ONE DEATH MIGHT SAVE LIVES

Addict's Family Funding Effort to Prevent Suburban Heroin
Use

The number posted on fliers at drug treatment centers isn't for a
typical hotline.

The callers -- all current or recovering heroin users -- are
encouraged to tell the stories of their addiction.

And in recent weeks, a small group of young men and women has done
just that, trying to help researchers answer a vexing question: Can
you stop heroin addiction before it starts?

The research is part of an ongoing project that seeks to reach the new
face of heroin addiction -- young white suburban adults -- before they
become addicted. It's a group increasingly vulnerable to the allure of
the drug yet one never fully explored by previous studies, researchers
say.

"No one has attempted to understand what motivates a kid to use heroin
and how to intervene and prevent that from happening," said Kathleen
Burke, executive director of the Robert Crown Center, which runs the
program.

The research is being funded by Roger and Nadeane Hruby of Burr Ridge,
who lost their grandson, Reed, 24, to a heroin overdose in 2008. The
couple has donated $340,000 to start an intervention program that
officials say is the first of its kind, focusing solely on preventing
heroin addiction.

More than 50 people, ranging from 18 to 29 years old, have offered to
participate since research began in late April. It will continue
through the summer. Participants receive a stipend for interviews that
can last more than three hours and include screenings for mental
health conditions such as depression and bipolar disorder, said Kathie
Kane-Willis, director of the Illinois Consortium on Drug Policy and
lead researcher.

Already the interviews have yielded surprising responses, researchers
say. Some addicts are also successful athletes. Others skipped
straight to heroin, bypassing the traditional progression from alcohol
and cigarettes as they use increasingly dangerous drugs.

Still others are addicted not just to the drug, but to the thrill of
buying heroin off the streets, driving from the suburbs to Chicago's
West Side, where it is cheaper to go directly to the dealers.

"They have never seen an inner-city area or an open-air drug market,"
Kane-Willis said. "That became part of the thrill -- not just using
the drugs but going and getting away with it."

The research, which also focuses on the addicts' relationships with
parents and friends, is expected to be completed by this summer. It
will be used to create parental and youth education programs and
various other methods of intervention, Burke said.

The interviews are necessary, researchers say, because the face of the
heroin user has changed. Most research on the drug is based on users
from the 1970s, who were predominantly African-American.

Now, heroin users tend to be primarily white suburbanites who snort
and inject the drug, Burke said. The key, she said, will be
identifying such stressors as social anxiety or a chaotic home life
that can prompt young adults to try the drug.

It's no accident that the hotline approach was established in the
Chicago area, where heroin abuse is more extreme than anywhere else in
the country, according to Roosevelt University researchers. The
Chicago area led the nation in heroin-related emergency room visits
from 2004 to 2008, according to the university's study released last
year.

Meanwhile, most funding for drug education in schools has been cut or
proven ineffective, Burke said. And the lives of America's youth are
becoming more complex, which can also contribute to the use of more
powerful drugs, she said.

"As kids develop, they're risk takers, but some kids take bigger risks
than others," Burke said. "There is a difference between a child who
tries marijuana and a child who is a heroin user. What leads them in
that direction is different."

Reed Hruby was a gifted musician who taught himself how to play guitar
and could perform Beethoven on the piano, his family said. He also
taught himself computer programming, spending hours poring over
manuals learning code, said his mother, Kathy Hruby.

In high school, Reed tried marijuana, Ecstasy and LSD, said his friend
Mike Crisp. Hruby and Crisp tried heroin for the first time during the
summer after graduating high school, acquiring the drug from a friend.

Shortly after, they began making trips from their home in Crown Point,
Ind., to Chicago's Humboldt Park neighborhood to buy more, Crisp said.

"It came to the point where we realized we kind of needed it, where
you can't go a day without it," said Crisp.

"When you don't have it, you can't even move," Crisp said. "You've got
no energy. Your body aches, you're weak and you have no motivation.
The only thing that fixed it was going out and getting more."

At first, family members say, they were unaware of Reed's addiction.
He used heroin when his mother wasn't home and seemed normal when she
returned, Kathy Hruby said.

Reed Hruby enrolled at Columbia College to study graphic arts and
moved into a high-rise apartment in downtown Chicago.

Signs of trouble began to emerge. Hruby began wearing long-sleeve
shirts to hide track marks on his arms, his mother said. His posture
was more hunched over when he walked. He stopped meeting friends, she
said.

In 2006, Reed Hruby was arrested on two counts of possession of a
controlled substance, according to court records. Both charges were
dropped.

Over the next two years, he was in and out of drug rehab programs, his
family said. He was prescribed suboxone, a synthetic form of heroin in
pill form used to treat addicts. But nothing seemed to work, his
family said.

"He said 'The only time I feel good about myself is when I'm high,'"
his mother said.

Hruby had been clean for about a year when in July 2008 his mother
returned to her home in Crown Point and found him dead in the
basement. A syringe cap was still in his hand, his father said.

Three years after his death, his family hopes the hotline effort can
save other young adults in Chicago's suburbs from a similar fate.

"When you talk to someone about heroin in the suburbs, everyone says
it's not a problem in their neighborhood, but it is," said Brenda
Hruby Giesel, Reed's aunt. "It's everywhere, and a lot of these young
kids are dying."