REPORTS DETAIL WOES OF ADDICTS

Personal Struggles Lie Behind Drugs' Claiming of Lives

The last time K.K.'s wife saw him, he was speeding away from their
Tallahassee home in her truck, grasping the $350 in rent money he'd
just stolen from her purse.

Ten hours later, he was dead, his body wedged into a toilet stall in
Jack McLean Park. Lying next to him were a syringe and a plastic bag.
In his pockets: cocaine, $210, a pack of Newports and a bullet.

The monkey that had ridden K.K.'s back for so many years had finally
choked the life out of him. He was 35.

His death was one of seven directly attributed to drugs in Leon County
last year. There were four women and three men, aged 29 to 52, all of
them dead from toxic doses of cocaine, painkillers, crack and Ecstasy.

Those seven deaths don't make Tallahassee remarkable - there were
fewer in Live Oak and Gainesville, many more in Miami and Fort
Lauderdale. Across the state, there were nearly 400 deaths caused by
cocaine, more than 460 caused by the painkillers oxycodone and
hydrocodone and 37 caused by Ecstasy, according to a recent statewide
Medical Examiner's report.

But the autopsy reports and police investigations that accompanied the
passing of Tallahassee's drug dead show just how much they struggled
with their addictions and what those addictions eventually cost them.

They, like many drug users, fell victim to human nature, to the
tendency to always assume the bad things in life happen to someone
else, said Patrick Lane, director of adult services for DISC Village
drug treatment center

"Addiction is a disease of denial," he said. "It's amazing how many of
them don't get it."

Although the names of the drug victims are public record, the
Tallahassee Democrat is using only their initials out of consideration
to their families. Among those who died in 2001:

Jan. 12: B.H., 52, had battled an addiction to cocaine for several
years. She was recently divorced and staying with a friend while she
sold her Tallahassee home.

The night she died, she wasn't feeling well, but she shared a calzone
and watched a little television with her friend before she went off to
bed. She never woke up, according to Tallahassee police reports.

Her autopsy showed that she died of an overdose of morphine and
oxycodone, ingredients of Oxycontin, a powerful painkiller often
prescribed to cancer patients. Police never determined where she'd
gotten the drug - two friends each claimed the other had given it to
her.

She left behind a sister and a daughter who both were devastated by
her death, police reported.

June 28: R.B., 29, was building himself a life.

He had a steady girlfriend, a close pal and an entrepreneurial dream.
He and his "godbrother" were managing a nightclub on South Monroe
Street, trying to set themselves up to buy the place, police said.

He'd had some health problems - stomach pain that sent him to the
hospital in early June - but it didn't appear to be anything serious.

Then he collapsed outside the club on a busy summer night. He suffered
a seizure and stopped breathing. Friends drove him to the hospital,
but he was dead.

Tipsters told police to check his system for Ecstasy. An autopsy
showed he'd overdosed on the popular club drug.

R.B. was survived by his mother, at least one brother and dozens of
grieving friends, reports show.

Nov. 17: K.K. must have known what his drug problem was doing to his
body. His wife told police he'd been to the emergency room three times
in the six weeks before his death. He was suffering from chest pains
and from infected scabs on his arms, where he shot himself up with
cocaine, police said.

On his first visit to Tallahassee Memorial Hospital, K.K. allegedly
told his wife he'd smuggled in cocaine so he could try to inject it
into his IV and take his own life, his death report said.

The night he stole the rent money from his wife's purse, he hid all
the phones in the house so she couldn't call the police. When she
chased him out the door, he shouted over his shoulder for her to "sell
something" to make the rent, police reported.

At his death, K.K. had been married for nearly 10 years and was the
father of two children and stepfather to a third.

And there were others killed by their addictions - C.W., 38, who died
of a cocaine overdose; D.P., 38, who died with cocaine in her system;
D.H., 46, who took a phenobarbital overdose after a weekend crack
binge; J.M., 47, who took an overdose of oxycodone and
hydrocodone.

Three others died in the Big Bend last year, as well. D.M., 37, in
Franklin County, J.L., 42, in Wakulla County, and K.C., 42, in
Jefferson County, all killed by painkiller overdoses.

Many of the families of those who died declined requests for
interviews. Some expressed feelings of guilt that they hadn't done
enough to keep their loved ones alive.

But the addicted probably felt invincible, emboldened by surviving
years of drug abuse. Likely no one could have steered them away from
their addiction, said Lane, the drug counselor.

"People are seeking some kind of altered state because they're not
happy with the state they're in," he said. "It just keeps feeding the
denial they're already in.

"Sometimes, you just can't save someone."