜捕

参考例句：

• Dey bags swells up and busts. 那奶袋快胀破了。
• Marble busts all looked like a cemetery. 大理石的半身象，简直就象是坟山。

7 stenciled   

v.用模板印（文字或图案）( stencil的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• To transfer(a stenciled design) with pounce. 以印花粉印用印花粉末转印（镂空模板花样） 来自互联网
• L: Cardboard cartons, with stenciled shipping marks. 李：刷有抬头的硬纸板箱。 来自互联网

8 awareness   

n.意识，觉悟，懂事，明智

参考例句：

• There is a general awareness that smoking is harmful.人们普遍认识到吸烟有害健康。
• Environmental awareness has increased over the years.这些年来人们的环境意识增强了。

9 addiction   

n.上瘾入迷，嗜好

参考例句：

• He stole money from his parents to feed his addiction.他从父母那儿偷钱以满足自己的嗜好。
• Areas of drug dealing are hellholes of addiction,poverty and murder.贩卖毒品的地区往往是吸毒上瘾、贫困和发生谋杀的地方。

10 hangers   

n.衣架( hanger的名词复数 )；挂耳

参考例句：

• The singer was surrounded by the usual crowd of lackeys and hangers on. 那个歌手让那帮总是溜须拍马、前呼後拥的人给围住了。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• I want to put some of my good hangers in Grandpa's closet. 我想在爷爷的衣橱放几个好的衣架。 来自辞典例句

11 scrapped   

废弃(scrap的过去式与过去分词)； 打架

参考例句：

• This machine is so old that it will soon have to be scrapped. 这架机器太旧，快报废了。
• It had been thought that passport controls would be scrapped. 人们曾认为会放开护照管制。

12 AIRWAYS   

航空公司

参考例句：

• The giant jets that increasingly dominate the world's airways. 越来越称雄于世界航线的巨型喷气机。
• At one point the company bought from Nippon Airways a 727 jet. 有一次公司从日本航空公司买了一架727型喷气机。

13 depressed   

adj.沮丧的，抑郁的，不景气的，萧条的

参考例句：

• When he was depressed,he felt utterly divorced from reality.他心情沮丧时就感到完全脱离了现实。
• His mother was depressed by the sad news.这个坏消息使他的母亲意志消沉。

14 compassion   

n.同情，怜悯

参考例句：

• He could not help having compassion for the poor creature.他情不自禁地怜悯起那个可怜的人来。
• Her heart was filled with compassion for the motherless children.她对于没有母亲的孩子们充满了怜悯心。

15 garish   

adj.华丽而俗气的，华而不实的

参考例句：

• This colour is bright but not garish.这颜色艳而不俗。
• They climbed the garish purple-carpeted stairs.他们登上铺着俗艳的紫色地毯的楼梯。

16 alcoholic   

adj.（含）酒精的，由酒精引起的；n.酗酒者

参考例句：

• The alcoholic strength of brandy far exceeds that of wine.白兰地的酒精浓度远远超过葡萄酒。
• Alcoholic drinks act as a poison to a child.酒精饮料对小孩犹如毒药。

17 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。

18 devout   

adj.虔诚的，虔敬的，衷心的 (n.devoutness)

参考例句：

• His devout Catholicism appeals to ordinary people.他对天主教的虔诚信仰感染了普通民众。
• The devout man prayed daily.那位虔诚的男士每天都祈祷。

19 Christian   

adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒

参考例句：

• They always addressed each other by their Christian name.他们总是以教名互相称呼。
• His mother is a sincere Christian.他母亲是个虔诚的基督教徒。

20 ministries   

（政府的）部( ministry的名词复数 )； 神职； 牧师职位； 神职任期

参考例句：

• Local authorities must refer everything to the central ministries. 地方管理机构应请示中央主管部门。
• The number of Ministries has been pared down by a third. 部委的数量已经减少了1/3。

21 scripture   

n.经文，圣书，手稿；Scripture:(常用复数)《圣经》，《圣经》中的一段

参考例句：

• The scripture states that God did not want us to be alone.圣经指出上帝并不是想让我们独身一人生活。
• They invoked Hindu scripture to justify their position.他们援引印度教的经文为他们的立场辩护。

22 pregnancy   

n.怀孕，怀孕期

参考例句：

• Early pregnancy is often accompanied by nausea.怀孕早期常有恶心的现象。
• Smoking during pregnancy increases the risk of miscarriage.怀孕期吸烟会增加流产的危险。

23 incarcerated   

钳闭的

参考例句：

• They were incarcerated for the duration of the war. 战争期间，他们被关在狱中。 来自辞典例句
• I don't want to worry them by being incarcerated. 我不想让他们知道我被拘禁的事情。 来自电影对白