Comment by gavinray

This is a nuanced topic.

I think I probably have more firsthand experience with this subject than most.

All I can do is share my own viewpoints:

1. It's not uncommon for hard-opiate users to willingly ingest or even seek out fentanyl. I have multiple dead friends whom I asked repeatedly not to even stop using heroin/fent, but just to consider smoking it instead of shooting it. Opiate addicts live on the razor's edge between life and death where they're alright with taking the gamble every time they push the plunger. It's sad, and heartbreaking, but it is what it is.

(My father and his wife are dead from an opiate overdose as well, fwiw. Suspected fentanyl.)

2. There's a very solid chance, given his background and history, that the author was also using himself. If you live with a hard-drug addiction, you eventually become a husk of a person and you will hurt even the people who love you the most, so that you can keep using. Again, sad and heartbreaking, but it's the nature of the demon. One of the worst parts of getting sober isn't often the withdrawal, but coping with the regrets and memories of the decisions you made while using.

None of this is to say what was done is okay, or that people ought to have sympathy.

But what I do mean to do, is shed some light on what these sorts of situations are really like.