Heroin takes toll on families

SPRINGVILLE — In ninth grade, Ryan Clements went to a friend's house intending only to get drunk. He left with a needle mark in his arm and a never-ending urge for heroin, the first drug he ever tried.

Clements turned his head in fear as his buddy's older brother, a high school senior, pushed the needle into a vein in the crook of his right arm.

"It was really scary," he said.

But not scary enough to just say "no."

"I think I wanted to fit in," said Clements, now 22. "I think that's the main reason people do it."

The older boy promised the feeling would be awesome. And it was. Just a little push left him smiling. Clements felt like he was on top of the world. His inhibitions melted away. A warmness permeated his body. Little did he and his using buddies know it would later turn their lives cold. For some, like his best friend, Robby Nunes, dead cold.

Springville appears to be a heroin haven. It has a much higher rate of admissions to county-contracted treatment programs than any Utah Valley city.

Families dealing with heroin-addicted children have seen their share of heartache and pain, perhaps more than their share. Some situations take turns for the better. Some drag on and on. Some have tragic endings.

A 22-year-old Springville High graduate died of a heroin overdose just last week. Like others before him, he struggled with drug abuse, going in and out of rehab, desperately trying to stay clean. He played football and wrestled in high school. He found joy in his family. He left behind a wife and two daughters.

Drug addiction takes a toll on a family's emotional, mental, physical, spiritual and financial well-being. It's like tossing a stone into a pond. It causes parents to argue and siblings to turn on each other.

"It came to where we hated him," one mother said of her addict son. "I can divorce a husband, but I can't divorce a child."

"It's a strain on everything," said Lynn Coates, whose 20-year-old son Brian did drugs, mostly heroin and cocaine, for almost seven years.

Brian Coates' climb up the drug ladder began with marijuana in eighth grade. By ninth grade, he was taking acid and mushrooms. A year later, he was snorting cocaine and heroin.

"I just got offered it and did it," he said.

It wasn't too long before he was jamming needles into his arm, although, like Clements, he had someone else do it for him at first.