Diseases of despair
Ever since connecting with my great-grandfather, I’ve been down a rabbit hole learning the history of coal mining in this area—especially the domestic lives of the workers and their wives and children.
If you didn’t know, Appalachia has a disproportionally high rate of “diseases of despair.” A disease of despair is a real diagnosis defined as a medical condition that increases in groups of people who experience despair due to bleak social and economic prospects. The three disease types are drug overdose, suicide, and alcoholic liver disease.
Deaths of despair, which result from diseases of despair, are most prevalent in Appalachia, especially Pennsylvania and West Virginia. Most of the people I’m close to have been impacted in some way.
Of course, this is linked to our massive opioid epidemic, which I learned has roots in mining.
There are a number of detailed scholarly articles on the subject (including this one in ScienceDirect titled “Mining, loss, and despair: Exploring energy transitions and opioid use in an Appalachian coal community”) but in short, by the time pharma began marketing OxyContin to physicians in 1996, doctors were already prescribing painkillers in such huge amounts that drug reps flocked to Appalachia.
These patients were often miners whose bodies had been ravaged by work. Without many options for treatment, their doctors prescribed valium, which was consumed in huge quantities. Not long after, with the rise in unemployment, doctors began prescribing drugs not only to relieve physical pain but also to alleviate the emotional ordeal of losing work. The drugs were also prescribed extensively to women as “nerve pills” to help them cope with depression and their “depressing surroundings.”
By 2000, doctors in Appalachia were prescribing the drug at five to six times the national rate, resulting in an opioid crisis that disproportionately impacts Appalachians at a rate 61% higher than the rest of the nation.
And of course, I can’t help but think of epigenetics. If I consider the level of hardship and hopelessness that my great-grandparents and grandparents felt on a visceral level, it’s hard not to believe that I would carry some remnants of that. I wonder about the bouts of panic and depression and disassociation, and if a deeper connection with (and understanding of) these ancestors can start to alleviate some of it.
To learn more about me and my Appalachian folk practice, including info on folk witchcraft, mountain magic, and hearthcraft, please visit gritchenwitch.com or join my Patreon at patreon.com/gritchenwitch.
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