Drug Abuse In Sonny's Blues By James Baldwin

Suffering is an unfortunate aspect of life that can be used to strengthen a person’s wisdom or turn into a weapon of self-destruction. There is no right way to deal with inner pain and for some people, the only solution is drug abuse. In order to understand individuals who are deeply suffering one must be empathetic to their current situation, no matter how detrimental. Sometimes it takes a personal experience full of agony to really understand what a person might be going through. In James Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues,” Two brothers attempt to escape Harlem by either joining the Army or traveling as far away as possible. But in their futile attempts to get away from Harlem, it only brought them closer to their roots. Harlem is described as a neighborhood

It does not solve any issues, rather it develops more problems in the long term. According to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), 21.5 million American adults (aged 12 and older) battled a substance use disorder in 2014. It is crucial in understanding that othering drug addicts is the same as turning your back on the community. Twenty-two million Americans cannot be simply ignored, and empathy is the first step in getting drug users out of their trance and back to reality. Sometimes it may be difficult to battle the temptation alone. In “Sonny’s Blues,” Sonny told his brother, “The reason I wanted to leave Harlem so bad was to get away from drugs. And then, when I ran away, that’s what I was running from really. When I came back, nothing had changed, I hadn’t changed, I was just older” (Baldwin/Tesdell 299). In other words, running away from your fears is only a temporary solution, but in the end, the cancer still remains. Sonny realized that in order to evolve, he must face his obstacles head-on, otherwise his fear and suffering could consume him

During the time Sonny was in prison, Sonny’s brother reflected due to an unfortunate event, “I think I may have written Sonny the very day that little Grace was buried. I was sitting in the living-room in the dark, by myself, and I suddenly thought of Sonny. My trouble made his real” (Baldwin/Tesdell 291). Essentially, Sonny’s brother was trapped in his own bubble and denied himself the opportunity to be his brother’s savior, the death of his little girl became the motivation he was never able to obtain before. Additionally, Sonny’s brother never really understood Sonny’s ambitions and decisions. The unnamed narrator in Baldwin’s story is a character who believes that the American Dream is composed of a family, a stable job, and predictability. As opposed to Sonny who does not have a family and lives in the world of music where nothing is certain. In the end, suffering caught up to Sonny’s brother, which changed his perspective on Sonny’s situation and instead of continuing to ignore his fear, he faced it by writing to Sonny in search for