I was impressed by Victoria Hugo-Vidal’s Dec. 8 column. Impressed because she did what few people do: She looked into federal election records and found out, in a half hour, that Sen. Susan Collins received $40,000 from from the companies most responsible for the opioid crisis, and she knows there is much more.

I was impressed, too, by the perspective Hugo-Vidal brought as a recovering alcohol addict: “The only difference between me and the 354 Mainers who died from drug overdoses in 2018 is sheer dumb luck,” she wrote. “I am at a higher risk factor than most people … . If I had gotten a prescription for OxyContin or hydrocodone or tramadol at the wrong point in my life, I truly believe that would have killed me.”

For all of her self-perception as a champion on drug issues, Collins has only nibbled around the edges. Where was she when Republican Gov. Paul LePage and Mary Mayhew sat on millions of federal dollars earmarked to help Maine opioid victims because they thought they were drug addicts not worth saving? Would Margaret Chase Smith have done something when one Mainer died each day from deliberate neglect? She dared to stand alone.

On a personal level, I can tell you that opioids are holy hell to come off. After hip surgery in my 70s, no one told me I needed to phase off the drug. When I ran out of pills, I was so sick I would have gone back on them illicitly to get out of my misery. That’s how people get addicted.

Donna Halvorsen

South Portland