FOR 18-YEAR OLD SPARTA MAN-ONE-TIME DRUG USE LEADS TO LIFETIME OF PAIN

SPARTA -- The view from her Lake Mohawk home is just shy of heaven -- but
she isn't talking about the cool breeze off the lake. Such trivial
amenities have lost significance.

Joe Linden, of the Kessler Institute in West Orange, wheels in a portable
plastic toilet, a commode it's called.

"Where's the splash guard?" Gail Morris asks. She bends over and examines
the toilet seat and the empty compartment underneath.

"I'm not sure. This is from Sweden," Linden replies and hands over the
instructions.

"Do the Swedes not use splash guards?" she says and musters a rare laugh.
Morris sits on the plastic throne, places her arms on the arm rests and
leans back. She has the look of an interested buyer, but she knows she has
no choice. Linden wheels the toilet into her 18-year-old son's room, parks
it about four feet from the bed and returns with the invoice.

"Three thousand dollars for this thing," she says before signing.

On Thursday, it will be one year since Morris' son, Alex Conte, tried
snorting heroin for the first time. That single event has been like a
ripple in still water for Morris.

He should be graduating from Sparta High School this June.

But experimenting with the drug last April has plunged him into the hell of
brain damage.

"We all think of ourselves as independent and when we do something, we
think it shouldn't matter to anybody else," she said with a sigh. "If you
take a drug, not only are you setting yourself up for possible ruin, but
your whole family is taking the trip with you -- physically, emotionally
and financially. The impact is monumental."

Morris travels about 1,000 miles each week to the brain trauma center at
the John F. Kennedy Medical Center in Edison to visit her son.

She hears screams of car accident victims and sees the desolate looks on
the faces of other parents whose children are also suffering from a trauma
for which there is no cure.

Morris, 54, is a self-employed educational consultant but that role has
taken a back seat to her full-time job of taking care of her son and herself.

"I spend about 100 hours a week caring for him," she said and only about 25
hours is devoted to her job. Any residual hours Morris spends at the gym,
working her upper body so she can continue to lift her six-foot-two-inch,
112-pound son off his bed and into a wheelchair.

He wears diapers; sips liquid from a straw; speaks in phrases; screams;
apologizes; and has a toilet in his bedroom. He only visits home on weekends.

He cannot sit upright for more than a minute or two; go for a walk; play
his guitar or soccer; remember dates, his cousin's wedding or his former
job; have an uninterrupted conversation; drive a car; or sit comfortably in
a vehicle for more than an hour.

"Are you willing to take a risk of doing this to your body because you
think you're going to get some temporary high?" she asked. "It's a huge
price to pay."

Morris will be at the Center For Prevention and Counseling Wednesday.

She will tell her horrific story before a group of about 30 clergy and
school board members and business owners. From there the group will travel
on a county-wide bus tour stopping at such locations as the Juvenile
Detention Center, a local high school, two rehabilitation centers and to
various homes affected by drug use, according to Becky Carlson, coordinator
for Sussex County Coalition For Healthy and Safe Families.

Morris simply wants to spread the word of what happened to her son and that
"Nobody's safe."

"In Sparta there was an effort to keep this quiet. I don't think a school
or community should try to keep this kind of information in the closet,"
she said. "I don't want to see anybody else in my shoes -- this is
certainly a nightmare beyond anything I could ever have dreamed up."

On April 25, 2001 Conte opted to try heroin alone in the basement of his
mother's home. He snorted a small amount of the opiate and passed out on
the downstairs couch.

When Morris came home from dropping her daughter, Victoria, off at Colombia
University she covered him with a blanket and went to sleep.

What she mistook as sleep was actually his overdose.

Throughout the night a minimal amount of oxygen got to his brain.

Morris' confusion? She talked with him about drugs -- namely heroin.

There were no signs indicating what he was considering. He didn't smoke
cigarettes, hang out with "bad kids" or come home drunk.

He maintained good grades, scored over 1300 on his SATs and ate dinner with
his mother every night.

"I really can't find anything else I could have done," she said with a
heavy sigh. "I guess I had misled myself to thinking that one of my
children (couldn't) do something as foolish as this.