What's Your Story? Submitted Stories
A Father's Sorrow
I found out my son was on heroin in February of 2004. It was only six months later that my son, David, died of a heroin overdose on August 11, 2004. This is a father’s story of his struggle to save his son, his hopes, and the reality of heroin addiction. It is also a story about how naïve we, his parents, were about drug addiction. My wife and I never did drugs, so we weren’t exposed to this horror.
My son was never on the streets. He never stole from us and was never arrested. According to his friends, David started taking heroin in December of 2003. He was on it for less than a year.
At the time of his death, David was heading into his junior year as a business major at a university in California. David was born into a stable family. His mom and I had been married for 25 years, and maintained a middle class lifestyle. He had a good job as a cart attendant at the local country club, and was highly thought of as an individual.
David was diagnosed as bipolar around the age of 11. We had a hard time raising him, but we never gave up. We tried to bring him structure, but he was strong willed. According to his psychologist, he started smoking pot when he was 15. It was hard to see the signs of drugs because his regular personality always cycled between depression and over confidence.
Around the age of 17, David was a varsity wrestler for his high school’s team. At the time, David was hanging out with six friends that were four or five years older than him and addicted to heroin. They wanted David to join a local gym. As his parents, we thought this was a healthy thing. We never thought a gym was the den of iniquity that it turned out to be.
David and his friends’ road to heroin addiction started when a man named Scott befriended them at the gym. Scott* was a recovering heroin addict. However, he had a new temptation: shooting up steroids and taking Nubain to relax his muscles after working out. My son and his friends looked up to Scott. He persuaded my son to shoot up steroids to bulk up. David then graduated to Nubain to relax his muscles after working out.
In June of 2001, Scott died of a heroin overdose inside his car at a local gas station. It was all over the news, and my son’s name was mentioned in the newspaper article about Scott and the funeral. Scott had acted like an older brother to my son, even calling David to meet him at 2:30 in the afternoon the day he died.
During my son’s funeral, I learned that he had tried other drugs like ecstasy and cocaine, but only recreationally. In fact, his friends said that he was the last of them to go to drugs and to do heroin. How naive my wife and I were; we could not see the signs. By the time we caught him (our younger son alerted me), David was taking 5 balloons a day by injection. We immediately brought him to detox, and after detox we tried outpatient rehab. It did not work.
We then brought him to another rehab center, but my son was only there a week. He wanted out. While my son was at the center, an incident occurred where the recovering addicts had a food fight. The director called me at work and accused David of instigating the effort. It turned out he was not involved. Moreover, he met some addicts who told him where to get heroin in our area. Rehab is no Shangri-la. The reality is that there is no cure for heroin addiction, and you have to really want to get better. As a parent, you can't get better for your child.
For the next five months, my son struggled to stay clean! Ninety percent of heroin addicts relapse after rehab and 85% eventually die from this disease. Yes, it is a genetic disease. His psychiatrist says we are about 10 years away from a cure for addiction. The psychological part is where the cravings take their toll. My son had a great sponsor and went to Narcotics Anonymous meetings almost every night.
Then, just before he turned 21 on July 8, 2004, David stopped taking his medication (he was taking Naltrexone, Lamictal and BuSpar), and stopped seeing his psychologist and psychiatrist. He wanted to go to Las Vegas for his 21st Birthday. At first I said no. I knew he was going to drink and gamble. Finally, I gave in because, if we wouldn’t let him go, he was going to get depressed and go with his friends instead. We reserved two rooms for David and his friends at a hotel and they had the time of their life.
It was all downhill from there. His drinking increased, and one night, he even drove home drunk and knocked on the front door at 2:30 a.m.
The night of August 10th, David came home from work very upset at his mother and me. Using profanity, he told us he was moving out and did not care whether he died or not. Soon after he left the house.
The next day my wife got that dreaded call from the police that all parents fear: our son had died from an apparent drug overdose. David had checked into a room at a local motel and shot up what appeared to be heroin. The police found a partially used balloon of white powder, a syringe, one half of a Coke can, and a lighter.
We just received the Coroner’s report on my son and they declared his death as accidental due to heroin intoxication. He had five times the lethal dose of heroin in his blood. The lethal dose is 0.05 micrograms/milliliter of blood, and David had 0.25.
Our family was devastated. We loved him very much. It was a sad ending to an otherwise full life. David always lived on the edge. He lived recklessly but experienced many things in his short life of 21 years. We gave him a beautiful funeral that was attended by hundreds of people. David had a lot of friends. He just didn't realize it.
I want to share my story so you know that there are many parents out there who are suffering from this horrible disease.
God Bless.
Phil (David’s Dad)
* Scott’s name has been changed.
Phillip, California © 2006 The Brent Shapiro Foundation for Drug Awareness. All Rights Reserved.
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