Pubdate: Sun, 24 Aug 2014
Source: Observer-Dispatch, The (NY)
Copyright: 2014 The Observer-Dispatch.
Contact:  http://www.uticaod.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2297
Author: Amy Neff Roth

HEROIN'S PAIN: EPIDEMIC'S SCOURGE REFLECTED IN LOVED ONES, RECOVERING ADDICTS

Owen Kemp's family celebrated his 20th birthday Jan. 12 with
everything - Chinese takeout, fireworks, singing and cake. Everything
- - except Owen Kemp.

The boy who once made goofy faces for the camera, sang "You Are My
Sunshine" over and over, loved fishing with his dad and baked apple
crisp for his grandparents died of a heroin overdose in November while
staying with his grandparents in North Utica.

"He was our world," grandmother Deborah Humphrey said. "He brought me
more joy than anyone ever has. He also brought more sadness."

Heroin hurts. And the pain keeps spreading as the nation's
prescription painkiller pandemic morphs into a heroin epidemic -
heroin now is cheaper and easier to get. The numbers tell part of the
story: 12 deaths in Oneida County last year, 108 admitted heroin users
entering the Oneida County Correctional Facility in four months, and
three to five heroin users admitted to one local treatment program
every week.

"I am hearing from students, health care providers, EMS and law
enforcement that (heroin) is the No. 1 drug being abused," said
Michele Caliva, administrative director of the Upstate New York Poison
Center. "Within our 54 counties, there has been a steady increase."

But there's a deeper truth behind the statistics - families torn
apart, potential unfulfilled and hearts broken.

Heroin cost 29-year-old Herkimer native Tyler Hand jobs,
relationships, his values and his freedom. Imprisoned in 2012 on
burglary charges, he's now in a prison work-release program, happy
about being clean for two and a half years, and struggling with guilt
over the people he hurt.

Little Falls resident Kristin Baker has been in recovery since
December and returning to the life heroin took from her: raising her
5-year-old daughter in a spotless home, working and saving money.

Owen Kemp, who was from Rochester, lost everything; for his family,
the pain never ends. In speaking about her grandson's life and death,
Humphrey's greatest fear is that others might judge his worth by the
way he died. The disease of addiction killed him but never defined who
he was, she said. "I know you," Humphrey used to tell her grandson
when he doubted his own value.

He was, she said with conviction, a gifted artist; a loving big
brother; and a young man with a kind and generous heart who gave his
grandmother, who likes turtles, a turtle-shaped rubber band when he
was in rehab "because he didn't have anything else to give." She still
wears it.

Kemp's troubles began when he was a young teenager, trying to process
thoughts and feelings he didn't understand. Before he found answers,
he found drugs, starting on prescription drugs at age 15 and turning
to heroin at 16, his grandmother said. He spent the rest of his teens
in and out of jail and rehab.

When he left jail, clean last October, he went to stay with his
grandparents Deborah and Ron to get away from everything associated
with drug use. And for two weeks, they had their grandson back -
working in his grandfather's roofing business, watching movies with
them and stopping by the Polish Community Center for the pierogies he
loved. He started talking about his future.

But red tape had delayed Kemp's entry into an outpatient
medication-assisted treatment program. One day he borrowed his
grandmother's laptop, found a drug dealer and had heroin delivered to
his grandparents' neighborhood.

The next morning Humphrey got up early. Her husband came into the
kitchen.

"He said, 'Well, two weeks today.' And I said, 'So far, so good,'"
Humphrey recalled.

"The next words were, 'Deb, call 911.'"

'I just ruined everything' -- Kristin Baker

Kristin Baker believes heroin is hell disguised as
heaven.

"In the beginning it's great. It makes you feel good, but once you get
to the point where you need it every day, then it's bad," said Baker,
24, of Little Falls, who's been in the medication-assisted treatment
program at Milestones in Utica since December. She speaks with
nostalgia of her life before heroin when she worked, lived with
daughter, Madison, now 5, in a spotless home and saved money.

Things changed. It started when she broke up with Madison's father and
started drinking. When she met her current boyfriend - who also is in
the treatment program - she moved on to prescription painkillers and
then heroin, the easiest, cheapest way to get opioids, she said.

"I just ruined everything," she said. "We lost our apartment. We lost
our jobs. We didn't have any money. My family was obviously starting
to say things to me. I lost, like, 50 pounds in a couple months. Plus,
it's embarrassing."

Baker doesn't make excuses for herself. Some people get addicted to
painkillers after injuring themselves. "(But) I was just stupid," she
said.

No matter how bad things got, however, she kept one priority
straight.

"Even though I was a junkie, I made sure my daughter was taken care of
still, which was hard some days," she said.

Now Baker is working to stay clean and regain everything she's lost.
But recovery isn't easy on a small-town girl.

"I feel better about myself," she said, "but I still feel embarrassed
that people know."

'There is a way out' - Tyler Hand

Tyler Hand's best friend saved his life, resuscitating him after he
overdosed on heroin.

That same friend later overdosed and died.

Heroin has been hard on Hand, 29, of Herkimer.

"The desperation every day - how am I going to get it? It took a toll
on everything, every facet of my being," he said.

But Hand is one of the lucky ones. He survived and has been clean for
two and a half years. And he is happy again.

"I just love life now. I want people to know that because there is a
way out," he said.

Hand, a high school athlete, started drinking at age 13 and soon moved
on to marijuana and prescription drugs. He started using heroin around
2007. Over the years, he overdosed three times (once while driving)
lost jobs and abandoned the morals and values he grew up with, instead
using deceit and theft to cover up and support his addiction.

The memory of those years still fills him with remorse and guilt, Hand
said.

"I feel horrible and ashamed of stealing people's jewelry and
property, and especially their peace of mind and sense of security,"
he said. "The mental and emotional anguish I have caused sickens me to
this day."

Hand credits a 2011 arrest for burglary, the resulting prison time and
an intensive treatment program with turning his life around. Until
next June, he's in a work-release program, which lets him spend part
of the week living in Herkimer and working at a local Subway.

He's cheerfully contemplating the possibilities of a heroin-free
future after his sentence ends; he hopes to become a counselor to help
others.

"I'm so happy to be me again," he said.  
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