In the case of Jeremy, the barrier was poor choice of friends.
In the case of Kristina, it was a poor treatment approached. The focus was more on removing the pain than on the individual.
In the case of Abbey, it was a poor choice of friends, inadequate education about drug use as well as the easy access to drugs.
In the case of Chelsea, it was a poor choice of friends.
In the case of William, it was negative peer influence as well as the unwillingness by others to speak up.
Explanation:
Case 1: True Story: Jeremy B.
I grew up in South Jersey around a bunch of punk rock kids who spent their time skateboarding and going to local shows in Philadelphia. We smoked weed, drank a lot, got in to fights, and chased around all the little punk rock girls. I started making art, playing music, and got heavily involved in the scene. As I continued to experiment with different drugs with my friends and bandmates, my shift slowly drifted away from creativity and having fun, to focusing on nothing else but how messed up could I get in a night. I had no idea the kind of fire I was playing with; I really thought I was just a kid having fun.
At some point I crossed a very serious line. I was doing hard drugs like heroin and completely lost touch with the passionate, outgoing kid I knew just years before.
Case 2: True Story: Kristina
My drug use started when I was in high school, with pain pills that I was prescribed to after I injured my back at a track meet. After my injury, I lost the opportunity to get a scholarship, that was offered to me. It wasn’t long before I became dependent on the pain medication and then developed a high tolerance. Each time I went to my pain management doctor I was given something stronger. Eventually the pills no longer had the same effect on me, I started experimenting with other drugs and was shown how to shoot up the OxyContin up at the age of 23. It was game over from that day forward. Eventually when the OxyContin became too expensive, I was introduced to heroin which was cheaper and easier to get, I would find myself many times doing whatever it took to get my next high.
Case 3: Abbey Zorzi, 22
Like any teenager, I wanted to fit in with kids my age. Going to parties and drinking alcohol was the norm in high school. I didn’t think alcohol was a problem. Life continued to go on as I drank it away.
When I had my wisdom teeth removed as a sophomore in high school, the doctor prescribed Vicodin for the pain. I didn’t know much about drug addiction or what drugs could do to a person’s body. I took more Vicodin than the doctor prescribed. I went through two bottles of the stuff in just one week. When I ran out, I started to have frequent headaches and cravings. Friends of mine told me where I could buy narcotics so I wouldn’t have to keep going through withdrawal. I started to buy Vicodin off the streets. As my tolerance for the Vicodin increased, I needed more and more to get the effect I wanted. I started to use stronger narcotics such as Percocet, OxyContin, Opana, and Morphine. When the pills on the street became too expensive, heroin became a viable option. Once that drug was in me, it told me what to do. I didn’t take heroin; heroin took me.
Case 4: Chelsea Marie Heptig, 17, Ecstasy
Written by Chelsea's mother, Debi Heptig
My beloved daughter, Chelsea Marie Heptig, died on May 3, 2002 at 8:50am. She was two weeks shy of her senior prom, one month shy of her 18th birthday, and 7 weeks away from high school graduation. She was my very best friend.
On April 26, 2002 she had an argument with her boyfriend and went to talk to a friend who gave her ecstasy. I got a call from the police that she was in the hospital from a drug overdose and arrived to find her unconscious and having powerful seizures. It was horrific! They induced a coma to stop the seizures.
She never came out of the coma...instead her internal organs stopped functioning...one by one.
We took her off life support ...she breathed for 8 minutes and died at 8:50am.
Case 5: William “Will” Christian Doerhoff, 20, Arkansas, Prescription Drugs and Heroin
During his first year at the University of Arkansas, fall 2014, Will decided to join a fraternity. While he was pledging, he started drinking and using prescription drugs. An older member of the fraternity introduced him to injecting and smoking the pills and by the end of his first year in college, he was deep into addiction.
Will, like many people addicted to prescription pills, started using heroin. During his summer break in 2015, his mother found him facedown in his bedroom. He had overdosed on heroin.
After many months in recovery, Will relapsed and died after a heroin overdose in October 2016 – a little bit more than two years after he started college. He was 20 years old.
After Will’s death, texts in his phone indicated that his drug use was well-known amongst his college peers. But no one confronted Will – either because they were scared or did not know what to do.
