In Our Words
Heroin may not kill you, but if it does you're dead forever.
This page is a work in process. Many addicts are in recovery like Jessie, a friend of Ryan's. She suggested we ask addicts, parents, friends, family members: “If you only had a paragraph or two to explain your experience with drugs what would you say?” We'll share your answers. Please click: to send me your thoughts.
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If you have any thoughts, ideas, suggestions or content material, please click:
Ryan Rudolph and his 2006 Fraser High School graduating class wore yellow ribbons in memory of a classmate who died of an overdose. After attending his friend's funeral, Ryan had said, "I felt bad for (his friend)…he lost control of his drug use and it cost him his life; now he’s gone.” Eighteen months later, on October 20, 2007, Ryan died.
A young recovering person said, “I can get clean, I just can’t stay clean.” Recovery is incredibly difficult. It starts with the admission of powerlessness over the disease and a genuine commitment to “work the program” of recovery. To stay clean and sober for another day, or hour, or the next 10 minutes is anything but simple or easy. Recovery takes a level of dedication that many of us “non-addicts” can’t even begin to imagine.
Everyone knows addiction is an invisible line…one you know you’ll never cross. But one day you wake up and realize that somehow you’ve crossed that line – you're an addict.
Today’s drugs are much more potent than drugs of the 1960s, '70s and 80s. For example in the 60s and 70s heroin was 3 percent to 5 percent pure and had to be injected to get high. Heroin today is more like 70 percent to 90 percent pure and can be snorted or smoked.
Life provides no guarantees. Drug addiction crosses all barriers – social, economic, religious, racial, intellectual and cultural. Despite your best efforts, addiction can happen to someone you love and care for. Loving them, providing them with different opportunities and life experiences, teaching good morals and values, trying to be the best parent you can be – may not be enough. As impossible and unimaginable as it may seem, drug addiction and death can happen to your loved one – your child or your grandchild. And people like me, Ryan’s mom and the rest of Ryan’s family and people who cared for him are left to wonder why.
You can visit Ryan at Resurrection Cemetery – Section 26, Lot 357, Space 5, 18201 Clinton River Road, Clinton Township, Michigan 48038.
Love ya, Bud – Dad
The community – Following the deaths of Ryan and several other local young people, the Fraser Community has decided to work together as a community to make people aware of what’s really going on. Fraser isn’t alone with its drug problem – drugs are everywhere, throughout Macomb County and throughout Michigan. But Fraser is somewhat unique because it has chosen to address the problem head-on and risk negative publicity, because what we’re doing just might make a difference and save a life. We should be proud of ourselves – as long as we continue to look for solutions, there is hope.
There is hope. People recover and people move on with their drug-free lives. And every person in recovery starts out with the decision "not to use today" – day 1and then continue to take whatever steps that are necessary to make the same decision today – day 2. For those who work the program for their recovery, the days become weeks, weeks become months and months become years. But they always recognize that the only thing that is important is what they do today.
"Losing a child is like losing a leg, a piece of you is gone. You learn to move on and try to find a place for the loss…but no matter where you are or what you’re doing, you are always aware of your loss. The emptiness never goes away” – the best description I’ve heard.
