{news} Parents And Others Concerned About Addiction BandTogether To Share Their Stories

[Clifford Thornton]

http://www.courant.com/news/local/hc-soudrugs0323.artmar23,0,5257995.story<http://www.courant.com/news/local/hc-soudrugs0323.artmar23,0,5257995.story>
 
 
 The Other Victims Of Drug Abuse
Parents And Others Concerned About Addiction BandTogether To Share Their Stories
  By KEN BYRON | Courant Staff Writer 
  March 23, 2008 
As Leona Hay sat through the memorial service for her son, one thing kept going through her mind.

"I felt compelled to tell Shane's story," Hay said. "Pounding at the back of my brain was the question: 'What am I going to do with this?'"

Hay, of Bristol, spent three years watching her son turn into a drug addict. She thought things had turned around when he stayed clean for eight months, but then he relapsed and died of a heroin overdose in March 2006. He was 26 and is survived by two young children of his own.



Hay wanted to tell others about her experience to prevent them from going through the same nightmare. Hay searched but could not find an organization interested in hearing about Shane's death.

Then she got a call from Mary Marcuccio.

Marcuccio, of Southington<http://www.courant.com/topic/us/connecticut/hartford-county/southington-PLGEO100100202230000.topic>, was just starting what would become a highly visible campaign to spread awareness about increasing heroin use among youth in Southington. And she needed people like Hay.

"My goal all along was to bring forward families who've lost children," Marcuccio said. "Who has more credentials to speak about this than they do?"

The vehicle for Marcuccio's campaign is a group she helped start last year, Parents 4 A Change. Its members include parents who have lost children to drugs and parents concerned about their young children.

Marcuccio said her group plans on seeking reforms to state laws to help families of drug addicts. One priority is a law requiring some addicts to enter and stay in rehabilitation programs, whether they want to or not. She said many of the laws her group is pursuing are already in place in Massachusetts<http://www.courant.com/topic/us/massachusetts-PLGEO100102700000000.topic>.

Promoting possible treatments for addiction is another priority for Parents 4 A Change. Marcuccio said members recently visited a doctor in Massachusetts who is experimenting with a pill that is implanted in the body and slowly releases a drug that inhibits an addict's urge.

But a key part of Marcuccio's agenda is publicizing heroin use in suburbia.

For that she needed to get people like Hay and David Merrills of Farmington to talk about what they went through. Merrills' son, Andrew, died in 2002 from a heroin overdose after he injected the drug at a condo in Simsbury<http://www.courant.com/topic/us/connecticut/hartford-county/simsbury-PLGEO100100202220000.topic> that police later described as an illicit drug store. 

"We have an enormous problem," Merrills said. "People think that these drugs are only in Hartford and that they don't come out to leafy suburbs like Farmington<http://www.courant.com/topic/us/connecticut/hartford-county/farmington-%28hartford-connecticut%29-PLGEO100100202110000.topic>."

Merrills had already done some public speaking about his son's death when he saw a newspaper article last year about Marcuccio and Parents 4 A Change. Interested in what she was doing, he asked to meet her.

"I said to her, 'How can I help? All I have is a story to tell,'" Merrills said.

Marcuccio hopes people like Hay and Merrills will show that the death of a child to drug abuse can happen to anyone and break down the stereotype of drug users.

"Addicts are viewed as bad, and young addicts are seen as the products of bad parenting," Marcuccio said. "I want to get people to realize that these kids are often smart and come from upper middle-class families that pay taxes, live in nice homes and have raised their children right. Too many people don't understand that."

Marcuccio is reluctant to discuss what prompted her to start Parents 4 A Change except to say that it is related to her experience with a family member's drug problem. But she has not lost a child to a drug overdose, and that makes it difficult to ask someone who has to talk about it.

"I was nervous about doing it, for reasons that still make me nervous," Marcuccio said. "I don't feel qualified to ask them because unless you've been there, you can't really understand it. Am I qualified? I think that I have an interest and that I'm morally qualified. But I'm afraid that the person will say, 'Who are you to ask?'"

But the people Marcuccio has recruited say they are grateful for what she has given them. They say Parents 4 A Change is essential to them as a support group and as a place to network with others who have been through what they have. They also have welcomed the opportunity to speak about their losses.

Efficacy
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efficacy at msn.com<mailto:efficacy at msn.com>
www.Efficacy-online.org<http://www.efficacy-online.org/>
 
"THE DRUG WAR IS MEANT TO BE WAGED NOT WON"

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