The opioid epidemic brings pain -- but also poems, events, podcasts

Share your story on the opioid epidemic

Reporter Rich Lord and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette want to hear how your family has been affected by the opioid epidemic. Your responses will be considered for publication. Email rlord@post-gazette.com with any questions or concerns you might have before sharing your stories.

×

Touched by heroin as a teen, helping others in recovery

It wasn't supposed to be me, the girl who, from a very young age, wanted to help others who were on drugs.

I was 13 years old when I was first involved in opiates. I wasn't taking it, but my boyfriend — who was my best friend and my world at that time — was only 13 and addicted to heroin. At the time, I didn't realize the severity of this drug, until the day the cops raided his family's house in Highland Park. You may have seen it on the news or in this very paper. I think it was front page news because one of the officers who first encountered my 13-year-old boyfriend was shocked at this kid with track marks all over his arms. I was with him every day, except that one. It felt like my life was over and all these secrets that I didn't know were secrets came out. I swore I would never do drugs like that ... ever. Yet here I am.

Many years later, and after helping several friends to get clean, I went down this dark path. I was prescribed Vicodin for my cramps and at the same time my dad was diagnosed with esophageal cancer. This is a perfect storm for drug abuse. Watching someone you love die right in front of your eyes, helpless to stop it, is devastating. The day I discovered that this pill made some of that pain subside was the beginning of a war in my brain — a soul crushing war.

It started with Vicodin, but then that wasn't enough. I went to Percocet 30s — a lot of them, up to 20 a day.

I did everything to hide it. I lied over and over to people. I loved to conceal that I was a junkie. I didn't want the shameful, disappointed looks, or to burden them with knowing that I was probably going to die. I didn't want them worried 24/7 and ruining their lives.

It kills you to lie, steal and treat people you love like that, and that makes you want to get high even more. Maybe it seems like addicts don't care. They do, but that fear of getting sick and being in your own head takes precedence over that. It makes you someone else, or more like nothing. You're an empty shell of your former self. You think of yourself as just taking up space and feel that people would be better off if you were dead.

These feelings are fueled by people who know you, and some who don't — all saying the same thing. Comments made by people in my life and on social media made me want to speak about it and open up. I no longer care if I'm judged after seeing the vile comments spewed from people who obviously know nothing about addicts.

It still blows my mind that a lot of people refuse to acknowledge that this could happen — or may already be happening — to someone they care about. It's an everyone problem now and people need to snap out of the denial and start talking about this without judgment and hate.

So many times, I heard, "You're too pretty to be a junkie," or "You don't look like a junkie." I realized that if something didn't change, I was going to be one of those junkies that I didn't want to be, and everyone would look at me like, "What happened to her?" I didn't want to live a life like that. So I moved in with a friend who helped me to quit.

I made a YouTube video basically coming out about my addiction. I just wanted others to not feel alone. After posting it I've already reached out and helped a few people to get help, to get their lives back.

If one person is helped, that's all I care about. I've been there, and thought, "I'm never going to get out, I'm never going to have my family want to be around me and have the relationships I once had with them." But I got out, and if I can, you definitely can, too. There's always more to someone than their addiction. To the families dealing with addiction, and on behalf of most addicts, I'm saying, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry for hurting you, I'm sorry for letting you down." To get back to you, we just need a little help, so don't give up on us.

Submitted by Leeann Logue, McCandless

Close story

×

An overdose, a broken heart, and a scholarship fund

I watched my son, Collin Gregory Seagriff, slowly slip from a happy, spirit-filled boy of 12 to a shadow of a man at 22. From his first use of marijuana at age 12 to his last needle of fentanyl/morphine and everything in between, I knew that there were only two ways to go: "Momma, I'm ready to get some help," or the dreaded phone call that my beautiful boy was gone.

Unfortunately for my family, the call came in the night before Thanksgiving 2016. An acquaintance tried CPR, and medics and hospital staff had worked on him for 45 minutes, but could not save him, we were told. The caller added that they were so very sorry for my loss.

He was in Florida at the time living with his girlfriend. We dealt with the medical examiner, funeral director in Florida, flying his body home, funeral director in Pennsylvania, funeral arrangements, buying him clothes because he came to us naked.

Next came a procession of young people who I'd watched grow up, a few of whom I know were high. One of the families that came to Collin's viewing lost their own child just days after I lost mine. I mean, it just didn't end for what seemed forever! My mind was a mess inside but outwardly I appeared to have it all together.

We had friends stay with us from out of town and they were a great comfort to me. Not so much for my husband! He hated it.

After all of that, it all ended -- the support, the family, the love....all of it! I was left alone to grieve for my son, without a clue what to do.

To top it off, two days after Collin's death, I got a call that his fiance was pregnant.

So I did the only thing that I know how to: I went all in.

I spoke at our local high school. I spoke to anyone who would listen. I took a recovery coaching class with Lost Dreams Awakening in New Kensington, and got certified. Coaching isn't about doing it for them. It's about helping them find their own path to recovery. My door is always open for anyone who needs and wants help.

I filled my cup so that I could fill others, and try to stop the stigma so not one more Momma had to feel what I was feeling. It's not an easy thing that has been put upon my heart. Not everyone believes that addiction is a disease.

Watching my children suffer the loss of their brother was probably more painful than my own loss. I could not heal their pain. I could not fix it for them. A student at school told my daughter to go die and be with her dead addict brother in hell. That's a whole new level of bullying! That was hard for us to deal with. It still is. The domino effect of my son's addiction is still going on in my children's lives.

Through all of this, love still remains! I love my five children, including Collin, with everything I have. That will always be. Once you lose a child, watch them slowly kill themselves for four years, you learn that the love doesn't die with them.

We are now raising our grandson and fighting for legal custody. It will be a long and costly legal battle, but worth every penny that we don't have. There are no rights for grandparents. That's a whole other sad story in and of itself. We shouldn't have to fight to save another life -- that of an innocent child.

My story, Collin's story, is one of love, of life, of never giving up! Never giving in! We spoke often and with love. He didn't leave this Earth not knowing that he was loved, though I know that deep inside he felt like he was only loved and accepted at the highest, unconditional level by his siblings and by me. How sad that this world is so unforgiving, unaccepting.

My purpose is to share his love and light every single chance I get! Speak his name. He wasn't just another addict, another junkie. God I hate that word! He was my son. A man. A Daddy who never got to meet his son. A brother. A grandson. A nephew. A friend. A great boyfriend who was soon to be a husband.

His name was Collin Gregory Seagriff, born September 15, 1994, died much too soon November 23, 2016, never to be forgotten.

Submitted by JoLynn Seagriff, Sarver.

Close story

×

An overdose, a broken heart, and a scholarship fund

I recently started a scholarship fund in memory of my sister, Lori Rollin, and our dad, Albert Rollin. I consider both to be victims of the opioid epidemic.

My father and sister were both proud Baldwin High School graduates. My sister went on to get a bachelor’s and master’s in Physician Assistant Studies at Chatham University. She worked in interventional radiology and liver transplantation until around 2008.

Around 2006, my sister was diagnosed with compartment syndrome in her legs. She had been suffering for a few years with pain and swelling in her legs for which the doctors prescribed Vicodin. Within a year or so she became addicted. She had surgery done to relieve the syndrome but it was too late — she was already addicted.

The doctors continued to prescribe her painkillers after her surgery but abruptly stopped around 2009 or 2010. Since she could no longer get prescriptions for Vicodin, she turned to a much stronger and cheaper alternative: heroin. At this time she met a former drug user who had “all the right connections” and her addiction grew worse. She stole money and anything that wasn’t nailed down from my parents and even went as far as stealing my great grandmother's heirloom silverware to pawn.

By the beginning of 2013 she basically hit rock bottom. Unable to find any sort of employment and with her fiancé in jail, she moved back in with my parents. She went through horrible withdrawal while at home and when the worst was over my mother convinced her to try to go to an outpatient rehab.

Unfortunately, my sister’s addiction was so bad that an outpatient rehab would not be sufficient. My mother tried to convince her to go to an inpatient facility, but my sister was worried that future employers would find out about her rehab and would never hire her. She was so sick and so addicted, but the one thing she never lost sight of was the potential that she might someday work as a physician's assistant again.

On April 22, 2013, my sister, a few days clean, passed away from fentanyl-laced heroin. My dad found her lifeless on the floor of her childhood bedroom and, as he described her, purple. My dad, a former volunteer paramedic with Baldwin Borough, administered CPR while waiting for the police and ambulance. They arrived and continued life-saving measures. Lori was taken to Jefferson Hospital where, after attempts at reviving her, she was pronounced dead.

I sang at her funeral, a song that as children we sang together at the church choir: On Eagle’s Wings. It was, I thought, the last thing I could do for her. I was wrong.

In February 2015, my dad passed away. Everyone said he died “from a broken heart.” He never recovered after finding his daughter in her bedroom in 2013. He went to many support groups, sought counseling, but nothing helped. As he put it to me one day on the phone, "I don’t want to die, but I don’t want to live."

After my dad passed away I began thinking of a way to have both his and my sister’s memories live on. The one thing they were both so proud of was being from Baldwin. So, with my mom’s help, we came up with the idea of a scholarship.

My family and I will give out the Albert and Lori Rollin Memorial Scholarship on a yearly basis. The first scholarship will be presented to a Baldwin High School senior in the spring of 2019.

Any Baldwin High School Senior can apply, and the only requirement is that they write an essay about addiction. My family and I will read the submissions and pick a winner. The scholarship will be at least $1,000 donated personally by my husband and me, plus additional funds that are raised through a Go Fund Me page.

Our hope is to raise awareness of the opioid epidemic and to educate the public. We feel that if the stigma attached to addiction, especially heroin addiction, didn’t exist, then my sister may have gone to inpatient treatment and would be alive today.

Submitted by Lisa Rollin Bilger, East Northport, N.Y., formerly of Baldwin Borough

Close story

×

Running for a solution

Dave Zamule, of Oakdale, overdosed from heroin one year ago at age 33. We are Dave’s loving family.

During his teenage years Dave was an Honor Roll student, ran track and cross country, earned a black belt in karate, played baseball, participated in school musicals and triathlons, and loved to bike, ski and snowboard. He worked part time, saved and bought a car. During college he worked as a lifeguard and graduated from the University of Pittsburgh with a marketing and business degree. He was funny, kind and perceptive with an amazing ability in math and statistics. Dave always had a job related to his degree but would switch jobs about every other year for a “better offer.”

Dave’s addiction began in his late 20s, and he was able to hide it for years. We, his family — his mother and father, sister and step mom — didn’t realize that Dave had an opioid problem until he was 31. All have regrets that they didn’t recognize the signs of addiction. It wasn’t until we found a needle and a stamp bag that we faced the truth and helped guide Dave into a treatment program.

Dave said he started using opioids to cope with a stressful sales job a few years after graduating from college. When his little girl Evie was born in 2016, he tried even harder to get and stay clean.

At age 31 Dave checked himself into a rehab facility and convinced his family, counselors, and himself that he was “doing OK.” There were relapses in his recovery for two years. In the last 6 months of his life, he was in a highly-rated recovery program that seemed to be working: monthly Vivitrol shots with bi-weekly counseling. Continuing his work to support his new family was very important to Dave.

On May 27, 2017, the first time that Dave used again after six months of sobriety, he overdosed from a deadly heroin and fentanyl mix.

At Dave’s viewing in May 2017, many guests began sharing stories they had never told before, stories of addicted friends and family members. The stigma that goes with the words “heroin addiction” prevents families from talking, educating themselves and seeking help.

In the past year since Dave’s death we read and hear about the opioid epidemic on a daily basis. We continue to see the phrase “died suddenly” in the obituaries of young adults. Our immediate family struggled with acknowledging his addiction in Dave’s public obituary, but in the end we agreed to use the words “heroin overdose” in an attempt to open the conversation about his disease.

We think the solution is education in schools and education of parents. Children must learn that self-medicating for anxiety or despair is a dangerous path.

We decided to harness our grief and honor Dave by organizing and promoting a 5k event.

The family is holding a 5k run/walk to help stem the opioid epidemic in his memory. You can sign up at getmeregistered.com. The 5K event is in Oakdale, on the Panhandle Trail, starting at 9 a.m. Same day registration starts at 8 a.m. and ends at 8:30.

Proceeds will benefit Power Forward with Familylinks, a partnership between former Penguins star Kevin Stevens, his Power Forward Foundation and Pittsburgh-based Familylinks, a leading nonprofit provider of opioid prevention and education programs.

Submitted by Leslie Evans, of Mt. Lebanon (Dave’s stepmother) and Liz Zamule Bruner, of Oakdale (Dave’s mother)

Close story

×

Podcasting for people with addicted parents

Photo by José A. Giralt

I grew up in an addicted family in Pittsburgh. Even though I am a journalist, a graduate student, and in my 30s now, I identify most as a daughter of addicts.

Most of the addicts in my family struggle with multiple substances — alcohol, drugs, gambling — but two members of my family have been dependent on opioids off and on for many years.

Both of those members have nearly died a number of times: One close relative's heart stopped and he had to be resuscitated by paramedics at least once. He contracted hepatitis C. He nearly lost his arm to an infection on another occasion. He continued to keep using after these incidents.

Our family's story is pretty quintessential. Members had long, documented medical histories of severe addiction, but all of them first got hooked on opioids when physicians prescribed them in the early days of the epidemic. It was obviously a mistake to prescribe opioids to them, and it opened up a whole new level of hell for my family.

Dealing with their addictions and the reactions of non-addicted family members since childhood still has a massive impact on me, even though I barely speak to many of them. I was diagnosed with PTSD as an adult, and I know it has to do with the chaos and violence I dealt with as a kid.

It seems like in the wake of America’s current opioid crisis, more children than ever are growing up touched by the tragedies of addiction. But it’s really nothing new. From the crack epidemic in the 1980s back to the opium wars of the 19th century, history shows us addiction is a plague as old as civilization and countless generations have come of age in its tall shadow.

That’s one reason why I launched a pilot for a podcast with other episodes in production. On This House Too I interview other adults whose parents were addicted to drugs. We talk about the meaning they have made from their upbringings and what we can offer today's children and their caregivers. I believe that while there is nothing we can do to change people’s addictions, our experiences can offer hope and company.

My research has led me to conclude that the impact of addictive upbringings on individuals and populations is massive and intersects with culture, religion, race, class, gender, sexual orientation, and historical era to shape the landscape of their lives. And I believe this population has a special take on what it means to be human and valuable insights into current events.

Some people I have interviewed are public figures, but most are everyday, anonymous citizens. Some are black, others are white. Some are the children of immigrants, others’ parents were born here in the U.S. Some were city kids, others grew up in rural areas. But what they all have in common is the trauma that persists long after the end of the violence, betrayal, and deprivation that are almost universal when a caregiver is incapacitated by addiction.

One man I interviewed said that preparing for war during Marine Corps basic training at Parris Island – a place infamous for its harsh conditions – was actually a breeze compared to the fear and abuse he experienced living with his addicted parents. He found himself being promoted to squad leader in a matter of weeks for his ability to function easily under extremely stressful conditions.

To me, this demonstrates that even after growing up and leaving home, children of the opioid epidemic will still be affected by it. As a friend of mine recently said, even if the epidemic gets solved tomorrow, the damage to these kids and families will take years to understand.

Submitted by Virginia Jeffries, Manhattan, N.Y.

Close story

×

A warning from the inside

My story is somewhat different from the stories of the Ashbaugh family, and many others that got caught up in the get-rich-quick scheme of selling drugs for money.

From 2nd or 3rd grade on up, my friends and I were little baseball and basketball players, little cheerleaders and dancers. We went to church together. Sunday school. Sleepover birthday parties. Camp outs. We rode bikes all day every day in the summer. Growing up we sneaked a beer here and there and smoked marijuana when someone had it, got in a lot of trouble when caught, and got grounded when we abused it. But when we were all about 15 years old, one of our friends was murdered and then another one died in a car accident coming home from the wave pool. This was when the ride got to the top.

Our large circle of friends started reaching out for anything then. Parents with prescriptions were our first target and then when we got hurt, stitches, etc., we were even prescribed Vicodin, Valium, and we started using prescription pills on a daily basis after that. Oxycontin, Vicodin, Xanax: Some were stolen, some bought online. Then once we all got strung out, slowly each one of us turned to heroin. The pills got too expensive and harder to get. Heroin was offered in powder form first, “no big deal, just snort it like cocaine, you can’t get addicted unless you shoot up.” Lies!

In just a few months we started shooting up and getting it ourselves from the city. Hiding and lying to our parents. We were even robbed one time at gun point and had a literal shootout in the middle of Aliquippa with one of our girlfriends getting kidnapped. Our parents were upper-middle-class elite in town, and their kids were full blown heroin addicts, needles, tie offs, blood. We went from baseball and basketball, family vacations, mom’s pancakes on Saturday mornings after a camp out, church ….to full-blown, nodding, slobbering junkies. Robbers. Gun-carrying drug dealers, whose only goal was to make enough money to live on and get high. We were the people our parents saw on TV on the news, and we hid it very, very well.

Me? I refused to go back home. I lived from house to house. My parents had no idea where I was, and I met my first heroin connect so I could start dealing in large amounts to support my habit.

I remember waking up to another man in my cell saying, “I thought you were dead,” when I was first brought in. Then, when I realized where I was, I thought to myself:

Last night wasn’t a dream.

That really happened.

I killed one of my best friends.

Over heroin..

We fought.

He was so sick.

I didn’t have any.

I was in a panic, dope sick, couldn’t eat for days, inmates around me that I didn’t know. It’s your worst nightmare, the worst thing you could ever imagine. And you have to go from that immediately into a gladiator mode to save your life from other inmates.

The reason why I am writing my books is to focus on this horrific epidemic and what happens after your run ends, and you’re sent to prison. It’s not just incarceration, it’s what incarceration brings: The mental anguish, the utter sadness, the loneliness, the deterioration of your mental health. All the while never seeing your family again. Oh! And don’t let me forget the drug epidemic in the prison! I’ve seen inmates so high crawling in from the yard. I’ve seen people die in their cell from overdosing. Inmates prostitute themselves for drugs.

My book of poems, Cuzzo’s Conflicted Conscience, Volume 1, shows you where incarceration took me outside of serving time. One of the poems in my book describes what I did, what happened and how I got here. I really want to warn everyone to get help, when so much help is offered on the outside.

I pray for all of the addicted and the families of the addicted. You must ask for help! Do not come here, when you have so much support to help you become healthy again, and whole again. Reach out to your family, your church, your doctor, use what they have readily available to help you.

Submitted by Eric Arlen Costo, originally of Hopewell, now in the State Correctional Institution Retreat in Hunlock Creek, Pa., serving 5 to 11 years on charges including involuntary manslaughter, via his mother, Marcy Marie Asvestas, of Tampa, Fla.

Close story

×