'JAIL, INSTITUTIONS AND DEATH'

Journal Series Sparks Users, Survivors To Tell Of Their Heroin Hell

Their stories - of the rise in heroin addiction, the pain it brings
and sometimes the deaths of loved ones that result - resonated with
Flint Journal readers.

After a series about heroin addiction among young people appeared
earlier this month, others wanted to share their experiences.

Their stories are dramatic, heartbreaking, hopeful. Among them:

"My husband and I have been through hell and back trying to help my
son, and we have taken him in on numerous occasions, only to be
slapped in the face for doing it," his mother said.

"I have gone through many losses of close friends that have passed
from this disease called addiction," she wrote. "I just want to let
people know who are going through it that there is help, and you can
get though it all."

"He had methadone and OxyContin," said his mother. "His death isn't
counted as an overdose, but it's clear that he did overdose."

"She gives us the typical heroin user's line," said her father. "She
says she doesn't have a problem, she isn't addicted."

The Journal stories outlined how area suburbanites, many of them
teenagers, in recent years have been driving the local heroin market
and changing the demographic of those seeking help for addiction.

The articles detailed the rise in the number of local people who
report heroin as their primary drug and are seeking treatment for
drug abuse. In 2006, more than 800 people, or 14 percent of those in
publicly funded treatment, said they were addicted to heroin. Several
years ago, heroin addicts made up only a small percentage of the
total number of people seeking treatment.

The stories also reported that the abuse of such prescription
pain-killing drugs as OxyContin and Vicodin has led hundreds of area
residents to become heroin users over the past several years and
recounted the story of the deaths of young local heroin addicts.

Genesee County Health Department records show that 24 people from the
Flint area died in 2006 from overdoses caused by heroin and a deadly
painkiller called fentanyl that has been mixed with heroin coming
into southeastern Michigan from Mexico in recent years.

But some readers told The Journal they believed the death rate from
heroin and fentanyl is higher than county records reflect.

"My brother was a heroin addict and is he on that list? No," said a
woman named Nicole about her 33-year-old sibling, who died at his
home on Flint's east side last November.

Others echoed that comment. Most responses were from parents of young
heroin users, telling of the difficulty of getting their children,
typically in their 20s, into treatment, and how addicts often pretend
to go along with treatment only to keep using.

"My son was in a group of athletes from Goodrich High School," said
Michielle, his mother. "They were all friends, good kids from good
homes when they first tried it back in 1998 or 1999.

"One of them urged the rest of them to try heroin. I know he was
given Vicodin when he suffered sports injuries in high school, and he
loved it, and sometimes I think back to that, that it was the beginning of it."

It was the start of a 10-year nightmare, she said. Her son has stolen
from her and other relatives, and they saw him change from a
handsome, popular student-athlete to a liar and thief with no future
and no prospects. Although he claimed at times to have given up
heroin, his mother said he hasn't, and she no longer can allow him
into her home.

"It is a horrible way to have to think about your own son, but I
cannot handle this anymore," she said.

Some readers wanted others to know there are success stories in the
struggle with heroin addiction. Courtney, 20, told how typical high
school experimentation with drugs and alcohol three years ago led her
to OxyContin and heroin addiction.

"I used all my open house money that I had saved and kept coming up
with excuses to tell my parents when they asked where it was going,"
she wrote of the cash she was given when she graduated from Swartz
Creek High School. "Nearly $2,000 gone in one week. None of that went
to what I told people it was going to go to. It all was spent on heroin."

She eventually was caught stealing from family members and went into
treatment, though, like many other addicts, she didn't want to give
up the drug. She overdosed, survived and continued to steal and use
until she crashed her car when she blacked out.

Earlier this year, Courtney went back into treatment and served a
stint in jail for larceny. She said she knew then that she had to
change her life.

"It is a very hard thing to go through, but you have to accept the
fact that you have an addiction. But it can be treated if you choose
to, and only you can choose," she wrote. "Jails, institutions and
death: I think and thank God every day that I've have only hit two
out of the three."

Dan of Swartz Creek told of paying tens of thousands of dollars to
put his teenage son into a long-term residential treatment program
called Pathways in Southfield, while his own health insurance
probably will cover little, if any, of the cost.

The treatment may bankrupt him, but Dan said he has to try to help his son.

His son also had a close call with an overdose, stole from his family
to buy heroin and had been in and out of local substance-abuse
treatment centers over the past three or four years.

"My son turned 18 while in treatment," said Dan. "Heroin is a lot
worse problem here than people think it is. When I think about what's
happened, I would not believe it."