Putting a face on addiction on Overdose Awareness Day (Photos/ video)

Carol Morris lost five of her 12 children to drug addiction. Her oldest son, Joe, 31, died in 2000. Nineteen years later she lost her fifth child, Andrew, at the age of 32. Andrew had overdosed 10 times and was brought back with Narcan. The 10th time, the overdose reversal drug did not save her son, who had taken fentanyl. 

Charley Dropp’s grandson, Shawn, died five years ago due to a fentanyl overdose. Charley wears Shawn’s ashes in a cross around his neck. Morris and Dropp are among hundreds who have memorialized their loved ones lost to addiction in The Black Poster Project, an exhibit meant to highlight the impact of drug overdoses, which came to the Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Newark on Friday, Aug. 31.  

On that sunny afternoon, people trickled into the sacred space to see large posters holding photos of 630 “angels” lost to addiction lined on both sides of the Cathedral Basilica’s 35 pews, with candles flickering in front of each one. The memorials were in alphabetical order by name so they could be easily located and because their lives were not so orderly. Many were decorated with personal items like Eagle Scout medals, artwork, crosses, angels, and even baby shoes.  

The Black Poster Project was created by Dee Gillen, a Haworth resident and Sacred Heart Church parishioner, after losing her son Scott to a heroin and fentanyl overdose in 2015 when he was 27. She wanted to put a face to the disease that had overtaken the souls of so many young men and women with the goal of ending the stigma of addiction, saving lives and eradicating the deadly disease process.  

In 2019, Gillen began the project with 50 posters of the faces of those lost to overdoses. Today, the silent memorial that travels throughout New York and New Jersey has grown to 630 posters. Each poster is made at the request of the grieving family at no cost to them.  

“Most people don’t understand. They think addicts are just dirty people living under a bridge. That they are outcasts,” Gillen said. “That’s not who these people are. They were football players, musicians, artists, scholars, fathers, mothers, soldiers.” 

According to a recently released report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, overdose deaths increased by 94% from 2019 to 2020 among persons ages 14–18 and increased another 20% from 2020 to 2021 for that same age group. Although illicit drug use declined overall among middle and high school students during the same years, fatal overdose risk among adolescents has increased due to widespread availability of manufactured fentanyl, counterfeit pills resembling prescription drugs containing illicit drugs, and the ease of purchasing pills through social media. 

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Dropp said Fentanyl is a gamechanger when it comes to battling addiction because many don’t even know they are taking it. 

Fentanyl is now found in heroin, cocaine, meth, ecstasy, marijuana, and counterfeit pills appearing identical to prescription medication such as Oxycontin, Percocet, Xanax, Adderall and others. Drug dealers are cutting their products with fentanyl because it is cheaper to make than heroin and cocaine and is 100 times more potent than morphine and 50 times more potent than heroin, making it easier to smuggle because less is needed. 

The exhibit at the Cathedral Basilica coincided with Overdose Awareness Day on Aug. 31. Like at most Black Poster Project gatherings, family members of those featured on the posters were there to answer questions from the public — even the tough ones. 

“The purpose of this project is not to make you sad. It is to help you understand what addiction is, how it happened to our family, how it can happen to you or your family, what to look for and where to get help,” Gillen said. “At each event, we come with arms wide open to answer anything you may want to ask. We are grieving parents, family members, friends, people in recovery and we are here to talk or listen.” Morris is not alone in losing multiple children to the disease. The east side of the Cathedral Basilica was lined with posters of dozens of siblings who had succumbed to addiction.  

“And it’s more than the 100,000 people we lose to overdose each year [in the U.S.],” Morris said. “It’s also the people we lose to suicide, kidney failure, and bacterial infection all because of addiction.”  

A section dedicated to veterans who have lost their lives due to addiction lined the front of the altar. The number of veterans who have become addicted to illicit drugs has doubled since 2002, with one in four struggling with drug addiction, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Factors that can contribute to addiction in veterans include post-traumatic stress disorder and adjusting back to civilian life.  

Dropp now works with Hunterdon Hope Seekers to educate parents and youth about the dangers of drugs in a world with fentanyl. He helped the regional Safe Communities Coalition of Hunterdon/Somerset Counties New Jersey create the documentary “Fentanyl Factor,” which highlights rising overdoses due to fentanyl mixing with heroin, prescription drugs, cocaine, and other substances.  

“We need to take addiction seriously,” Dropp said. “You can’t say ‘it won’t happen to my family’ because it’s hitting more and more families from all walks of life.”  

Meanwhile, the Black Poster Project continues to touch lives. Rev. Sharon Hausman, pastor of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Boonton, which held the exhibit last spring, said the faces help people make a personal and emotional connection to the disease of addiction. She was so moved by the exhibit she asked that 15 of the photos stay with the church to provide inspiration for local artists to create stations of the cross to be displayed during lent.    

Over the past three years, there have been approximately 3,000 overdose deaths each year in New Jersey due to the heroin, opioid, and fentanyl addiction crisis.

In the spring, the Archdiocese of Newark joined forces with the New Jersey Reentry Corporation (NJRC) to establish an addiction treatment referral program for individuals suffering from acute opiate addiction.

Cardinal Joseph W. Tobin, C.Ss.R., Archbishop of Newark, said at the announcement of the partnership that “the Archdiocese recognizes the need for greater resources and support for adults struggling with opiate addiction who often turn to a parish seeking help.”

NJRC is training sessions priests of the Archdiocese on how to identify individuals seeking and requiring treatment and how to get them addiction treatment services. 

Within 48 hours of a referral, NJRC will ensure clinical assessments and clinically-appropriate addiction treatment services for referred individuals. These services will include intake processing, creating a personalized long-term treatment plan, detoxification, ambulatory withdrawal management, induction of anti-craving medications to aid in treating opioid substance abuse, residential treatment, intensive outpatient treatment, and induction of medication-assisted treatment, as needed and appropriate.

For more information on The Balck Poster Project or to have an “angel” memorialized visit theblackposterproject.com.