Series: Wasted Youth -- Cases Of Neglect (Day 4 -- 3 Of 6)

DIM FUTURE

Taunton Girl With Big Dreams Is Forced To Put Plans On Hold

TAUNTON -- Valerie imagined herself as many things when she was a
student at Taunton High School -- heroin addict was not among them.

"I'm smart," the 19-year-old said. "I am intelligent. I passed the
MCAS. I scored really high on the MCAS."

She said she wanted to become a counselor, a dream she still clings
to. But that dream is on hold. Today, she lives, day to day, with
heroin as her partner. Valerie started snorting heroin at age 17. Her
boyfriend at the time was using it.

"I wanted to try it," she said. "It was always around. I started
snorting every day."

Then she began injecting the drug. The boyfriend eventually went
away. The heroin didn't.

"I was stuck with a bad dope habit," she said. She said she has
stolen to pay for the $100 to $150 a day habit: grabbing goods or
cash and then dashing off. "I've done things I'm not proud of," she said.

She's lived on the street but never prostituted herself as so many
other women battling heroin addiction have.

"I just couldn't do something like that," she said.

She went to a treatment program in Fall River once. "I stayed for one
day. I didn't want to be there," she said. She tried methadone, a
drug used to stop opiate cravings, but returned to heroin.

A few weeks ago, Valerie was minutes from death when a friend heard
her loud snores as she lay in a bedroom and summoned help. She spent
two weeks in a coma-like state in the intensive care unit at Morton
Hospital and Medical Center, recovering from what she says was a
heroin overdose.

"I was in the hospital for a month," Valerie, who didn't want her
last name used, said. "Since I've been out of the hospital, I've relapsed."

Heroin is now her life.

She has a two-page poem she says tells it all.

"This is it," Valerie said, pushing the pages across a table. "This
says it all." In a soft voice, Valerie read the poem. Her hands
touched the bottom of the page as she read the last two lines.
"You'll give up your morals, conscience, your heart. And you'll be
mine...till death do us part!"

Valerie looked up.

"That's all you need to know."