Teens & Drugs

THE PATH TO ADDICTION

GAUTIER - Editor's note: This is the first of a three-part series.

SPECIAL REPORT:

The scar on Robby's right forearm serves as a reminder of the years he
spent plunging drug-filled needles into his veins to stay high.

For his wife, Ellen, the scars from her own drug addiction aren't so evident.

They remain hidden deep inside, the result of one rainy day in 1997 when
her former husband, Tony, and their 22-month-old daughter, Ericka McKenzie,
died in a car wreck in Louisiana. It was the day after Thanksgiving.

"That's when it got really bad quick," said Ellen, now 35, sober and living
in South Mississippi with her husband and son. "I was in a daze. I went
immediately back into a partying mode.

"I was still doing pain pills, but now handfuls at a time. I would wake up
in the middle of the night with such indescribable pain that I needed
something to numb it. It was the only way I knew to deal with it. Now, I
know I wasn't dealing with it at all."

Like Ellen and Robby, Tony also abused prescription drugs, each of them
preferring the painkillers Lortab, Loracet Plus and eventually OxyContin
(also known as Oxycodone and often referred to as a new form of synthetic
heroin) to feed their addiction. Tony and Robby were brothers and sons of a
Baptist minister and his wife. They also bought, sold and smoked marijuana.

It was a way of life for the threesome that started long before they met as
young adults in the small sawmill town of Winfield, La.

Ellen took her first drink at the age of 12, while Robby and Tony took
their first drink at 13.

Ellen lived off and on in south Arkansas and the small north Louisiana
community of Bastrop. Tony and Robby were hundreds of miles away in Winfield.

Ellen's story begins when she was living with an alcoholic father, who
didn't allow her to date. Her parents went through a divorce and she stayed
with her father.

A shy girl, Ellen's road to addiction began when she went out with some
friends at the age of 12.

"One of my friends was dating a guy who looked old enough to buy
(alcohol)," she said. "Some stores would sell it anyway. That was my first
experience with getting a buzz. It, I thought, made me feel like I fit in
better. It didn't make me as uncomfortable. I just felt I could talk then."

Ellen's early days

Soon after taking her first drink, Ellen started hanging out more and more
with friends who could buy the alcohol she started to crave. Ellen always
preferred beer, and it didn't matter what the brand name was.

"So, you don't get to sneak around a lot when you are 12, but I managed to
sometimes," she said. "When I got older and became a teenager, it was
easier and easier to get out of the house, even with a father who wouldn't
let me date."

By the time she reached high school, she and her friends had a routine. It
always started with a stop at a store to load up on beer for the night.

She soon started drinking on a more routine basis on the weekends. In no
time, she was able to outdrink most of the guys she was going out with.

Ellen's behavior wasn't that noticeable at home. After all, she was
maintaining excellent grades and staying active after school as a cheerleader.

"I never really remember thinking, 'I'm drinking a lot,'

" she said. "It was just a way of life."

Ellen continued to drink more and more throughout her teenage years but
still managed to graduate with honors from Bastrop High School in 1986.
Soon after, at 17, she married her high school sweetheart and moved back to
southern Arkansas, where she worked at a local dress shop.

Her drinking got progressively worse.

She and her husband spent most of their weekends slamming down beers with
friends. Ellen even bragged about her drinking at the time.

"I could drink a six-pack easy and drink more and more and the others would
just be out of it," she said. "That was one thing that probably made me
worse. I was just so proud of being able to handle it."

Moving to Louisiana

Over the next four years, Ellen became a mother to a son, Tyler. But a
divorce followed and she and her son moved to Winfield to live with her
mother and sister. Her mother was going through another divorce at the time.

"I started drinking more and more," said Ellen, who was 21 by then. It was
during that time when she started mixing alcohol with the hallucinogenic
drug, LSD.

She spent her days working at a local Wal-Mart and caring for Tyler. On the
weekends, she went "clubbing."

"I was single, living it up and making up for lost time for not being able
to date in high school," she said. "I thought I could handle the LSD. I
could do it one night but the next day you felt awful."

Not long after she started taking LSD, she met the person who would change
her life forever. His name was Tony, and he would become her husband and
father of her second child, Ericka McKenzie, born Jan. 28, 1996. He also
was a fellow addict.

Tony introduced her to the prescription painkillers she would grow to
depend on.

"I think it was Percocet the first time," she said. "It's hard to remember."

Ellen and Tony's life together would be short-lived. They became hardened
drug addicts. They often spent time with Tony's brother, Robby, another addict.

For Tony and Robby, their path to addiction started at the age of 13. Their
story begins and ends in their hometown of Winfield.