Chances are pretty good that you know someone who is dealing with drug or alcohol addiction.
The person we think of being an addict has changed rapidly over the last few years. Heroin and other opioids can be easily found in many high schools. The availability of these highly addictive drugs has exploded in suburbs across America.
Today more Americans are dying from drug overdoses than car accidents.
It is so bad that last week President Barack Obama proposed a $1.1 billion plan to fight the problem.
Hidden in suburban landscapes such as Santa Clarita are devastated families living with addiction.
"We are in the midst of an epidemic," said Cary Quashen, who has been treating addicts for over 30 years and runs Action Family Counseling. "I've been screaming the last five years, 'This heroin is exploding.'"
The explosion in heroin is closely related to the increased use of prescription painkillers.
Once the prescriptions stop, or get too expensive, users often turn to heroin. It is cheap and easy to find.
The Centers for Disease Control estimates that nearly 50,000 people a year are dying from drug overdoses. The Los Angeles County of Public Health reports a 227 percent increase in heroin related emergency room visits from 2005-2013. Sadly, almost every death is preventable.
At a recent group therapy session just outside of Santa Clarita you can feel the pain and loss.
"I was in the hospital about two months ago," said Brad White, 25, who is in treatment. "My friend who was in there with me, he died."
White has been clean for a couple of weeks. The former high school baseball player was living behind a fast-food restaurant in Palmdale.
"It started when I was about 13 years old," he said. "First booze, then pot and pills. When I was 19 years old I started smoking heroin."
The faces at the therapy session change every month. But the stories are the same.
Mindy Williams is celebrating almost five years of sobriety and life. The difference in how she looks clean and when she was using heroin is dramatic.
"This disease does not care," she said. "It doesn't care who you are.
She said people need to understand addiction doesn't have a race, gender or orientation.
"The guy in the car next to you, it's the woman who is checking out your groceries," she said.
And as Williams looks back at her years of being clean, Rick Long begins his journey into sobriety. He will spend 30 days getting clean and the rest of his life trying to stay that way. He has two grandkids that he has never met.
"The stigma of a heroin addict used to be a junkie standing in a corner shooting dope in an alley," said Quashen. "It's not that anymore."
Quashen said the most important thing is for people to stop being afraid to talk about addiction.
Links:
Action family Counseling
Los Angeles County Public Health Substance abuse help and information
Data and information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
http://www.cdc.gov/vitalsigns/heroin/index.html
