HAPPIER ENDINGS

That's What Mother Of Girl Who Died From Overdose Seeks For Other Parents.

Julie Zdeblick's bedroom was the place she loved most in the world, and it
is imbued with her personality.

Her pencil drawings and collages adorn the vibrant red walls. A palette of
dried paint sits on a table near a poem she wrote to honor the Earth.

She had just finished a silk-screen print for a school art exhibit. It
rests against a wall, as do her guitar and electric bass.

"There were lots of good things waiting to come," said her mother,
Catherine Zdeblick. "That's why I'm so angry."

Julie, 17 and a junior at Middleton High School, died March 6 of an
overdose of the drug Oxycontin.

Her mother found her unresponsive in her bedroom the morning before. She
screamed for her other children to call 911, then began CPR.

Thomas and Catherine Zdeblick, who have not spoken to the media until now,
believe her life held great promise if she could have beaten her addiction.

Catherine Zdeblick is now going public with her family's loss. She will
speak to Middleton High School faculty today and take part in a public
panel discussion on drug abuse Tuesday.

She wants to give parents the courage to confront drug problems and not to
be in denial. Yet this is one of the more painful things for Zdeblick to
accept -- she believes her family exhibited this courage, yet they couldn't
save Julie.

"Most times, it doesn't end like this."

Popular, passionate'

From an early age, Julie was outgoing, fearless and comfortable around
adults, her mother said. She was particularly sensitive to less-fortunate
people, a trait that surfaced in first grade when it was her turn to bring
a special person or thing to class.

While others showed off a pet or a grandparent, Julie brought in the
district's autism expert. Her brother, A.J., 19, has Asperger Syndrome, a
form of autism.

"Her approach was always, If you can't accept my brother, then I don't need
you,'" said her mother.

The Zdeblicks have two other children, John, 14, and Maddie, 12.

Julie attended sixth through eighth grades at Eagle School, a Madison
private school for gifted children. Her freshman year at Middleton High
School, she appeared to be a well-adjusted, ambitious teenager.

She was getting a 4.0 GPA, participating in tennis and track, excelling in
honors biology and taking a lead role in the school's Alliance to End
Homophobia.

"When I think of Julie, I think of this beautiful, smart, popular,
passionate person," said Connie Finnegan, an English teacher at Middleton
High School and an adviser for the alliance. "Why there was a need to
change any of that baffles me, because I found her to be so perfect the way
she was."

The summer between her freshman and sophomore years, Julie changed, her
mother said. She pulled away from her family and began spending time with
new friends who had cars and who didn't want to hang around the Zdeblick
house. Julie fought for later curfews and accused her parents of not
trusting her. She water skied and boated with her siblings less and less.
Her parents started checking her breath, smelling her clothes.

In September 2002, she was caught smoking on school grounds and put on
athletic probation. Julie was a vegetarian who carefully chose what she
consumed. "Smoking was a signal things were not going well," said her mother.

Her parents sent her to a drug and alcohol assessment, where they learned
she was using drugs regularly. A search of her room found marijuana, drug
paraphernalia and hallucinogenic mushrooms.

Her parents enrolled her in NewStart, a two-month, intensive outpatient
program for adolescent drug users that is part of Meriter Hospital. She met
with counselors four nights a week.

Most of the teen-agers in the program come from troubled homes and struggle
in school, said Jeanne Kinney, Julie's counselor at NewStart. Julie was
part of a smaller but significant group from high-functioning families who
have high expectations.

"They are good athletes, good students. They've picked up from very
high-performing parents that this is what makes them important. They can't
let up on themselves, so they turn to drugs and alcohol."

The Zdeblicks gave Kinney permission to publicly discuss Julie's drug problem.

Kinney said Julie talked easily about her feelings, "but there must have
been a lot more going on in there. Plus, she just plain got hooked."

Julie completed the NewStart program, which included random drug checks and
10 weeks of after-care sessions. By spring 2003, she was writing in her
diary that she was clean and sober and feeling good.

An arrest, a relapse

In July 2003, Julie was arrested for stealing alcohol from the grocery
store where she worked.

She was still doing well in school but was having trouble getting up in the
morning. Her mother said it was hard to distinguish whether her actions
were due to drug use or the depression she'd been diagnosed with as a freshman.

"The rest happened so fast," Catherine Zdeblick said.

March 4 was a Thursday. Julie had been to school that day. Finnegan, the
English teacher, took a photo of her at a meeting of the anti-homophobia
alliance. It is the last known snapshot of her. It shows her reading
thank-you notes from freshmen for a presentation she had taken part in.

After school, Julie met for two hours of drug counseling at a treatment
program other than NewStart. She arrived home about 6, excited about the
good session, her mother said. "In retrospect, she was probably high on
amphetamines."

Julie helped prepare dinner and spent part of the evening listening to
music with her father and siblings. Sometime after her parents went to bed
at 10:30 p.m., Julie slipped out of a back door and drove to the Middleton
apartment of Derek Hansen, where she bought the dose of Oxycontin that
killed her, according to a criminal complaint filed in Dane County Circuit
Court.

Hansen has been charged with first-degree reckless homicide for allegedly
causing Julie's death. According to the criminal complaint, Hansen admitted
to police that he had sold drugs including marijuana, Oxycontin, Ecstasy
and the stimulant Dexedrine to Julie in the past. But he denied selling her
anything March 4.

"We knew she smoked pot and took mushrooms. We did not know the extent of
the other drugs she used," Catherine Zdeblick said. "We didn't know what we
were fighting. It was like we got dressed for the wrong sport."

Zdeblick rejects the idea that the family's affluence made it too easy for
Julie to buy drugs. Julie earned an allowance but otherwise was not given
large sums of money, her mother said. She apparently acquired money the way
many drug users do -- by stealing it, in this case from her parents.

Given the chance to relive the last two years, Zdeblick said she would have
insisted on more independent drug tests. Even good communication with a
teenager can illuminate a problem only so much, she said.

Julie's death stunned those who knew her. "I've had kids come in since she
died and tell me how she helped them stop drinking or helped them get off
Ecstasy when she was alive," Kinney said.

The Zdeblicks have begun a foundation in Julie's honor that is a
partnership with UW Children's Hospital. It will address issues of
adolescent drug abuse, including treatment and crisis management. "We all
understand drugs are a problem in our high schools, but no one seems to do
anything," said Thomas Zdeblick, chairman of the UW Medical School's
department of orthopedics. "We want to do something."

Catherine Zdeblick said she wants other parents to know how prevalent and
deadly drugs are and how quickly they can overtake a life. "The drugs being
taken right now are different, even in the last couple of years. They're
harder and faster and there is less margin for error. Their addictiveness
is astounding.

"We all have a picture of what a drug user looks like. Julie didn't fit
that picture. Julie was able to fool people, and in the end, she fooled
herself."

If you go

* What: Panel discussion on adolescent drug abuse featuring school social
workers, a school police officer, a student, and Catherine Zdeblick, whose
daughter, Julie, 17, died of a drug overdose in March.

* Where: Room 1050, Middleton High School, 2100 Bristol St.

* When: 7-8:30 p.m. Tuesday.(

Teen Drug Use

Nearly one-fourth -- 24 percent -- of teenagers in a federal survey this
fall reported using illegal drugs including marijuana, cocaine, heroin,
hallucinogens and others at least once in the 2002-03 school year.

That compared to 22 percent the year before. The annual survey was
established in 1998 to measure the effectiveness of White House drug policy.

The survey found cigarette use increased slightly to 27 percent from 26
percent the year before. About half of the students reported drinking
alcohol each year.