nj.com: What 3 people battling heroin addiction say about drugs, cops, and dying
3/23/2018
EDITOR'S NOTE: The names of some of the persons interviewed have been changed to encourage openness in sharing their stories.
It's one thing to know the opioid epidemic exists. And to know how bad it is. To hear statistics, like the number of heroin-related overdose deaths nationwide has more than quadrupled since 2010, and to recognize that that's a problem.
But it's different to see it up close, on the face of someone who doesn't want to stop using, or on another who gave it up and is trying to get her life back together.
NJ Advance Media spent two days on a ride-along with the Bergen County Prosecutor’s office, during which people in various stages of addiction and recovery shared their stories.
A reporter and photographer documented the county's Operation Helping Hand week-long program where drug treatment is offered to Bergen County residents who were caught making transactions in open-air drug markets in nearby areas. It's a program that Attorney General Gurbir Grewal wants to take statewide.
Here's what we saw:
Some people don’t want help.
Ethan, a 32-year-old, originally from Lyndhurst, has been homeless for about five years and typically sleeps on a covered porch of a boarded up home in Paterson.
He talks candidly about his drug use, sitting on top of a blanket he and his girlfriend -- who is lying on her side with her back to us as we talk -- use as a mattress.
He started using Percocet about 11 years ago to combat pain from a shoulder injury, got hooked on the high and switched to heroin after a while.
“It’s a shitty life, but it’s not easy to stop getting high,” Ethan says.
He speaks clearly and eloquently, but any emotion he might feel in reaction to what he's saying doesn't seem to reach his bright blue eyes.
“Addiction is crazy, crazy, crazy,” he says, as he trails off and stares off into the distance.
He has a 2-year-old daughter who lives in Clifton with a family member -- a fact he shares as frankly as he admits that he uses about 10 bags of heroin a day. The pathway to his bed on the covered porch is littered with drug use -- orange needle caps and empty baggies.
He sleeps there under a few thin blankets with his girlfriend, who is also addicted to heroin. They each keep their hood, hat and coats on, most of their bodies disappearing under the covers even as the sun comes up and shines.
They sleep steps from where Ethan spends time panhandling for money to fund his addiction.
He makes $20 to $100 every day, and at $3 a bag for heroin, that can go far.
Crime is also an issue.
Ethan recalls that a few weeks ago, he was walking around at 2 a.m. when about 10 kids jumped him. They took the money he had, and left a bruise on his eye that was still healing.
But if he would've had any drugs on him, "they would've snatched that too," he says.
He has tried to get sober before. “It goes OK for a while, but you end up right back where you started,” he says.
Ethan has also considered going into the homeless shelter, he says, but it requires them to not bring any drugs in with them or use. That has kept him away, sleeping on the porch under plunging temperatures. He lives next door to a home where a child played on the front porch last Wednesday as adults around her cleaned.
“Come on brother, this isn’t a life,” Sgt. Jason Hornstra, an officer with Operation Helping Hand, urges him.
“Definitely not,” Ethan says, staying put on the porch.
Stephanie (not pictured) was a teacher with two master’s degrees. She had never been arrested before when she was brought in during Operation Helping Hand about six months ago.
Her drug use, she says, started in the early 2000s when she first had a string of surgeries in her early 20s that put her on an “absurd amount of painkillers” with a "ridiculous amount of leftovers."
It was then that she realized she enjoyed pills “a little too much,” Stephanie says.
She started dating a man, a drug user, and began taking pills with him. At first, it started by taking pills every other week, then every week, then every day. She realized she needed to get clean and admitted herself into, and completed, a rehab program in Florida.
When she got home, she got back to work, got pregnant, had a baby and had a “decent amount of clean time.” But, she turned to pills again after a stressful year. She had been using them for about five months when she was laid off from her job as a teacher in New Jersey.
"Stress is a big trigger for me," Stephanie says.
But pills are expensive. And, at 10 pills, she was blowing about $300 every day, $30 a day was a lot cheaper.
She knew what she was taking with pills — she knew exactly what she was ingesting. With heroin, you never know what it could be laced with.
“I hated heroin. Unfortunately, that’s not what I wanted to do,” Stephanie says. “But I didn’t want to get sick.”
She had to take care of her son, she had to get up and make him food and function. She needed the heroin, she explains. She never injected it into her veins, she says, only sniffed it. And while others, she says, used it seemingly on a suicide mission, that was never her.
"In order to have fun, and to feed my child, I would use to get back to normal and not feel like shit," she says. "I have a child, I'm not trying to die."
Her dependance on heroin lasted about seven months.
She had just moved into a new apartment and had the cable guy there in the middle of an installation. But he was taking too long and she needed a fix. Her regular drug providers were away and wouldn’t be available later in the day and her mom wasn’t around to watch her 4-year-old.
She decided, telling the cable guy she’d be right back, that she’d run into Paterson and make the purchase. She took her son with her.
Rolling down her window, the dealer approached her car and gave her a bundle (10 bags). She handed back $30 and put it in her wristlet, zipping it up and putting it under her seat where her son couldn’t get to it. She drove off, stopping for a coffee for herself and a donut for her son at Dunkin’ Donuts.
As soon as she re-entered Bergen County, officers in the unmarked car behind her put their lights on and pulled her over.
She says she was scared, shocked, nervous, and at the same time, relieved.
Stephanie says it’s the people, like Sgt. Jen (Sgt. Jennifer Rueda, right), and Connie, who got her into recovery.
That day, six months ago, when officers brought her in for processing, she sat down with counselors and they explained to her the detox and rehab programs they could provide.
She was starting to withdraw and was feeling something similar to, "the worst possible flu you could imagine." She was hot, then cold, weak, nauseated.
Constance "Connie" Rizzo, a recovery specialist, sat and talked with her and got her cigarettes to calm her down. Rizzo has stayed close with Stephanie in her recovery.
“She was rescued,” Rizzo says. “She wouldn’t have done it on her own.”
Rizzo later visited Stephanie while she was going through detox, bringing her new clothes, makeup and magazines.
“A lot of people were pulling for me and believed in me,” Stephanie says. “They make you feel good about what you’re doing. That meant a lot to me because you might have someone in your family who doesn’t.”
Stephanie, now 39 and originally from the Hackensack area, has spent the last six months getting clean, diligently attending her rehab programs, working enough to get a car and put the pieces back together.
“Obviously, I wish it hadn’t gone down the way it did, but I’m so grateful for it,” Stephanie says.
Ultimately, she pleaded guilty to an amended charge of possession of narcotics paraphernalia instead of an indictable, third-degree possession charge. She was fined and got one year of probation.
Next on her list is to obtain housing, get her son back and hopefully start working in the recovery field. Her son knows that his mommy was sick and went to the hospital to get better. Someday, she'll probably tell him the story, she says.
Despite the resolution of her legal issues, she probably won't be back in the classroom. "I believe I lost my passion for teaching," Stephanie says. "Maybe my purpose here is to help others through addiction."
Juan is an example of what experts say is a common behavior among those addicted to drugs -- making excuses for not getting help.
He has arthritis in his back and is missing the bottom half of his left leg. He tells Hornstra, who has pulled over on a Paterson street to talk to him, he’s afraid to stop using heroin or enter a drug treatment program because of the pain he knows will meet him on the other side.
Hornstra says he’s arrested this man three times.
Juan is excited to see him and he reaches through the passenger-side window to shake Hornstra’s hand and share a bit of news.
“The beautiful thing is I stopped smoking crack,” Juan tells him.
But still on heroin, about 10 bags a day.
“I told you, I want to get you help,” Hornstra says, “You’ll go tomorrow if I get you in?”
Juan says yes, if there’s a doctor or medical staff that can help control his pain.
“I’ll go, I swear to God I’ll go,” Juan says on Tuesday, before exchanging phone numbers, as they had done before, the last time Hornstra offered him help.
Operation Helping Hand works like this: Detectives with the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office and officers with local law enforcement patrol areas with known open-air drug markets outside of the county, such as in Paterson, Newark and Passaic.
They wait and watch until they catch someone purchasing drugs, verify that his or her vehicle is registered to Bergen County, then follow the car back into the county, pull them over and bring them in for processing.
After they've been processed, they’ll sit down with clinical professionals and recovery specialists who will talk them through detox or rehab options and ask if they’re willing to accept help for their addiction.
“It’s a really good segue into treatment,” Sue A. Marchese-Debiak, program coordinator for the county’s Office of Alcohol & Drug Dependency, said.
Marchese-Debiak's team, which is constantly applying and receiving grants to fund its programs, will work with them to provide county-sponsored detox for free and beds are made available specifically for this week-long program at New Hope and New Bridge Medical Center.
They tell them they can do it. They tell them they’re worth it.
“You can’t shame somebody into recovery, you have to empower them,” Ben Kimmel, a recovery specialist, said.
And if they don’t want to enter treatment that day, but give their contact information, officials will follow up with them in the coming days, weeks and months to see if they are ready.
“We’re attacking this fight from literally every angle 'cause that’s the only way we’re gonna win,” Kimmel said.
If they do accept help, their charges aren’t dropped, but that effort will be shared with his or her sentencing judge, Elizabeth Rebein, chief of the community affairs unit in the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office, said.
There were 38 arrests made last week during this fourth iteration of Operation Helping Hand. Andy, from Elmwood Park, (pictured) was arrested twice. He was first pulled over on Tuesday in his hometown after he was seen purchasing drugs.
Officers found him with a car seat and children’s book in the back as well as heroin and crack cocaine (used together to maintain the high). Andy lives with his girlfriend and five-year-old, he told police.
He was arrested again on Wednesday and was taken to a detox program at New Bridge. But, he soon left the hospital. He was to go back this Monday. Of the 37 people arrested last week, one went through detox, 11 went through detox and proceeded with treatment, seven received treatment only.
Only two refused any sort of treatment or follow-up and 16 agreed to share their contact information for further contact with recovery specialists.
Operation Helping Hand was previously developed under then-Bergen County Prosecutor Gurbir Grewal. Now, as attorney general, he's working with at least six other county prosecutors to develop a statewide Operation Helping Hand this summer, he said in a statement.
"You cannot arrest a disease," Grewal said in the statement. "... By bringing together law enforcement officers, social workers, treatment providers, and recovery specialists under one roof, we can work together to offer low-level drug offenders, who are suffering from the disease of addiction, real treatment and recovery options."
Last week, representatives from the prosecutor's offices from Union and Morris counties rode along to see how Bergen County does it. In a snapshot, here's what Bergen is up against: In 2017, (pending medical examiner's final ruling), there were 131 fatalities, 507 overdoses and 245 Narcan saves by local law enforcement in Bergen County alone. By the beginning of March 2018, there were 13 fatalities, 92 overdoses and 52 Narcan saves by local law enforcement.
The county prosecutor's office offers programs to educate high school students on drug use and addiction, walk-in hours at police stations where drug users can turn in their drugs and get help as well as a response team that will meet with a person who has had a Narcan reversal to talk treatment options.
As someone who fought it and has come out on the other side, Stephanie has some advice.
To the "addicts," “Know that you’re worth it and give yourself a chance. Anyone can do recovery if they use the resources that are provided.” And to the "non-addicts," “It doesn’t matter if you’re from Park Ave. or park bench, addiction can touch everyone. Don’t be so judgmental.”
He was arrested again on Wednesday and was taken to a detox program at New Bridge. But, he soon left the hospital. He was to go back this Monday. Of the 37 people arrested last week, one went through detox, 11 went through detox and proceeded with treatment, seven received treatment only.
Only two refused any sort of treatment or follow-up and 16 agreed to share their contact information for further contact with recovery specialists.
Operation Helping Hand was previously developed under then-Bergen County Prosecutor Gurbir Grewal. Now, as attorney general, he's working with at least six other county prosecutors to develop a statewide Operation Helping Hand this summer, he said in a statement.
"You cannot arrest a disease," Grewal said in the statement. "... By bringing together law enforcement officers, social workers, treatment providers, and recovery specialists under one roof, we can work together to offer low-level drug offenders, who are suffering from the disease of addiction, real treatment and recovery options."
Last week, representatives from the prosecutor's offices from Union and Morris counties rode along to see how Bergen County does it. In a snapshot, here's what Bergen is up against: In 2017, (pending medical examiner's final ruling), there were 131 fatalities, 507 overdoses and 245 Narcan saves by local law enforcement in Bergen County alone. By the beginning of March 2018, there were 13 fatalities, 92 overdoses and 52 Narcan saves by local law enforcement.
The county prosecutor's office offers programs to educate high school students on drug use and addiction, walk-in hours at police stations where drug users can turn in their drugs and get help as well as a response team that will meet with a person who has had a Narcan reversal to talk treatment options.
As someone who fought it and has come out on the other side, Stephanie has some advice.
To the "addicts," “Know that you’re worth it and give yourself a chance. Anyone can do recovery if they use the resources that are provided.” And to the "non-addicts," “It doesn’t matter if you’re from Park Ave. or park bench, addiction can touch everyone. Don’t be so judgmental.”