Series: Wasted Youth -- Damage Done (2 Of 6 )

DRUGS RIP DREAMS, THEN LIFE, FROM PREGNANT TEEN

She felt the flutter rise from deep inside her, then fade. Shannah
Duggan froze -- she wanted to be sure.

It came again -- there were vibrations. Movement. A signal.

Life.

It was him -- her baby.

Five months in utero, he had begun reaching out -- for the first
time, Shannah could feel her son.

She had already named him -- Aiden. She had already vowed her love,
pledged her protection.

For him, she had stopped using heroin. Finally.

On this Saturday morning in spring, as the sun glinted on the
horizon, Shannah felt where Aiden had fluttered, draping her arms
around her waist -- around her son.

She looked at her best friend, then dropped her head and smiled, her
face melting into the moment.

"Aiden's talking to me," she whispered. It was one of the best days
of her life.

It was also her last.

Shannah's story was supposed to be so different, her life just
beginning when she died at 19.

She was the athletic blonde, the dynamic dancer, the bubbly Brockton
High School honor student, cheerleader and drama club standout --
ever-smiling, eternally upbeat, rich with friends and filled with faith.

A dancer since age 2, she once performed at the White House for
President Bill Clinton. An entertainer forever, she captivated
audiences from her early days at the Sherry Gold Dance Studio to her
powerful presentations at the Brockton High annual musicals.

She had talent, looks, a loving family, devoted friends and dreams --
of raising children, becoming a teacher, and returning to Broadway,
where she had danced as a child.

Now, she also had a baby on the way.

But Shannah harbored a secret, a sickness -- an addiction to drugs.

First it was OxyContin, the potent FDA-approved narcotic intended for
cancer patients.

Then, once addicted to that, it became the cheaper, resurgent
street-drug heroin -- and soon a life of order, love and promise
mutated into one of chaos, misery and pain.

Shannah wasn't alone.

She became one of the hundreds of area kids who tried OxyContin the
last three years.

Many were instantly enslaved by the euphoric condition it created,
and became addicts. But the teens needed an affordable alternative --
and soon they began snorting and injecting heroin at $4 a dose.

"This was a train wreck," said Sarah Milton, 21, Shannah's best
friend and a recovering addict. "Everybody was using. Everybody got
on, and it crashed. Now, it's only getting worse."

This is Shannah's story, but it is also the tragic tale of so many
others. Dozens of young adults have died from overdoses. Hundreds
more are still suffering -- lying and stealing their way to the next
dose. Many are just beginning the descent into addiction. "Something
went wrong," said Linda DeSisto, Shannah's mother. "It's all the
kids. They're all deciding, 'Hey, let's try this.' But why? Why would
they try something that they know is going to kill them eventually?
Why would Shannah do this?" They found her at home, on her bed -- her
favorite futon where she would rest and talk to Aiden, telling him of
what wonderment lay ahead.

Less than a day after Aiden had signaled his mother with the flutter,
Shannah -- still in her pink pajamas -- was dead.

Aiden was dead.

A family's future went dark.

Near Shannah's body, on her bureau, were photos of her friends,
boyfriend, trophies from dance competitions, albums filled with her
photography, angel figurines she collected -- treasures of a
joy-filled youth and days of innocence.

In her closet hung never-worn maternity clothes -- she had bought
them the week before with her mother, because she had just started to show.

Everywhere, all around her home, were signs of someone's love -- baby
items from friends and family. Paint and decor for the in-law
apartment, which would be remodeled for her.

Framed photos from her high school graduation, First Communion,
summer at the beach with her younger brother.

Under her body, buried beneath the dancer's lifeless legs, sat a
small box with several syringes -- the tools of the heroin addict.

On the back of her right hand, near her thumb, oozed a fresh needle mark.

Even carrying Aiden, even after feeling him move, even after staying
"clean" for the five months since conception, Shannah couldn't stop using.

"The devil got her," said Milton, a Brockton resident who was there
the day Shannah first felt Aiden move.

"That's what I call heroin," said Milton. "It's the devil. It really
is. You got your devil on one shoulder, and your angel on the other,
and the devil is so much stronger, especially when you're in the
midst of that addiction."

The devil first visited Shannah a year earlier. He arrived in the
company of friends, and was welcomed with outstretched arms.

The slide began in 2003 -- her final semester at Brockton High
School. Hers turned out to be the same perilous path most of the kids
followed into addiction.

A new, powerful medication had become available for people with
chronic pain. OxyContin -- or OC.

Teenagers, ever on the lookout for a quick, undetectable high, began
stealing it -- from their parents, from their friend's parents, from stores.

"It was extremely easy to get," said Milton. "It was everywhere, and
it worked. It covered up all your pain and misery."

Once, Milton's boyfriend at the time, already caught up in the OC
rush, had robbed a local pharmacy for the drug.

"I remember he handed me a pack of cigarettes and it was filled to
the top with (OC) pills, overflowing," she said. "All different
milligrams. I was his girlfriend and Shannah was my best friend, so
he was going to give them to us."

Shannah had been enduring a tough transition as her parents went
through a divorce. Her mother moved the children to Taunton, while
her father stayed in Brockton, before eventually moving to New
Hampshire. Shannah wanted to finish her senior year at Brockton High,
so she alternated between both homes, usually sleeping at her
mother's house. By then, most of her friends had tried OC. Many, like
Milton, started crushing and snorting the opiate to circumvent the
pill's time-release structure. Shannah resisted until January of her
senior year, but was surrounded by users -- her brother, her
brother's girlfriend, three of her closest friends, her boyfriend,
her friends' boyfriends. Smart kids. Good kids. Star athletes. Drama
club members.

"It was just everywhere," said Gina Cummings, a 2004 graduate of
Brockton High. "The thing that bothers me, it's such good kids, such
good families. ... I don't know what triggered them to try it or why,
but once they did, it was out of their hands."

One of Cummings' lifelong friends was her neighbor, Shannah, who
shepherded Cummings through her early days at Brockton High.

Cummings never used OC, but became overwhelmed by what she witnessed
among her peers.

She watched in horror as Shannah fell.

And fell fast.

Shannah slipped into addiction without realizing it -- like many OC users.

Soon, she would begin each day in pain, sweating, dealing with
diarrhea and leg cramps, vomiting -- the telltale signs of
withdrawal. But Shannah, like her friends, remained in denial -- she
could stop, she thought, if she wanted to.

Things escalated quickly.

Soon dreams of teaching and dancing dissipated, and her days
consisted of two things -- conceal the symptoms from her family, and
find more OC.

Like her friends.

"I used to be so dead sick," said Milton, who had to escape outdoors
each morning to avoid detection, even in winter. "I was out there
shoveling, sweating buckets. I was sick from withdrawal, and I was
out there shoveling just to fool my mother."

Although Shannah was one of the last to use OC in her group, she
became one of the first to move to heroin. It provided a similar
high, at a fraction of the cost.

Like OC, everyone knew where to find heroin. Just call this cell
phone number. Visit this parking lot. Or the restroom of one of the
city's fast-food restaurants, which the addicts came to call
"shooting galleries."

Also, you didn't have to inject it -- not at first. Dealers were
selling heroin strong enough to snort -- up to 70 percent pure.

No needles.

No pain.

No more obstacles.

Some addicts never used needles -- like Milton. But most followed the
natural progression. Their bodies, always seeking an improvement on
the last dose, demanded the quickest, most efficient delivery system
- -- intravenous injection. Usually in the forearm.

Shannah's thin veins proved elusive and, besides, it hurt. She used
the back of her hand, targeting the fleshy crook where her forefinger
and thumb meshed.

The repetition mottled the dancer's slender hand, creating a wound.
Few noticed the mark.

And no one noticed anything different about Shannah, even as the haze
of a heroin addiction covered her world -- and seeped into theirs.

Even when Shannah, a perpetual high-honors student, refused a college
scholarship in spring 2003, few suspected anything.

Wanting to stay near her suppliers and fellow heroin addicts, she
opted, instead, for Bridgewater State College. Nobody questioned the
girl who had always lived a clean life, and had just danced
brilliantly -- as usual -- in Brockton High's spring musical, "42nd Street."

"She was somebody you would least expect that (addiction) to happen
to," said Carol Thomas, a former Brockton High theater teacher who
directed the four school musicals Shannah performed in. "She always
seemed to have everything together. She was competent, creative and
wasn't anyone who ever was a problem."

Soon, however, there were overt signs -- the petite but robust blonde
began getting easily fatigued, dropping weight, and losing the curvy
body sculpted by years of dance.

People grew worried, but no one suspected drug use, never mind heroin
addiction -- not even her mother, a nurse.

"I figure myself as middle, upper class," said her mother. "It's
always been, you know, the people on the streets, or indigents.
That's the way you used to think of them. It was always, 'Oh my Page 9

God, not my kids.'"

By the time Shannah entered her freshman year at Bridgewater State in
September 2004, heroin controlled her. Her days at college dissolved
into a blur of redundancy. She and Milton, also attending the school,
would begin them parked in a corner of the main commuter lot, where
Shannah injected and Sarah inhaled the morning dose.

Between classes, they met again for an afternoon booster. At the end
of the day, before returning home, there would be a final fix -- to
stop the ever-worsening pain.

They never realized they were prolonging it.

Just a year after her first heroin high, Shannah had hit bottom.

Tired, often sick, and teetering on the edge of tragedy, she finally
turned to her mother for help, admitting her addiction. Her younger
brother, weeks earlier, had also told his mother of his drug use.
"When my son came out, I lost it," she said. "I totally lost it.
Shortly after that, Shannah said she had a problem. I went numb."
Days later, Shannah entered Westwood Lodge treatment hospital for two
weeks, where she received 24-hour care, psychiatric counseling and
endless support and guidance. Page 10 The day she left, she called
her contacts, made a short trip to Brockton, and used heroin again.

"She came home and said, 'I just used. I'm not done. I want to go
back in,'" said her mother, who brought her back to Westwood that same night.

Shannah stayed for another three weeks.

When she was released next time, her mother sent her to live with her
father and brother, who had moved to northern New Hampshire.

It was the move of a desperate family, a frantic parent, and for a
while it seemed to work.

Shannah stopped using for periods at a time, and the dancer gradually
regained some of her old form.

Shannah didn't like New Hampshire, and was often bored at the small
home in Albany. But she was reunited with her beloved brother, Danny.

"When I used to go up there to visit them," said her mother, "it was
like husband and wife. 'No, you have to do the dishes, you have to do
that.' It was kind of funny."

Both battled for sobriety -- Shannah began attending Narcotics
Anonymous meetings, and they started using a doctor-prescribed drug,
Suboxone, to ease the craving for heroin.

Soon, Shannah had a job, a routine that didn't include heroin, and a
new boyfriend -- a New Hampshire native who had never been involved with drugs.

"He didn't want her using, so he kept her clean," said her mother.
"She even told him he was her savior."

Only her brother knows if Shannah used heroin while there. But
everyone knew, or thought they knew, when Shannah finally stopped --
March 2005.

That's when she had big news for her friends and family -- she was
pregnant. She had stopped using drugs.

She was happy again -- and she was coming home.

Spring 2005 became a time of healing for Shannah's fractured family.
Back at her mother's Taunton home, she began preparing for motherhood
- -- she kept her doctor's appointments, began collecting baby items,
landed a job, and felt lucky to have a youthful mother to help. "We
were best friends. We talked about every thing," her mother said. "I
said, 'Shannah, any woman who is pregnant and uses dope should go to
jail.' We talked about it every day: 'What do you feel like. What are
you feeling?' 'Oh, I'm good, Mom. I'm clean. I'm having a baby. I'm happy.'"

Her best friend, Sarah Milton, had stopped snorting the drug a month
earlier. And Shannah, her boyfriend at her side, began preparing the
in-law apartment.

Soon, they considered names for their son, settling on Aiden.

Shannah's mother, now mindful of the drug's power, began monitoring
her daughter's movements -- inspecting her room, tracking her calls,
watching for the wound on the back of her hand.

Meanwhile, Shannah and Milton had reconnected. By now Milton -- who
had also been treated at Westwood Lodge -- had been heroin-free for two months.

The two were leading dramatically different lives than a year
earlier, and had reverted to what they had always done for fun --
listening to music, talking of boys and marriage, going to Nantasket Beach.

One day, however, while returning from a Saturday at Nantasket,
Milton sensed her friend -- now five months pregnant -- was uneasy,
even though Shannah had felt Aiden move for the first time that morning.

Finally, Shannah confessed -- someone they both knew came the night
before. Someone from the old Brockton neighborhood.

He brought heroin.

The devil had returned.

Milton brought Shannah home to Taunton by 4:30 Saturday afternoon --
she would never see her again.

"The last conversation I had with her was that she wasn't going to do
heroin again," said Milton, "because she wanted her baby."

Shannah joined her mother and new step-father, Joel, for dinner --
she was craving a Wendy's baked potato, which Joel went out and
bought. That night, June 11, 2005, Shannah sat with her mother on her
mom's bed, talking of the future, picking on the potato. Her
boyfriend had returned to New Hampshire for the weekend, giving the
mother and daughter time together. "She was happy," said her mother.
"She was home." Shannah soon left for her own bed, but later threw
up. For a moment, her mother considered the ugly possibility that
Shannah had relapsed.

"But she's saying, 'I'm pregnant, I'm throwing up,'" said her mother.
"But as soon as she finished throwing up, she was like, "'Save my
potato. I'm going to eat it.'"

Her fears allayed, her mother went to bed, woke as usual before
sunrise and left for her early-morning nursing shift. Joel had left
to do chores.

Neither worried about Shannah. After all, the last several weeks,
Shannah had often spent hours in her room lounging, watching TV,
working on her photo albums, talking to Aiden.

Her mother, on the way home Sunday afternoon, stopped in at the
Raynham pizza parlor where Shannah worked. But she hadn't shown up.

"So I came home and I yelled, 'Shannah!' She didn't answer, so I went
up to her room and that's when I found her."

Shannah lay dead on her bed, curled over her needles, which were in a
box decorated with tiny red hearts.

"I freaked," said her mother, crying. "I slapped her. I tried to
breathe for her. I knew she had been dead for hours. ... She was
stiff. I couldn't even unbend her -- here I am trying to breathe for her.

"I ran to my son's bedroom and yelled, 'Help.' It was awful. Awful. I
couldn't stop screaming. I thought it was a dream, and I'll never
forget it. I'm never going to forget that. I wish I could."

They held the wake four days later in Brockton, and hundreds of young
adults attended.

Shannah and Aiden were buried in the same casket, in a plot next to
her grandfather at Pine Hill Cemetery in West Bridgewater.

Her mother ordered a black granite headstone -- heart-shaped and
adorned with Shannah's image.

One day, she wrote her daughter and grandson a message in a large
notebook. She left the notebook, with a pen, in a plastic container
near the stone.

Others might want to leave notes as well, she thought.

They started coming a few weeks later. Teenagers. Young adults.

Friends of Shannah.

By the dozens.

Some came to pray for their fallen friend -- some to cry for her and Aiden.

Many came seeking help -- so many, that Shannah's mother had to add
two more notebooks. "I know you're living a better life than all of
us are now," wrote one girl. "I know you're watching over everyone."

Another addict wrote:

"I miss the old days when we only cared about going to the beach, and
what we were going to wear that day ... But I know you're with me
every day, and I know you're dancing in heaven."

Milton visits often, and writes a passage each month she stays off
heroin. She also thanks Shannah for guiding her out of addiction,
signing each page, "Love, your sister."

"I believe if Shannah hadn't passed away, I would have relapsed,"
said Milton. "I don't know why she died, but maybe it was to help me,
to help all of us. ... We needed help. We needed an angel. Now, we
have Shannah."

[Sidebar]

Heroin Info

What Heroin Does

Gives user a surge or euphoria, or "rush." Creates feeling of warmth
on skin, a dry mouth and heavy extremities. After the rush, users go
"on the nod," an alternately wakeful and drowsy state. Clouds mental
function. Depresses respiration. Can cause collapsed veins, infection
of the heart lining and valves, abscesses, and liver disease over
prolonged use. . Heroin slang

Big H, smack, hell dust: Heroin A-bomb: Marijuana mixed with heroin
Dragon rock: Heroin mixed with cocaine Nose drops: Liquified heroin
Signs of heroin addiction

Missing spoons, or burn marks on the bottom of spoons Belts with
teeth marks on them Powder on coins Itching Sweating Pinned pupils
Weight loss Dark eye circles Track, or needle marks Discarded
cigarette filters (used to filter the heroin) When you stop using heroin

Withdrawal symptoms can appear in a few hours. An addict can suffer
from vomiting, insomnia, muscle and bone pain, restlessness,
diarrhea, and cold flashes. Major symptoms peak between 48 and 72
hours after the last dose. Symptoms can subside after a week. People
in poor health can die.

[Sidebar]

Numbers

74: Deaths locally from opiate overdoses between Jan. 1, 2004 and
Aug. 31, 2006.

300: Members registered to support-group Learn to Cope's Web site.

4,434: People from region treated in emergency rooms for
opioid-related abuse from 2003-2005.

23: Average age of addicts who died from October through December 2006.