Warning: This Drug May Kill You Page #5

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a second chance."

He goes, "You better not

waste that second chance."

And that was probably the last

thing anyone said to him.

It was about quarter to three,

and I came upstairs,

and he was kneeling

with his hands on his head.

And, to this day,

I wish I would have said something to him.

I wish I would have

come over and said,

"You know, B, I love you.

It's going to be okay."

Connor came home.

It was 20 after three, or so,

and he said, "Where's B?"

I said, "I don't know.

He's upstairs kneeling next to his bed."

And he went upstairs.

And he must've tried to...

move him and shake him,

and he screamed.

And we called 911 immediately.

And everyone...

Connor's throwing up,

and everyone's screaming,

and Brian had run over

and got our neighbor

who was a doctor.

It was a nightmare.

They, uh, made us

leave the room.

And they tried to revive him

again with the Narcan,

but it didn't work.

They had worked on him

for about 40 minutes.

I knew. I just,

I knew he was gone.

You know, you prayed, you hoped.

You did everything, but...

And probably at about 4:20,

our neighbor

pronounced him dead.

He had used heroin again.

We found this

old stuffed animal

that had old baggies

of heroin and a syringe in it.

I had the hardest time,

and so did Brian,

wrapping our head around that.

Why would

he have done that?

Like... he knew we loved him.

He knew we wanted to,

you know,

send him back to rehab

and get him help.

And what

could you be thinking,

that, like, that

love wasn't enough.

Brian:

One of the things that's always a regret

is that you

completely underestimate

how hard the battle

of addiction is.

I mean, you think that,

if you drop everything,

and, you know, you get

the right help,

that you'll be able

to see your way through this

and help somebody,

but it's not quite that easy.

I mean, I thought I knew Brendan

like the back of my hand,

but it's a different person

once this addiction kicks in.

As a father,

you have this,

this guilt that it,

it happened on your watch.

And it's just, you know,

you can explain it away all you want,

and other people can tell you,

you know, you did everything you could.

But that always will linger

in the back of your mind.

You taking that also?

Yeah.

And this?

Yep.

Gail:

When Brendan overdosed,

we didn't know

what happened.

Heroin?

Like, you know, here we are, we're in...

we're in Allendale,

we're in "Mayberry."

Heroin,

you think a dark alley,

you think, you know,

somebody on the streets,

not in towns like this.

Gail:
Just sign in.

Nice to see you.

Man:

Good to see you too.

Yeah, just sign in,

make a name tag.

Gail:
We formed a group

"Hope and Healing After an Addiction Death,"

and we meet twice a month,

and it's for people

who have lost somebody

to the disease of addiction.

I thought we would start

by sharing our stories,

um, and, if you have a picture,

that would be great.

Um, you know, just,

share your story and,

and talk about what you went through.

I have two pictures of Georgia.

This is my favorite.

Gail:
That's Georgia.

Group:
Georgia, Georgia.

This is her.

This is her.

She's just all energy.

All, like, "Yeah!"

You know?

And that's how she was.

David

Georgia. Hey, Georgia.

Come here. What?

David:

When Georgia was born,

I remember that I was

in the delivery room with her,

and I started talking to her.

I didn't talk to her

like she was a newborn baby.

I talked to her like

she was somebody who...

we had been waiting for,

and that she had been

waiting to arrive.

Who is that?

David:
Within minutes,

we had our first conversation.

It was one-sided, but...

but it was, uh...

Judy:

But she was special,

she was the first grandchild, first niece.

David:
Yeah.

And we took a lot of pictures

of her doing nothing.

We thought it

was so exciting.

Judy:

She was just very happy.

It was a very special,

happy time of life.

David:
I had a nickname for her,

I called her "Soda Pop,"

because she was bubbly,

and she was, like,

you know...

you didn't want to shake

her before opening her.

David:

It was just a constant amazement.

You know, watching her unfold

into an amazingly

bright, young child.

She died, um,

Thanksgiving Day a year ago.

She was 26.

It's like she never

knew what hit her.

But the way

she described it with me was,

that, um, she was

working with a group

that ran several

group homes,

and she was an assistant

in these group homes,

and one day,

she was taking a break.

She was on the porch,

and this was in 2011,

and she fell

through a guard rail,

or a hand rail,

on the porch.

Took a fall

and went down.

Hurt her back

and her hip,

and went and got

prescribed these,

you know,

monster painkillers.

It could have been

anything from Vicodin,

OxyCodone, I'm not sure.

I know it was one of the heavier ones

just by the way she described it.

And they gave her enough

that, by the time

the prescription ran out,

she needed more.

And, then, this one night,

I came up the stairs

to go into the bathroom,

and Georgia was in

the doorway of her room,

and she was upset about not

being able to find something.

So I said, "Okay."

I went into the bathroom,

and as I shut the door,

in the middle of the floor,

was a glasses case.

David:

Right? So.

Somebody dropped

their glasses case.

I picked it up

to put it on the counter,

and it felt weird.

And I opened it up,

and there was six

bags of heroin,

and a syringe, and a couple of other

things in there, and I just went...

"Oh, no, no, no, no."

You know?

And she said she didn't know

where it came from.

"Oh, my God," you know,

it was just the whole thing.

And, and...

So this was probably

a month before it happened.

On Thanksgiving morning,

Judy woke me up

about five o'clock, I guess.

And she said,

"Something's wrong with Georgia.

I can't wake her up,

and she's really cold."

So I went

into the living room,

and Georgia was sitting,

the television was on,

she was sitting

between the couch

and the coffee table

on the floor

with her feet out

in front of her,

and her hands

folded in her lap.

She had just leaned

forward like this.

And we had this little carpet-covered

stool thing, you know, right there.

There was a syringe

laying right on top of it,

and it looked like

she had just dozed off.

And I went over to her and I...

and I could...

as soon as I touched her...

I don't know, at that point, you're just

in something that you can't even...

describe.

Well, all of you probably could.

So, I put my hand around her

neck looking for a pulse,

and her skin was

starting to get that

real stiff kind of,

you know...

If you've ever had

a dead pet

that you've had to pick up,

you know that feeling,

and I knew I wasn't

going to find a pulse,

and then I got around, you know,

I had turned on the lights.

So I got around

in front of her,

and I picked her head up,

and I looked...

David:

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