MOM & KIDS POSE IN FRONT OF DEAD DAD TO WARN OF HEROIN

An Ohio mother has shared a controversial photo of her and her children posing next to their dead father. Eva Holland and her kids, Lucas and Ava, were photographed standing next to Mike Settles who was in an open casket at his funeral last week. He died from a heroin overdose. Everybody in the picture is smiling. Holland insisted she did not make the decision to publish the images on social media lightly, and wanted to show the impact of heroin abuse. She writes in a post on Instagram and Facebook, “I’m sure this photo makes a lot of people uncomfortable, but the main reason I took it was to show the reality of addiction. If you don’t choose recovery every single day this will be your only way out. No parent should have to bury their child and no child as young as ours should have to bury their parent. This was preventable it didn’t have to happen but one wrong choice destroyed his family. I know a lot of people may be upset I’m putting it out in the open like this, but hiding the facts is only going to keep this epidemic going. The cold hard truth is heroin kills.” Holland said her 26-year-old husband had recovered last Christmas but relapsed and met his tragic end from a heroin overdose on September 2.
* Okay, fine – but explain the part about everybody smiling.
* “Hi, world! Nice to see you! Don’t do heroin!”
* Thanks Eva, but you didn’t have to do this to “show the reality of addiction.” That’s what the “Faces of Meth” website is for.
* Not to go historical reference here, but back in the early days of photography it was common to take a death photo – and much weirder than this.
* They would pose the dead person and photograph them with their relatives as if the person was still alive. There. How’s that?
* But having said that, this was plenty weird as well – not to mention sad.
* I just hope they don’t use it for their Christmas card picture.
* Oh well. Tough picture but at least they took the needle out first.
(picture: http://metro.co.uk/2015/09/15/family-poses-with-dead-heroin-addict-father-to-teach-us-all-a-lesson-5391500/)
* PHONE TOPIC: Is this a good way to show the realities of drug addiction?