It is likely that you will attend some funerals at funeral homes in Mount Sterling Heights, MI where the cause of death is despair. That won’t appear anywhere in the obituary, nor will it be mentioned in the funeral or memorial service. But avoiding labeling it as a death of despair does not make it any less so.

Alcohol, drug, and suicide deaths have increased in almost every age group in the last 10 years, but the jump among the youngest Millennials (term for the generation born between 1982 and 2002) has been staggering. The latest data shows a 108% increase in drug-related deaths for 18 to 34-year-olds between 2007 and 2017. Alcohol-related deaths among the same age group rose 69% between 2007 and 2017, and suicides increased by 35% for that age group in the same period.

These numbers come from data that is been accrued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. They paint a bleak picture for one of the youngest generations in the United States. In 2017, approximately 36,000 Millennials died of deaths of despair. Fatal drug overdoses accounted for the majority of these deaths.

In every age group where deaths of despair have increased, the opioid crisis has been the major catalyst. Opioids include both the prescription painkillers like OxyContin and oxycodone, which were heavily marketed (including generous payouts to medical professionals who prescribed a lot of them) to the medical community as being safe and nonaddictive by the pharmaceutical companies who manufactured them, and illegal substances, like fentanyl.

Many medical professionals hit a vortex of influence by the pharmaceutical companies on one side and an increased demand for profits as businesses began to take over medical care in the United States. Medical professionals weren’t able to spend as much time with patients to find out sources of pain, whether they were drug-seeking, or whether there were alternatives to prescription pain killers. The business side of medicine kept appointments short and crammed as many into a workday as was possible to make sure profits were high.

This perfect storm led, in part, to the increase in deaths of despair. A major additional factor was and is the economy.

The Great Recession of 2008 coincided with Millennials graduating high school and college. With the labor market tighter than it any time since the Great Depression of the 1920s and 1930s, Millennials had a hard time finding jobs. If they did find jobs, they were low-paying and they were in what is now known as “the gig economy.”

The gig economy, which is the modern equivalent of what the textile industry was in the 20th century, offers work by the piece, at low wages, on an “if-we-need-you” basis. It’s a great deal for companies because they don’t have to pay benefits and they don’t have to pay somebody if works not coming in. However, for Millennials graduating from college with lots of debt, these jobs, if they could get them (competition is extremely high when the pool of availability is very low), offered no relief. Some Millennials turned to drugs and alcohol for that relief, while others chose suicide as they sought permanent relief.

Interestingly, the other generation that was hardest hit economically, and which follows closely behind Millennials in these deaths of despair, is Gen X (born between 1961 and 1981). The highest concentration of these deaths of despair is in America’s Rust Belt, with Ohio and West Virginia having the most deaths.

For more information about funerals at funeral homes in Mount Sterling Heights, MI, our compassionate and experienced staff at Lee-Ellena Funeral Home can help. You can come by our funeral home at 46530 Romeo Plank Rd., Macomb, MI, 48044 or you can contact us today at (586) 412-8999.