The Culture Issue

Declining Communities and Deaths of Despair: A Way Forward

My cousin could never speak about his addiction without speaking about the lack of meaning in his life. His last text to me was three days before he overdosed on April 9, 2018: “I believe in God a hundred percent. I love him and he does me right. We have our own relationship. But he didn’t give me that compass.” Mikey and I grew up together in a family of scallopers in Massachusetts, where fishing is as much a lifestyle as it is a career. As a child, Mikey taught me to tie nautical knots in my shoelaces. As a teenager, he sent videos of scallop-shucking races between him and my other cousins. For our family, work and meaning weave together like a tapestry and it’s impossible to untangle one from the other. But as a young adult, Mikey’s opportunities dried up and he, like many others, struggled to keep a job. Without it, he lost his sense of direction.