WASHINGTON — Trish Glowacki describes her son Charlie as having been a “typical teen.”
But halfway through high school, she noticed a dramatic change in his behavior. Glowacki says her son wasn’t sleeping well; he was reclusive and alone in his room more than usual. His coloring was off, too, and his pupils were constricted.
“It all started to change after sophomore year in high school,” Glowacki says.
Charlie, who lived in Montgomery County, in Maryland, got caught with marijuana at school when he was 17. He was sentenced to a four-month rehabilitation program. After the program, he finished high school and attended college.
“He was doing well, or so we thought,” says Glowacki, who says that when she looks back, she can see signs that her son was using prescription painkillers too.
But Charlie’s struggle with drugs was just beginning. He was caught with marijuana paraphernalia and put on a six-month probation during his freshman year in college.
During his second semester, he was sentenced to 90 days in jail for running from police while high on synthetic marijuana. He attended rehab, this time in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and once again got his life back on track, enrolling in a local Jesuit college and living in a sober house.
“He was thrilled about that — so excited to be back on track in a very good college. Everything was looking up,” Glowacki says. “He had a lot of friends; the teachers loved him. But he had a slip-up.”
He was caught smoking pot by his sober-house manager and was sent to a new counselor.
“So he went to that counselor on Nov. 28, the Monday after Thanksgiving, and just had to tell his whole sad story again from the beginning — and that’s a lot. It was just too much for him,” said Glowacki with a noticeable tremble in her voice. “He went back to the OxyContin because that’s what he liked. He knew that it would make the pain go away; make everything better.”
Charlie was one week shy of his 21st birthday when he died from an OxyContin overdose.
The New Face of Heroin
Drug overdoses are prominent in news headlines, especially with the recent deaths of celebrities such as Philip Seymour Hoffman and Cory Monteith. But celebrities aren’t the only ones dying from overdoses.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that deaths involving painkillers are most common, but those from heroin overdoses have doubled in two years.
Lt. Ronald Smith, deputy director of the specialty investigations division for the Montgomery County police, says painkillers and heroin go hand-in-hand.
“Because of tighter restrictions placed on opioids, people are now turning to things like heroin, which is similar,” Smith says. “I think it’s just a trend and we’re seeing it nationally where people are going away from pills and they’re finding heroin provides a similar high and it’s cheaper and more readily available.”
In Virginia, more than 800 residents died from all types of overdoses in 2012 — 197 were from heroin. Maryland had a 33 percent increase in drug overdose deaths in the first quarter of 2014. Of the 252 drug overdose deaths from January to March, 148 were related to heroin.
“It’s a growing epidemic and it is scary. And if we don’t do something about it, the epidemic is going to get out of control,” Glowacki says. Heroin was not the drug of choice for her son Charlie; he had an easier time getting pills.
“It’s everywhere. It’s not the junkie on the street. It’s the upper-class mom who is at home shooting up; it’s a straight-A student; it’s a football player; it’s everybody and anybody — that’s the new face of heroin.”
And when that face is your child, confronting the realities of drug abuse is much scarier.
Parenting a Child With an Addiction
Jerry*, of Montgomery County, realized his drug addiction was spiraling out of control when he sold his laptop — a necessity for a student at the Art Institute of Philadelphia — in order to pay for drugs. A few years ago, he never thought he’d get to such a desperate point.
The 27-year-old experimented with painkillers and smoked pot socially in high school, but during a senior year beach trip, he tried something new — cocaine. Jerry said he was instantly hooked.
“You know, my friends were doing it and I tried it and pretty much loved it. I just liked the way it made me feel; it kept me up, I was more social and outgoing. I just thought it was for me,” he says. “I think I became addicted instantly, because like I said, I loved it.”
Jerry began using cocaine recreationally — on the weekends and out with friends. “I feel like I had control over it then, but later down the road it was controlling my life,” he says.
Jerry also used heroin frequently, but he always had a job, so paying for a weekend binge wasn’t too difficult.
“Eventually that went all out the window and I would spend my last dollar, so it just progressively got worse.”
That’s when he decided he needed help. Jerry picked up the phone and called his mother, Sally*.
“To me, that was the best thing he could have ever done. We just worked on it together and went and got the help that he needed,” says Sally, who admits the situation was “scary.” She contacted the county and enrolled Jerry in a rehabilitation program.
Jerry has been sober for more than two months. He’s living at home in Maryland and attends Narcotics Anonymous. He says he’s taking life “one day at a time,” but throughout the next few months, hopes to get his finances back on track and get back to work. He’s also sharing a message to anyone thinking about trying drugs.
“It’s all negative and nothing good comes from it,” he says. “Like I said, I got hooked the first time I tried cocaine, so just trying it could be your entire life down the drain.”
While Sally was quick to help her son, she says she was surprised to hear he was battling a drug addiction. Jerry’s best friend died four years ago from a heroin overdose, and Jerry even tried to help his friend kick the addiction.
“Anybody can hide an addiction. He went to school; he’s a good kid; he’s a loving kid; he went to church. Drugs don’t pick the person. You can go to Yale and end up in jail or you can go to Penn State and end up in the [penitentiary]. It doesn’t pick specific people. The drugs are out there and you just have to really say, ‘no.'”
Helping Others, Preventing Loss
It’s been three years since Glowacki, who now lives in Northwest D.C., lost Charlie to a drug overdose. Since, her mission has been to make sure it doesn’t happen to others.
“The only way I could get through my own personal pain was to learn everything I could about the disease that is addiction, and to try to do something to help other parents avoid the just horrible pain that my family’s had to endure,” she says.
Glowacki wrote and produced a film on teenage prescription drug use and abuse, called “Warning: Take Only As Directed.” The film takes a different approach to reaching teens, Glowacki says; it has what she describes as a “Glee” aspect to it, incorporating song and dance.
Glowacki hopes the film– which premieres at the AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center in Silver Spring, Maryland, on Nov. 5 — sparks a conversation in schools among peers, parents and teachers. More importantly, she hopes it prevents other young adults and their parents from falling victim to a brutal addiction.
“It’s shocking to think that our society has become such a hard place to live that people are in so much pain that they need to tune out, they need to turn off, they need to unwind. And the easiest way to do that is to take a prescription opioid, a painkiller … It’s sad.”
Watch the trailer for “Warning: Take Only As Directed”:
Inside “Warning: Take Only As Directed”:
