By Alexander Rivero
Staff Writer

    One evening during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, a spark of inspiration came to Victor Dias DeSousa as he sat on his balcony and listened to the cicadas below. Despite working as a business mediator, a profession which has little to nothing to do with publication, he was suddenly filled with the inspiration to sit down and write.

    “Everyone was secluded during this time,” recalls DeSousa, a native of Portugal who grew up in Mozambique and for the past four decades has resided in Hackettstown. “All regular activities had stopped. There were no in-person events, and people tended to feel isolated. But I’m a naturally optimistic person, and I looked positively on all that solitude.” 

    Over the next couple of months, the muse that came to him that evening, as it turns out, stuck around for good. DeSousa worked fluidly, writing on his upbringing in Mozambique during its tumultuous civil war in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Within the narrative, he recalls specific moments of the war, his youth and innocence, and many lessons he learned along the way. In September of 2020, the book—Chasing the Wind Under the Sun: Based on Real Life Events—was published. 

    “I know I’m not Gabriel Garcia Marquez,” admits DeSousa, referring to the world-renowned author of One Hundred Years of Solitude, “but I’ve always had a passion for writing and for the written word. In my own writing, I essentially sat down and had a deep conversation with my own self. I was as honest and forthcoming. Writers, as far as I can tell, write books for two reasons—to have a conversation with themselves and to have a conversation with their readers.”  

    For DeSousa, that conversation continues. Building on the lessons of having written his first book, he has published a second one, titled I Am Everybody, about another subject very close and dear to his heart: the stigma around addiction. 

    “The idea behind I Am Everybody was to bridge some gaps when it comes to how people perceive addiction, and to change some of those perceptions,” says DeSousa. “In the collective psyche, we tend to look at addicts simply as junkies, even the most compassionate of us. It’s a built in response. But it really has to be looked at the way cancer is looked at—as a disease.” 

    DeSousa’s second book is indeed a call to action for society to fundamentally alter the way it sees addicts. Despite our willingness to empathize with addicts, DeSousa argues, it is necessary for us to transcend our tendency to see people going through addiction as willful actors choosing a particular path of behavior. It is also, by extension, necessary to realize that no one in this world is ever completely immune to becoming an addict himself. 

    “No question about it, we have to change the way we see this problem,” says DeSousa. “In order to truly help these people, we need to first and foremost stop ostracizing them, because doing so reduces the odds that they’ll step out and get the help they need. Also, it’s important to let society in general know that addiction doesn’t discriminate. It doesn’t care about age, gender, political party, experience. If you think you’re too old to be an addict, think again. Just take a look at the opioid crisis plaguing the country right now.” 

    The title of the book, says DeSousa, is a reminder that we are all in this problem together, as a society. It is also an echo to the cry inside most people going through addiction, who fundamentally see themselves not as many other see them, but as human beings going through a personal crisis, in need of being understood. 
    “I think that even though social stigma is silent, it’s the corrosive element that does most damage to the addict psychologically,” says DeSousa. “It works in secret and it’s absolutely horrendous. What ends up happening to many addicts ashamed by how they come across to others is that they either overdose or commit suicide.” 

    DeSousa is in charge of the Hackettstown Stigma Free Task Force, currently expanding, which focuses on the need to reduce that social stigma and provide individuals that need help with their addictions a space to talk openly. The Task Force is also opened to individuals willing to volunteer and/or learn more about addiction. 

    “Our target audiences here,” says DeSousa, “are firstly the person suffering from addiction, so that they can see they’re not alone in the struggle. Also, we want to educate those who don’t know about addiction, to educate the society at large, and lastly we want to help the family of the addict, to offer them the support they need since, so often, they are really the first casualty of addiction.”

    For more information on DeSousa’s books—Chasing the Wind Under the Sun: Based on Real Life Events and I Am Everybody—visit Amazon.com, where each are available. For more information on the Hackettstown Stigma Free Task Force, please e-mail htownstigmafree@gmail.com or check out their Facebook page: www.facebook.com/breakingthebarriers07840/.

    Lastly, if you yourself are struggling with addiction or suicide, please seek help by dialing 988.