Series: Wasted Youth (Day 2 -- 2 Of 4)

HEROIN ADDICT REBUILDING LIVES AFTER ALMOST DESTROYING HIS OWN

Even though Nick's family lived on the West Side of Brockton, and his
older brother had gone to Brockton High, his parents had seen drugs
infiltrate the lives of several friends, so they decided to send Nick to Coyle.

The move only increased what was, at the time, a false sense of security.

OC had become widely available, and most kids knew nothing of its
addictive properties.

"I had absolutely no idea what I was taking," he said. "There was no
warning from anybody. Why not do them? ... Next thing you know, it
was like everybody was doing them, everywhere I turned."

The next several months, he followed a route all too familiar to
youths in this region -- he would need more and stronger OC, each
day, but didn't have the money.

So he began stealing from his family, friends, parents, schoolmates,
other users, dealers -- and the light that was Nick Saba began to dim.

His parents, Bill and June, thought he was ill, but never suspected
the sickness of addiction.

For several weeks, in a blur of tests and doctor visits, the Sabas
searched for what was robbing their son of his talent, energy -- and his smile.

One doctor diagnosed depression. Another thought he was bipolar --
all prescribed varying degrees of medication.

One locked him up in the hospital's psychiatric ward.

"Nobody said it was drugs to us," said his mother, a school
administrator. "By the time we found out, he had a full-blown OxyContin habit."

They put him into rehab, but it was too late.

"There was no way we were getting him back," said his mother. "At
that point, we had lost him for the next 2 1/2 years."

Life deteriorated fast for the entire family. Nick stole from his
mother's purse, his father's wallet, his brother's bureau.

He hawked his father's tools, three of his younger brother's video
game systems, the family TV, even the coffee machine -- he took
everything he could sell at the pawn shop in Brockton.

His father built chests, inside which he would lock video games,
radios, CDs -- everything that fit.

Soon, Nick left home, left school, and then, like many, graduated to
the much cheaper heroin -- injecting it one day at a rooming house in Brockton.

"My life was so screwed up, when they offered it, I'm like, 'Go
ahead, give me that,' and someone shot me up," he said. "It took me
right back to my first Oxy -- that same super feeling. ... I loved
it. I fell in love with the needle. It gave me the legs I needed to
run with for another year and a half."

He ran into a life of darkness and depravity.

Nick Saba, once everyone's friend, became a public enemy -- mugging
dealers and users, cheating anybody he could, lying to everybody.

He soon disappeared into a life of predation, injecting heroin four
times a day.

"I became a completely different person," he said. "Everybody around
me saw what was happening to me. I weighed 120 pounds. I was pale,
ghost white. I looked just completely nasty."

Life for the Saba family became a daily brush with death.

Friends stopped calling, or having their children play at the Sabas'
home in Brockton.

Colleges stopped calling Nick. Colleagues stopped calling his parents.

And the police started -- mostly because of Nick, the troublemaker,
who had been arrested several times on drug, weapon and theft charges.

"People judge you," said June Saba. "The general public judges you.
There is a sense of shame. We would say, 'What did we do to raise a
heroin addict? Where did we go wrong? Are we bad parents?"

Nick -- sometimes at home, sometimes in parking lots -- would
overdose several times and require emergency help to save his life.

Soon, even taking larger doses, he began growing immune to the drug's
effects, and instead of a daylong high, he would suffer painful lows.

"I thought about killing myself many, many times," he said. "I wanted
to grab a rope and end it. I thought about OD'ing on purpose, and
came close a few times."

But he stayed in touch with his parents, and as the months went on,
began to disclose what he, and many of his friends, were enduring.

One night, in 2004, he sat with his family and wrote down the names
of everyone they knew -- or suspected -- was involved with OxyContin or heroin.

They came up with 80.

Desperate, the family moved to Bridgewater. Over the next 18 months,
the family began to heal -- thanks in large part to Nick, who had
begun entering rehab programs.