Why We Couldn't Save Nicole

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Excerpt: School Project Awareness Video

Joseph Duda, whose sister Nicole died of a heroin overdose, interviewed several health professionals for a school project to help raise awareness of the realities of addiction.

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Even if she had, we now know that we would have faced another race after the three-day program to find follow-up clinical treatment without interrupting her care. Timing is crucial: Every once in a while, such as after a successful detox, addicts reach a point where they actually want help, Gimbel says: "It's a little window, hours, maybe days if you're lucky." But Chalk says that only about 25 percent of addicts who undergo detox make it into treatment within 30 days.

Nicole wanted to stay close to home, so I didn't look hard in Baltimore. Months after she died, I found that a few hospitals there offer detox, though they're overburdened and she might not have been able to get in. Still, I agonize every day over my belated discovery and wonder why the emergency room didn't have a resource book or some automatic way of telling people like us where the detox units were.

In May 2006, after months on a waiting list for a bed, Nicole got into the Joseph S. Massie Unit of the Allegany County Health Department in Cumberland, Md. She stayed 30 days. My husband and I visited every Sunday and Wednesday while friends watched our younger children. I split myself into two people: one, the mom baking cookies for the elementary school reading party; the other, a worried parent driving more than 100 miles each way to visit her eldest at a treatment clinic.

It was the only time during these months that we relaxed a little bit and felt she was safe. By the third week of treatment, I said to my husband, "I'm starting to see the sparkle back in her eyes."

Nicole was released from Massie on a Friday. The following Monday, she called us from the road: Instead of staying at the halfway house where she was assigned after Massie, she had gone to live in Ocean City. She said, "You know I love the ocean, Mom." She said she had a job. Our hearts sank.

Losing the Fight

Over time, Nicole told us that she had been doing heroin for about two years, starting at Baltimore dance clubs and parties. It was part of the fun, she said; she didn't think she'd get hooked. Again, she was not unusual. Rather than getting caught up in the whys, Gimbel says, he wants people to understand that the most pressing need is to find treatment. "Saying 'All they need is some willpower,' like we used to with tobacco, doesn't work," he says. The drugs tell them what to do 24 hours a day, and conniving, manipulative behavior replaces their old personality. When the drug urges were great, Nicole could always figure out a way to get them.

And that is what happened.

On Oct. 6, 2006, I was at my youngest child's elementary school helping the teacher. The holiday season was approaching again, and we expected Nicole to come home as usual. After school, the younger girls and I picked up their brother, Joe, from cross-country practice. Then we got the "visit." Two Frederick County police officers showed up as I was preparing dinner. I left it burning on the stove after they told us the words no parent ever wants to hear.

Nicole had been dead two days when she was found, after an all-day party at the beach. She had alcohol, cocaine and methadone in her system; the combination of depressants proved lethal. She'd been out of Massie less than four months.

Families who know our experience come out of hiding to seek advice. I see the same exhaustion and worry on their faces. I wince when I overhear a crime drama on television refer to addicts as "crack hos" or "junkies." I'm a parent advocate member of the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence, Maryland Chapter. Each time I speak at a drug treatment conference or interact with an addict in recovery, I can't help but see Nicole and think: We can do better.

Jacqueline M. Duda is a Washington area freelance writer. Comments: health@washpost.com.