Heroin's Tragic Toll, Part 4 of 4

ADDICT WORKS TO SALVAGE HIS LIFE

PITTSBURGH: Willis Snead moved from Detroit eight years ago to get away
from 20 years of using heroin and other drugs.

His family settled into Arnold where Snead drifted from one job to another
before starting as a customer service representative for AT&T along Penn
Avenue. It was a good job with good pay and benefits, and Snead loved it.
But life suddenly changed.

Doctors told Snead that he had hepatitis C from years of injecting heroin.
Then his wife broke the news: She had breast cancer.

Snead was told there is no cure for hepatitis C, but doctors would try
Interferon to attack the symptoms. The disease caused itching discomfort
and sometimes pain, and there was an unrelenting fear about his life being
shortened because of liver damage.

His wife would need surgery and other treatment, too. And someone would
have to tell their three children. Twilla Snead would be fine after
surgery, but Snead didn't couldn't know that at the time.

The pressure mounted, and Snead said he turned to alcohol.

He drank more, and the hepatitis symptoms became worse. Soon he stopped
being a good employee at the job that paid him $20 per hour, plus benefits,
"just to sit and talk with people to help them," Snead said.

"They should have fired me, but they didn't. Probably if it had been any
other company, they'd have fired me," Snead said.

Supervisor Mike Graves of Arnold and manager Jack Fardo of Pittsburgh
talked with Snead about his problem. "But I was in some stage of denial,"
Snead said. Soon, enough was enough.

Fardo said he had to wake him up by suspending him.

Snead remembers the day when it finally hit him.

"I was on a binge and hit rock bottom. I called Jack with a lot of anxiety
and just told him I needed help. He said he was glad that I called," Snead
said.

"He said 'Don't worry. You are going to make it through this.'

"My manager was glad that I would get help. You'd think that he was a blood
relative; he was that happy. He stood behind me to secure my job and make
sure I was in treatment," Snead said, still showing surprise after months
of sobriety.

"I'm a union steward, but I'm for the company. Most companies wouldn't care
about my problem, but my supervisors rallied to my support."

Snead was troubled by what he saw when he completed an alcohol
rehabilitation program.

"There were 12- and 13-year-olds there addicted to heroin. I thought about
my kids, and it saddened me," Snead said.

When he returned to the job, he had learned that to keep away from alcohol
and drugs he has to remember that recovering substance abusers always are
subject to relapse.

More than ever, he understands one day at a time.

"It doesn't matter if you make five years clean or twelve months clean or
one week clean. What matters is that today I'm clean," he said.

"It's important for people to pray to their higher being when they wake up
and ask for strength to get through the day. And at night pray to say thank
you," he said.

Graves said he saw changes in his friend and told him he needed to get away
from substances to be happy or even to cope. When he finally did, there was
support.

"It's hard to find dependable employees. When we do, it's a win for (the
company) and everybody," Graves said.

"Not everybody is as lucky as I have been. To stop, you have to want to
stop, and I've had help," Snead said.

"I don't look at it as luck," Fardo said. "He had a strong family and
friends, and he came to the point where he said he needed help."

Graves doesn't believe in luck either. "He's not lucky, he's blessed,"
Graves said.

Graves urged Snead to go to church.

"I gave him a ride that first time. I opened the doors, and I prayed. But
it was up to Willis. I don't believe in luck; I believe in praying," Graves
said.

"He's in a better place now," Fardo said.

"I'm glad to have made 45 considering what I've been through. I started
getting high, smoking pot, at twelve to keep up with my peers. I soon
became weary of pot and turned to pills, psychodelics and ran the gantlet
of drugs to heroin," Snead said.

"Addicts move from one drug to another hoping to get the same high they got
the first time they got high. But that never happens. They can never get
that high again," Snead said.

Part 1: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v02/n1258/a03.html