If you’ve eaten at Miss Worcester’s Diner, you may have seen Frank Huntley’s original sculptures, which he displays regularly outside the Cash-4-Clothes store where he works. His piece “Blackout” is a sculpture of a humanoid figure fashioned from liquor bottles, beer cans, and nips. Next to that is “Addiction”, which features a hollowed-out figure filled with soda cans, food containers, cannabis wrappers, condoms, and other items which Huntley has used to symbolize addiction. And last is his Magnum Opus — the work which started it all — a sculpture titled “Pill Man”.
“Pill Man” is a skeleton made from prescription pill bottles — each bearing the name “Frank Huntley.” “This was me for fifteen years,” Frank tells The Fenwick Review, “I want people to see my work and think twice about throwing it away for addiction.” Frank built Pill Man from the skeleton of an old Frankenstein costume, and he believes that to be a representation of the way he rebuilt his life from addiction to where he is now.
Huntley, now age 55, grew up in Chelsea, Massachusetts. His father worked very hard to support his children, and taught Frank how to paint and wallpaper houses. Following in his father’s footsteps, Frank entered the trade and was successful until he was injured in the late 90’s in a small vehicular accident.
His doctor prescribed him Percocet — an opioid — and when his body built up a tolerance for it, he prescribed him OxyContin — another opioid. When he built up a tolerance for OxyContin, they gave him Methadone so that he wouldn’t have to take so much OxyContin. His addiction to these drugs began to take control of his life. “The drug controlled me, morning, noon and night”, says Huntley. “I used to have panic attacks when I’d misplace my pills, since I’d hide them when my kids’ friends would come visit. I became someone different — someone that wasn’t me.”
Growing up in Chelsea, Huntley had a lot of peer pressure to try different drugs, but he credits an experience he had at the age of fifteen to opening his eyes to the terrifying effects of substance abuse. “When I was 15,” says Huntley, “A friend of mine came over to my girlfriend’s house, and he said, ‘could I get high?’”
“I thought he was going to smoke a joint. He came in with a needle and a strap, and I said ‘What’s that?’ He told me it was heroin, and to watch, so he tightens his strap and shoots up, and within ten seconds he’s a different guy. Screaming and sweating and shaking. Scares the hell out of me, so bad I never did heroin — never wanted to become something like what I was seeing.”
By his mid-40’s that’s what Frank Huntley had become. He was crippled by his addiction to painkillers, tobacco, alcohol, “and Mountain Dew!” says Frank. “That stuff is nasty, just plain syrup, but just as addictive as a cigarette.” But it was his opioid addiction that largely controlled his life, “You see all these addicts on the street standing around like zombies. That’s where I was, pretending to live a life. At my worst I was 125 pounds.”
Huntley says it took the revocation of his doctor’s medical license for him to start his road to recovery. He was supposed to go to a liquid methadone clinic, but Frank argues that these clinics were just bureaucratic cover-ups for the larger problem at hand. “My brother started at that clinic twenty-five years ago and he still needs it to live his life. Two sets of kids — he’d pack them all into his car and take them with him at five in the morning. It’s like the clinics take away the pain while the drug takes away your life.”
So instead of going to the clinics or to rehab, Huntley stayed at home to take care of his son, Trevor, who lives with severe disabilities. Frank says that, ironically, it was Trevor who ended up taking care of him during his recovery. “He helped me, he gave me a reason to win the fight. He is a blessing and a miracle.”
Despite his disabilities, Trevor achieved the rank of Eagle Scout in the Boy Scouts of America. He received a Key to the City of Worcester in March of 2017 for his award, and Frank is prouder of him than anything else. “I’m grateful for a lot of folks who’ve helped me along the way, but none of them more than my children.”
When Frank’s daughter had a baby six years ago, he felt he had another reason “to find [his] destiny away from drugs”. Unfortunately, Frank wasn’t out of the clear yet. He noticed that he was having severe difficulty walking. Frank stated that he could not even walk with his granddaughter in the park. Frustrated, Frank went to a doctor, who said the years of smoking cigarettes caused Frank’s main artery to clog, even after quitting several years before. They immediately rushed him into emergency surgery.
“That doctor must have had miracle hands,” says Frank. “God gave him miracle hands, and I woke up, and bit by bit I started to get better. And now I can take my granddaughter on a walk, and I realize that it was all worth it to get better.” The long, curved scar left on Frank’s torso is a reminder of the price of addiction but also of the mountain he overcame.
Since he started taking opiates, Frank saved the bottles. He says he wasn’t quite sure why, but that he’s sure glad he did. His “Pill Man” stands as a powerful symbol for overcoming addiction, and he wants more people to see it because he hopes it will remind them how drugs take people’s lives.
“You see them everywhere, around this part of town. Slumped over and dumb. But people don’t want to do anything about it, it makes them too uncomfortable. These people were others’ family members. They could have been lawyers, doctors, and look at them now. Don’t judge them. They’re our brothers and sisters.”
Frank hopes that more people will see his work, and he is working on a new sculpture focused on spreading awareness about cannabis use.
October 1st is the 9th anniversary of Frank Huntley’s victory against opiates, and August 26th was the 8th anniversary of his victory against tobacco. Since October 1st, 2013, Huntley has been working to make a better life for himself and others struggling with addiction. He recently spoke at Worcester State University on the dangers of addiction, and Huntley recalls bringing Pill Man to political campaigns during elections to raise awareness of the Opioid Epidemic to voters and candidates. Huntley stresses that he does not want to stop people from taking their prescribed medications, but that he simply wants to raise awareness and ensure people are informed about not only opioid addiction, but unhealthy addictions to alcohol, marijuana, food, sex, and the list goes on.
“Don’t let these things control you,” Frank told us, “and you’ll have a wonderful life. It’s not your destiny, and it’s up to you to find that destiny.” Be sure to say hello to Frank if you ever end up on that side of town. Besides working at Cash-4-Clothes, he sells homemade Halloween costumes on the side. You’ll be sure to find him there if you catch him before he leaves at seven, living his honest, clean life to the fullest.