Livewire Vol 7 Issue 2 April 2016

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Contents

April 2016 Volume 6, Issue 5

adviser editor-in-chief executive editor website editor business & advertising cocopy editor cocopy editor copy editor copy editor copy editor sports editor creative editor creative editor staff writers Sarah Allen Matthew Childress Brennah Denkhoff Lexie Fisher Kim Houchin Haylie Jenkins Sean Johnson

Student Life

3 4

Sander Takes Over | A feature about the new football head coach, Mark Sander.

Charger Families | A look at the two families whose members are all at East, the Steinmetzes and the Barrs, along with some of the other families that share the school.

ON THE COVER: On the cover, you can see a needle, which is very similar to what a heroin addict would use. In this issue, we place heavy emphasis on this drug and the effects it is placing on our community.

Academics

oPINION

6 7

24

New Pathway: Journalism | A

look at the new career pathway coming to East.

Advance Kentucky | Coverage on the Advance Kentucky program and what exactly it means.

27

Head to Head | Two staffers share their opinions about the Supreme Court order involving Apple and the San Bernadino shooting.

Shining a Light in the Dark | The editorial board further discusses heroin addiction.

aDDICTION 8-23: HEROIN

Larry Steinmetz Haley Steinmetz Jessica Mattingly Sydney Riley Lindsay Renneisen Rachel Grant Abbie Alstatt Zach Combest Isaac Shelton Taylor Hollifield Grant Skaggs Eric Sanchez Haley Snyder Derek Rogers Kelsi Sego Bethany White Maggie Wisdom Luke Young Haley Young

Livewire was re-founded in 2001 by journalism teacher, Larry Steinmetz. In the past, the Livewire has been a weekly newspaper, but moved to a newsmagazine published five times a year in 2011, and increased to six in the 2015-16 school year. The staff remains committed to bringing the Bullitt East community the most up to date news in a quality format and timely manner. To get breaking news, sports updates, and more go online to belivewire.com.

The staff appreciates your patronage and, as a public forum, encourages any feedback you care to offer. Letters to the editor must be typed and submitted via e-mail, to Mr. Steinmetz’s mailbox, or directly to room 324 within one week of the publication to which you are responding. Letters will not be censored, but must be deemed appropriate by the editor and advisor in order to be published. In order to be eligible to appear in the paper, all letters must be signed and verifiable. Names can be withheld upon request, but must be submitted with the original letter.

Livewire is published by the students and for the students of Bullitt East High School, E-mailing Mr. Steinmetz directly is the best way to reach the staff. His address is larry. steinmetz@bullitt.kyschools.us. The Livewire is printed by Publishers Printing Company.

Bullitt East High School 11450 Highway 44 East, Mount Washington, Kentucky, 40047.

(502) 869-6400.

Part four in the addication series focuses on heroin. Although many believe that such a hard drug could never affect a such a small town, especially on a high school level, heroin addiction is becoming more and more of a community wide crisis.

These pages will tell several different stories of members of our community that have battled with this addiction.

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>> student life

SANDER TAKES OVER by derek rogers Staff Writer

T

here’s a new sheriff on the field.

Mark Sander hopes to bring elation to the football program at Bullitt East.

Bullitt East hired Sander on February 4. The hire hopes to bring a new feeling of excitement to Charger Nation. Sander comes in with a new gameplan and new ideas.

Sander went to Desales High School where he graduated at 1987. Sander played football at the University of Louisville from 1987-90, where he holds the record for most tackles in a career.

“I accepted this position for many reasons. I feel that I needed to be back coaching young men in the game that I love. I will be closer in proximity to my parents house so that I could visit my mother more often. I thought this community would be a real nice place to be apart of a football program,” said Sander.

He became the head coach of Desales High School in 2002 and finished his time there

Work Rihanna *as of 02/22/16

He is currently the Athletic Director at Iroquis and plans to stay the athletic director for the rest of this school year.

BY LEXIE FISHER Staff Writer

Sander does not have a preferred offense and hopes to evaluate his players to decide what offense will be the most efficient to run.

Darrell Vincent stepped down as head coach after five seasons and a record of 29-28 and a record of 3-8 from this past season.

After Vincent stepped down as head football coach on December 17, the opening left immediate anticipation from the community. The title of head football coach at Bullitt East was open from December 17 to February 4. The search for the next head coach ended when Mark Sander was hired.

#1 on iTunes

in 2011. In those ten seasons, Sander had an overall record of 76-47. After leaving Desales, he was the head coach for two seasons at Iroquis from 2012-13 where he went 8-11.

Photo credit to @BullittSports

“I heard he is a good coach but I have never really met him. I heard he’s nice. I just hope practice is fun again like it used to be. Hopefully he will bring us some wins unlike last year because we didn’t win much,” said junior football player Mitchell Langley.

East is a program that has had a lot of ups and downs in the last decade, but the Chargers are currently on a down. Sander plans on developing the program within the first year and hoping it sets the blueprint for upcoming years.

R

obyn Rihanna Fenty, also known as Rihanna, is a pop recording artist from Saint Michael, Barbados. She was born on February 20, 1988. Rihanna grew up with a rough childhood, fighting her parents divorce. Therefore, music was her way of coping.

She took thought into singing around the age of seven. It was at 2003 her career in the singing industry took off. Rihanna was found by an American record producer named Evan Rogers. In 2004 he ended up signing her to a demo to start recording her own music.

Many of her songs have came to be hits like Umbrella, We Found Love, Stay, and Diamonds. It has been states that fourteen of Rihanna’s singles have reached number one on the US Billboard Hot 100, giving her the third most number-one singles on the chart behind The Beatles (20) and Mariah Carey (18).

Recently her newest song Work, featuring Drake hit top on iTunes on January 27th. In her song she talks about a guy and how he he doesn’t notice her, until she started putting in work. She says that he didn’t notice till he lost her and she started putting in work into something else.

page by Derek Rogers

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Charger Families b y sa r a h a l l e n

Staff Writer Photos submitted by each family

“Our house it has a crowd, There’s always something happening, and it’s usually quite loud.”

The well-known song ‘Our House’ by Madness helps explain the craziness and liveliness of having an entire family at Bullitt East.

There are many very popular families here at Bullitt East. Along with these full families, there are many cases where a teacher or staff worker will have a relative in the school as well.

Just in the office alone, there are many workers that have decided to put their kids through Bullitt East. For example, Principal Willie Foster has decided to bring his daughter Kaleigh Foster, a sophomore at East, to go to the come to the school. Also, Assistant Principal Kari Stewart decided that an education at East would be best for her son Hunter Stewart, a senior.

However, these aren’t the first families that come to mind when thinking about families at East. There are some families who have everyone that lives in their home comes to school every day. For the Barr family, they have their entire family come to school with them plus their foreign exchange student, Magdalena Horejs (Magdi), who they have decided to take in for the later half of this year. As for the Steinmetz family, not do they come to East every morning, but Larry Steinmetz, journalism adviser, and Haley Steinmetz, senior, run the journalism class alongside of each other.

When it comes to couples on staff at East, two teacher, Branda and Kenny Thornsberry., are married. They have recently welcomed their first child in to the world.

Hunter and Kari Stewart after a football game.

Families at East are constantly growing and family legacies will continue on.

BARR Q: In what ways does having your family at school make things easier?

A: (Troy) Because we are a very busy family and constantly on the go it helps us at least be able to see each other once or twice a day.

A: (Crystal) I think it’s convenient when you have your family in the same place because if you need to get something to them or get something from them they’re here. We definitely know a little bit more about what’s going on since we’re in the building with our kids.

A: (Kemper) Whenever I need something I always go straight to my mom when I’m here so it’s easier to always be around her.

A: (Summer) If i ever need something then it’s easy to get it. Also if I am ever absent then it’s easier for me to get the work I missed.

Q: Has this brought your family closer?

A: (Troy) Probably not- both my daughters hate me.

A: (Crystal) I think so. You just have that part of your life in common. So we know who they’re friends with and I think it’s nice for them to know we’re here if they need anything as well too.

A: (Kemper) I think it has because since we’re always together it’s easier to get along.

A: (Summer) Yes because we see each other a lot more.

Q: Would you have it any other way?

A: (Troy) I’m not allowed to have it any other way.

A: (Crystal) I really like having it this way because I think there are a lot of pros to it. Sometimes it may be harder on them because they know that we know what’s going on and who everybody is but I think the pros far outweigh the cons. I’m very glad I get to share my kids’ high school experience with them.

A: (Kemper) No because I’ve gotten so used to it. I don’t know how I would act if it was different. I think it’s made high school better.

A: (Summer) Yes because sometimes it gets a little overwhelming to have my whole family here and sometimes annoying.

Principal Willie Foster and his daughter Kaleigh Foster.

The Barr family gathers in the library to take a family photo.

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>> student life

What’s trending? by haley Young Staff Writer

STEINMETZ Q:What are the main benefits that you notice with having your family here?

A: (Larry) How close we’ve become. We’re a really close family anyway, but having everybody in the same building has allowed us to see each other in situations that most people don’t.

A: (Dana) There are so many. The first thing is it is very convenient because we’re all in one place. If somebody needs to tell someone something we’re all right here. Its nice too because when we talk at dinner, we all know what we’re talking about. We’ve all spent our day with the same people. We come home and we can talk about homecoming and spirit week or senior projects or things like that.

We’re all sort of on the same page and that’s kind of cool. As a parent it’s neat to see your kids the way they are at school.

A: (Haley) I think the nicest thing about having us all together is that we all know what’s going on in each other’s lives all the time so it opens the door for a lot more discussion. We all really relate where as a lot of people have a work life and a home life and they don’t intermingle at all, and our family all kind of shares one.

A: (Tyler) Instead of keeping all of my stuff with me I can put it in their office or their room and I always have someone to talk to.

Q: How does having your family here effect your overall mood towards school?

A: ( Larry) Most of the times it’s positive.

Theres always some frustration that comes along with it knowing our kid’s teachers like we do. For the most part it’s pretty cool.

A: (Dana) It’s even more of an incentive to want to come here and to like it. It’s always felt like a family here at Bullitt East but now it really does because not just my own kids, but all of their friends too and people that they’ve

known their whole lives like Hunter Stewart and Haley have known each other since they were like 4 days old. So it’s just kind of cool too when their friends are around.

A: (Haley) I actually think it makes me want to come to school more just because I’ve grown up here. Since my parents work here it just kind of feels like home. I think it gives me more of a sense of pride in my school than a lot of people have. It makes me happier to go here.

A: (Tyler) It makes me a little more worried because they know everything that I do so if I do something stupid, then they know.

Q: Would you have it any other way?

A: (Larry) No now that I’ve done this. I always wondered when Dana and I were younger what it would be like to be here with Haley and Tyler, and now that we’re here it’s been really cool to be able to go home and talk about things and everybody is already on the same page. You don’t have to worry about telling anyone the story because most people already know the story.

A: (Dana) Definitely not just because it is so cool being so involved in what they’re doing and to get that perspective and to see them as a student and as a peer. Even just with Larry as a spouse. It’s cool just to to have that stuff in common and to just be a part of each other’s lives that much.

A: (Haley) No I wouldn’t. I love all going to the same school and being with them all the time everyday so I wouldn’t change it at all.

A: (Tyler) I wouldn’t. It’s pretty cool.

Dust-B-Gone Cleaning Services

Be your best in braids.

The trend on double French braids is a classic go-to for girls during sports or just simply a lazy day.

Double braids have been trending for a pretty long time. This fast and easy trend is very convenient for girls to use for many occasions. Double braids are a simple way to look cute and comfortable for many girls around the school.

This trend started out for a lot of girls from their friends, classmates, and teammates introducing them to it. Some girls claim their female family members introduced them to the hairstyle. “My mom was the one who taught me how to do it myself and I thought it was pretty cute and kept my hair out of my face,” said freshman Elisa Spencer.

The double braids are also very useful. A lot of girls specifically braid their hair for practice or games for a sport. The girls say it works well for keeping their hair out of their face and it’s quick. “I pretty much do it for every dance practice,” said senior Brianna Clark.

What seems to be the best part of the double braids trend is how easy it is. Lots of girls now know how to do these double braids and they are simple to learn. They keep all the trendiness of a hairstyle along with comfort.

The double braids could continue to be an easy fix for many bad hair days to come.

Toni Cissell (502)523-6959 page by Sarah Allen

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NEW PATHWAY: JOURNALISM b y a b b i e a l statt

The process of getting to this pathway approved was complicated. The requirements are the same as any other pathway, but the certification is a bit different. Some lower classmen will be able to make this their pathway, but seniors will not (even if they’ve met all the requirements).

When yearbook and journalism teacher Larry Steinmetz started at BE, he said, “We didn’t really have much to go with.” That being said, there was an after-school journalism program, but it wasn’t an actual class. So, the Livewire was introduced in 2001; from there, yearbook and journalism became classes, and it’s all come to this.

College and career readiness coach Wendy McCutcheon said, “Journalism has been around since he’s [Steinmetz] been around”.

Although journalism and its related courses have been classes for many years, they have all just recently become an approved pathway.

Both Steinmetz and McCutcheon believed there was a real need for this. Students who wanted to be in journalism classes but hadn’t met their ACT benchmark scores weren’t able to take the classes that they would’ve liked.

They instead had to take career-pathway approved courses in order to be career-ready, or classes to help increase their ACT scores, so they would be college-ready.

Now that it’s an approved pathway, a lot of students are probably curious about the details involving requirements and certification. The requirements for the journalism pathway will be the same as for any other at Bullitt East; pass a minimum of three classes in that pathway, an industry certification test, and the ACT workkeys or the ASVAB.

Journalism classes included in the pathway now are intro to journalism, photojournalism, journalism, and yearbook (all taught by Steinmetz). When it becomes a pathway, the classes will most likely be set up a bit differently; journalism will be “Journalism I”, “Journalism II”, “Journalism III”, etc. However, all the classes will still be the same. Other classes such as English could be included in the pathway, but not taught by Steinmetz. But as for the core journalism classes, Steinmetz doubts there will be other teachers besides himself.

“Everything that we do screams career-ready.”

- Larry Steinmetz

Along with those students, others who were already college-ready had to opt to take pathway classes if they wished to also be career-ready, instead of the journalism classes they would have rather taken. Steinmetz said, “Just looking around at our options of we have and what’s available to kids, we thought, ya know what, it’s silly for journalism not to be a pathway.”

The process of getting to this point was certainly a lot of work.

McCutcheon said, “It’s kinda doing a research paper...what colleges are accepting students that want to pursue any form of journalism, what do they make after they graduate from college...” Most of this fact-finding was done by McCutcheon herself, while Steinmetz gathered supporting evidence: letters from both the The Pioneer News (saying they would hire students) and graduates (who have pursued careers involving journalism). McCutcheon said, “Nobody had really gone through the process to do that, so Bullitt East did it.”

After gathering all of their information, they petitioned to KDE (Kentucky Dept. of Education) in order for the pathway

For now, the industry certification will be an Adobe InDesign test. Steinmetz likes this idea, but eventually wants it to grow. He said, “There’s so many things that we do; I’d love for kids to have the option of Illustrator, or Photoshop, or Adobe Premiere”.

The pathway will be beneficial to lower-classmen in that they’ll be able to take the classes they want and become career-ready. Unfortunately, this pathway will not count for seniors this year and possibly next year.

Current senior Rachel Grant has taken journalism classes since her freshman year at Bullitt East. Grant is a little disappointed, she said, “I think that’s [journalism not counting for seniors as a pathway] ridiculous especially for those of us who have been in the class since our freshman year.” It’s something that’s out of Steinmetz and McCutcheon’s hands; they’ve talked to the state about classes counting for the seniors next year and they’re hopeful.

McCutcheon and Steinmetz remain excited that journalism will finally be available to students as a pathway. McCutcheon said, “It’s not our job to fit them [students] into our pathways, it should be our pathways fit into the needs of the students”, she continued, “I’ll keep trying to find as many as we can to fit every kid as long as it takes.”

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It’s been a long time coming, but journalism will now finally be a pathway available to Bullitt East students.

to be accepted. It was, and East will be a pilot pathway for journalism next year. If all goes well, it will become an official pathway in the 2017 school year. This doesn’t just include BE, it will open up to any school in Kentucky. McCutcheon said, “Any school can kinda jump on our work...they don’t have to go through what Mr. Steinmetz and I did.”

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et a pencil and paper ready for this story.

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ADVANCEMENT IN KENTUCKY by kim houchin Staff Writer

A big help that Advance Kentucky has is funds for materials needed by AP classes that the school does not have. “I think something we’ve always been missing at Bullitt East in our AP program is the resources for teachers,” said Steinmetz.

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The program may include math, science, and English but it has left out one subject: social studies. AP world civilizations teacher, Junior DiStefano, finds it unfair that social studies has been left out of the program. “I think that social studies is a dying breed,” said DiStefano.

Students such as senior Eliza Love are excited for the program. “I think it’s a totally great opportunity for students in AP courses. I think it motivates our teachers, too,” said Love.

Just like DiStefano, Love and Steinmetz are upset about social studies not being a part of the program. “I do hate that for our social studies program because we have such dedicated teachers at Bullitt East, like Ms. Roe and Mr. DiStefano,” said Steinmetz.

Sophomore Sarah Thornsberry gears up for her upcoming AP tests.

Thornsberry has been in AP and Honors classes most of her school life.

“I’ve always loved being in AP classes so Advance Kentucky seems like the perfect route for me,” said Thornsberry.

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Advance Kentucky is a school program that starts by sending AP teachers to seminars, helping them grasp more advanced subjects for an AP class. The program funds for the teachers to be helped by mentors who are approved by Advance Kentucky. Then the program funds the school for the equipment needed to teach the students. “The purpose of it [Advance Kentucky] is to increase enrollment in AP classes, improve scores on AP exams, and just get our students more ready for college-level work in math, science, and English,” said counselor Dana Steinmetz.

Another good quality that students will see as an incentive is the money they would receive back from the program. For English, if a student passes by getting a three or higher on the AP exam, the student will receive a $100 check from Advance Kentucky. “The students get paid plus they get college credit; you really can’t beat that,” said DiStefano.

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Advance Kentucky is a program to help AP students earn college credits. This program not only betters the students, but also the teachers. Faculty, students, and teachers alike all have positive things to say about it.

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Advance Kentucky has joined forces with Bullitt East for the betterment of AP kids.

The reason behind the decision for keeping social studies away from Advance Kentucky is that it simply does not fit in with the program’s categories. “Advance Kentucky is a math and science program. They don’t see how social studies fits into that science and math category,” said Steinmetz.

The ones that Advance Kentucky impacts the most is AP students. The program gives the students college credits, giving them a push forward to graduating. “Hopefully it will be an incentive that students will have the courage or have the drive to take more AP classes,” said Steinmetz, “which I feel is a good thing because I feel that AP classes prepare kids for college more so than regular classes.”

Advance Kentucky seems to have no bad reviews from those who talk about it. “I think it’s great. I think it’s a great way to get students more involved in AP and to get teachers more motivated about AP and the actual test,” said Love.

The most valuable part of Advance Kentucky seems to be the resources they provide for the teachers.

“The mentors that the teachers are assigned to give them help constantly. They can email those guys any time and those guys can come to their class and observe, help them write lesson plans, help them write tests,” said Steinmetz.

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dvanced Placement (AP) kids beware: Advance Kentucky is here.

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>> academics

Even though a valuable subject is being, in a way, swept under the rug, the program helps those who need true incentive to do well in their AP courses.

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ADDICTION

Part 4 in a Series: HEROIN b y h a l e y st e i n m e t z Editor-in-Chief

hink of the most popular person you know.

Instantly, you probably pictured a cheerleader, a basketball player, a football player. Someone that everyone knows and everyone likes; someone that seems invincible to typical high school issues and appears to have the world at their fingertips. Now, picture that person five years from now.

Maybe the person you pictured is rich. Maybe they’re married and starting a family; maybe they’re still in school. And yet, maybe they’re strung out on heroin.

It sounds incredibly unlikely. In fact, it sounds so unlikely that it’s almost comical. However, the fact of the matter is that this exact situation has happened before to members of our community. There have been an alarming number of Bullitt East students that have gone on to graduate, get involved with heroin, and then spiral downward out of control. And even as I say that, you still might not believe me.

When my staff decided to cover heroin as part four of our addiction series, we knew we had to reach out to these people somehow. We decided that ultimately the best way to go about it was to ask members of our community to reach out to us completely voluntarily through social media. I was skeptical to say the least. I thought that we would be lucky to get two or three people willing to tell their story, and even if we did, I figured that they wouldn’t be that big of a deal. I mean, this is Mt. Washington we’re talking about. Nobody here gets involved with something as big as heroin, right? Within just a few hours of our initial call to action social media post asking people to come forth and share their stories with us, we had

over twenty responses. Twenty. Twenty members of our small town that had some sort of direct link to heroin. Not weed, not alcohol, not tobacco, but heroin. Some of the responses came from people who had been forced to sit and watch as one of their family members helplessly battled with the addiction.

On the other hand, some of the responses came from people who were struggling with the addiction themselves. We eventually had so many responses that we had to start turning people away because we literally did not have space in our magazine to fit them all in.

It was then that I realized how huge heroin addiction is, even in Mt. Washington. It was then that I realized that we are truly fighting a community wide crisis. It was then that I looked around at my peers and thought to myself, any single one of us could easily head down that road.

Throughout the next ten pages, you’ll read just seven different stories. You’ll learn from medical professionals, family members, reporters, and addicts. You’ll see a variety of perspectives and all of the ways heroin can rip apart everything someone has to offer.

My request is this: As you read these stories, keep an open mind. Put yourself in the shoes of these people. Remember that these are not just random people we found on the internet. These are members of your community. They are alumni of your high school. They are human beings, and at one point in time, they were just like you. They were brave enough to tell their story, all you have to do is listen.

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A 15 YEAR JOURNEY A look into the life of a Bullitt East graduate who went on to be adicted to heroin. b y a b b i e a l statt Copy Editor

“I than once.”

didn’t know that I was about to be on a 15-yearjourney that would cost me everything, more

Addiction can, and will, cost you everything.

A 32-year-old graduate of Bullitt East has experienced addiction and it’s consequences first hand, and they will stick with him throughout his entire life.

He didn’t understand what he was getting himself into when he first became addicted to prescription pills.

Addiction took everything from him. He is better now than ever before, but is still on the road to recovery.

The football and track athlete described himself as a pretty average high schooler. He made good grades, and worked for his uncle doing construction. His family was also relatively normal, aside from the fact that sometimes his father was a little hard on him.

Although by typical standards his life was good, the atmosphere around him did not have the best influence on him. He said, “I mean a lot of my friends dabbled in drugs. It was like kinda the culture at the time. I mean like, you know, pot and pills and shit like acid and stuff...it was here, it was all around, you know.”

Along with this general culture he was living in, his involvement in high school sports ultimately had a negative effect on him as well. Curiously enough, he said, “Actually sports is what led up to doing drugs.”

As a junior he broke his leg; even with the knowledge of this injury, his coaches still expected him to participate in the football practices and games. He went to the doctor for medication to ease the pain of a broken leg. He said, “[The doctor] knew that I played sports and I literally could walk in there and say ‘I want this or that’ [medications] and at the time, I didn’t know. I didn’t know what I was getting myself into.”

At first, he would only take it before practice in order to help with the pain-what it was intended for. “I wouldn’t take it at school to get stoned,” he said. He remembers his mom telling him to be careful with the pills. But unfortunately, that’s how his addiction began. Even though he was popular, he was a nervous and insecure person. “The first time I took it, it was like a void was filled in my life,” he said. He wondered why anybody would not want to take the pills.

He took Vicodin prescription pills all the way up until college. “I left for college and that was the first time I didn’t have them and I remember being sick, and I didn’t know what was wrong with me. I would wake up and felt like I had the flu,” he said. He stopped a couple times during college, but never quit for good.

Upon coming home, he discovered that meth had hit Mt. Washington. This made him think his addiction

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wasn’t really as bad as it could be. He said, “I thought, like, I’m doing prescription pills. I’m not doing street drugs.”

wouldn’t work any overtime. I just wanted to get home and do my thing.”

This pain pill addiction carried over to his work. Once again, he was in a toxic environment concerning drug use. He said, “A lot of those guys [whom he worked with] ...they were old school drug users,” he continued, “These people would get all strung out [on heroin] and then they would just take time off work. They might go to rehab, they might not. And then, whenever unemployment kicked in, they’d get some money, they’d get some pills, and they’d go back to work. And they did this like it was a culture.”

“My parents started to say stuff, and they knew that I was taking pills because of my back and because of football, but I don’t think they had a clue at how bad it was affecting my life.

I could convince people that I had it under control, especially when you’re going to work every day… but once I started to lose everything, once it started to cost me vehicles and houses and stuff like that, my mom made comments like ‘you need to quit doing that’,” he said.

He was making a very good living off of his job. He said, “I was making like 700 or 800 dollars a week, so I had money to pay my bills, do everything I needed to do, and still support my habit.” During this time [about 2010] Opana came around; one 40 milligram pill could be broken into six pieces and taken for a couple days.

Eventually, Opana was no longer produced because of it’s ability to be easily abused, and the fact that it was “contributing to an epidemic of overdoses.” [ Alexander Gaffney, RF News Editor for The Regulatory Affairs Professionals Society (RAPS)].

This resulted in the cost going from $40 a pill to $140. At this point, he was taking three or four a day. He said, “As soon as those went away, I remember thinking to myself, what am I gonna do?” When the Opana disappeared overnight, he began to need to take something that would get rid of the withdrawal symptoms. He said, “Wouldn’t wish it [withdrawal] on my worst enemy. It’s the worst thing I’ve ever been through.”

He turned to heroin at the age of 27 to replace the need of Opana. He said, “As soon as I did it, that was it. It was like off to the races.”

Heroin was made available to him easily; he said, “The people that had the pills, knew somebody who knew somebody who could get it [heroin]. When we first started getting it, it was so strong and so potent. I watched people O.D. left and right.

Nobody had experience with it.”

Even though he was doing heroin, he still went to work, just like he did when he was only addicted to prescription pills.

He said, “The bosses were kinda like the doctors and football coaches… if it meant you could work 16-18 hours, they’d give them to you. I felt exploited a lot.” He worked seven days a week, about 10-12 hours a day.

Through all of this, he still had relationships; he dated a girl who had a baby. They had a nice life; an apartment, a motorcycle, a truck, and two cars-granted that he worked for the money that he had. He paid for her to go to school, and even bought a house he planned to fix up for his girlfriend and her baby. All was well, but one day he went to the ATM and discovered she had cleaned him out $8,000. “I thought I was doing the right thing, you know, working every day, giving her my money. I literally would not even cash my check, just give it to her, and that’s my own fault for being naive,” he said.

He supported her and the child for 3 years, but when they left with $8,000 of his money, he lost almost everything. He sold his apartment to move into the house because he couldn’t afford to keep both. He lost his truck and his motorcycle.

He said, “I was by myself, my habit got out of control, like, real bad. That was the first time it started to be a problem at work. I would be counting the minutes at the end of the day; I

At the age of 28, he got back together with a girl who he dated for five of his teenage years. She didn’t know he was addicted to heroin, and found out she was pregnant. But when she discovered a needle in his basketball shorts, she went and had an abortion without even talking to him. He said, “To this day, there’s no closure, it just sucks to just do that without talking to somebody. So I feel like, sort of, that I’m responsible for taking a life. If I hadn’t have been doing what I was doing, who knows.”

Heroin had already cost him everything, but he was addicted.

He couldn’t just stop. On top of that, he felt like there was no one he could talk to about it. “My parents were not the type of parents you go and talk to, and that whole abstinence, ‘say no to drugs’ is the worst campaign there ever has been because it doesn’t give you any information, and it creates such a stigma that you can’t talk to anybody,” he said.

Most people would agree with him when he said that telling your grandpa or your dad that you’re addicted to heroin isn’t an ideal conversation. He said, “We’re in this small town, we’re raised with certain values. You go to church on Sunday, you respect your grandparents, just you do what’s right, or you’re not looked at as a good person,” he continued, “It’s left for you to deal with. I struggled with it [addiction] on my own before I ever talked to anybody probably, gosh, 12 years roughly.”

This caused him to not go to Thanksgiving, Christmas, and other holidays alike because some members of his family would pester him about it and tell him to “grow up” or “just stop it”. He said, “It ain’t that easy. If I could, don’t you think I would before I lost everything?”

His addiction got so bad that he started not wanting to take care of himself. “It sounds gross, but I cared about my appearance, but that all just went to the wayside man. I never, ever thought that would happen to me. I never thought that I would be a person that did not want to get up and brush their teeth in the morning,” he said.

That was only one aspect of his addiction. Overall, he said, “Every morning is the worst day of your life when you wake up.” He felt so sick in the mornings that he didn’t want to go to work; he just wanted to go back to bed.

Before he told anyone he had a problem, he tried to quit several times. “I would go through times where I would quit…

I would sit and be sick for a week, and then start to feel better, but you don’t sleep. I would take pills so that I could go to work, I would justify it by saying, ‘well if I don’t take this, I can’t go to work, I’m gonna lose my job, I’m gonna lose my family, whatever.’”

He relapsed every time, and said the withdrawal process is probably the worst part of quitting. He said, “You can’t eat, you page by Eric Sanchez

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vomit, your nose runs, your eyes water. Your stomach feels like you’ve got knives in it. It’s like your skin is crawling off your body, every part of your bones hurt… it is so bad. It’s days and days of it, it’s monotonous, it’s unrelenting. The first day sucks, the second day is worse, the third is worse than that, and then on the fourth day you might feel a little bit better.

But by that time, you’re so worn down; you’re just ready to give up.”

He said the worst part of withdrawal was that he became massively depressed. Beforehand, he had never been a suicidal individual, but said, “When I quit doing heroin the first time, I thought about it [suicide].”

I didn’t see it, I didn’t see I was hurting other people. Like one time will kill you, and these young kids that are gonna try it, it may just be one time. I just feel bad for these kids that are throwing every opportunity they have away. If you mess up at 15 or 16 years old, you are building the foundation of your life,” he said.

Addiction starts with the individual. It depends on the mindset of being willing to try something else. He was willing to try something else. He said, “Look at me, it will cost you everything. The cost of it is nothing less than everything you have, everything. People that live like this, die like this.”

It not only took a toll on his physical, but also his mental health.

To this day, he is still a drug addict. It started when he was 18 years old. He is now 32.

He will most likely end up going to rehab soon. He said, “As soon as the pills were gone, I should’ve done rehab.”

This is his “third-rebuilding” of everything. He said, “I’m working and I got everything together, but I haven’t been clean for an extended period of time… I need to go and get the skills to win. I just never learned those coping skills.”

He said, “I’ve learned that there’s a lot more mental aspect to it than just the physical part. If you’re not mentally prepared, and you don’t have skills of knowing that your mind is as much a part of it as your body, then you’re never gonna beat it.”

But just like anything, recovery takes time, and there’s going to be bumps in the road. He said, “It’s been trial and error for me… it takes time, it takes relapses.” He really does feel like this is his time now, “I want it [full recovery] more than I’ve ever wanted it… I think the end is near.”

Even when the time comes when he has gone through rehab and has recovered, this addiction will still have lasting effects on his life. “I gave money to people, I did a lot of nice stuff, I volunteered, I used to go work at the soup kitchen… and I did that for the first 25 years of my life. I’ve only been a heroin addict for five or six years, but that’s overshadowed everything I’ve ever done,” he said.

For him, the hardest part is watching the people around him suffer from his decisions. He hates using his money to have to buy these drugs. He said, “I hate it. I hate it. I hate the having to do it. I’m spending money that oughta be going to my house, my kid, my family. Even though they have everything they need, they’re not doing without, but they could have more.”

As for young kids who are being influenced by drugs or are struggling from drug use right now, he has something to share.

“If you’re the person that does it because you’re insecure, like I did, or it’s filling a void, then you need to find out what it is that’s really the problem. Had I addressed that sooner, I probably never would’ve used the pills to cover it up. If you’re already struggling with it, straight up tell people, that’s the biggest thing. Get rid of the stigma of it. You gotta care enough about yourself and about the other people in your life;

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c o m pi l e d b y r a c h e l grant

Statistics 18-29 (38%)

Copy Editor *all information was given by Angela McHargue, who works for the Bullitt County Court System

30-54 (28%)

46-64 (19%)

65+ (15%)

Top 5 KY Counties w/ Most Heroin Deaths

Jefferson (59%)

Floyd (16%)

$9 per dose

Heroin use by age

Pike(15%)

138%

Increase In Clients Attending Recovery Meetings

$60-100 per tablet

Fayette (10%)

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More than a pretty face A glimpse at the journey of another East graduate who battled with addiction. b y S y d n e y Ri l e y Website Editor

M

ost people can agree that the stereotypical drug addict comes from a broken home, a poor neighborhood, and has no aspirations in life. When you picture them, you probably see a person who hasn’t showered in a few days with bags under their eyes and yellow, rotting teeth. They spend every paycheck they get on drugs and are begging for money on the side of the road just to get through the month without getting their water shut off.

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Now picture this person: your typical all-American girl next door. She comes from the upper class, a giant house, a perfect family, and wears nothing but designer clothes and carries nothing but designer handbags. She went to a private school and basically lived the perfect life. She has perfect hair, beautiful white teeth, and a figure every girl wishes they could have, even after having two perfect children. What if I told you that she was a heroin addict?

page by Haley Steinmetz February 2016

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page by Luke Young

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Abuse:

I remember the day that I found out my cousin, Kaitlyn, was an addict like it was yesterday. My mom came to pick me up from Hoops Academy, where my volleyball team practiced.

Typically, we would listen to music or just talk about our days with each other, but that day was different. The music wasn’t turned on, she was being silent, and I could tell that my mom had something important to say.

She told me that Kaitlyn was a heroin addict, and it had been going on for a few years. I knew that she was trying to stay calm when trying to explain the situation, but I was in absolute shock. I kept thinking, “How?” “Why?” “There’s no way; this isn’t real.” I didn’t know how to feel about it. I was angry, upset, and just flat out shocked all at the same time.

Her addiction started the summer before she went to college.

She had gotten her wisdom teeth taken out and became addicted to the painkillers. However, painkillers were too expensive and too hard to get, especially for a broke college kid.

I’ve heard a lot of people say that gateway drugs aren’t a thing and that people just up the dose of the drug that they started with instead of moving on to a different one. But, they’re wrong, and my cousin is proof of that. When I got my wisdom teeth taken out, my parents didn’t want me taking the pain pills because they knew what the pills were capable of. After all, if they can change a person as perfect as Kaitlyn, they can change anyone.

Furthermore, her immediate family didn’t realize how big her problem was until she had her second child. The baby had tested positive for drugs, but was lucky enough not to have any birth defects from it.

After that, she started going to outpatient rehab. For a while, she had quit using, but eventually relapsed.

When her parents and her siblings suspected the relapse, they sat her down and had an intervention. They said that she needed to get help or they were going to kick her out because they didn’t want the drugs in their house, and they knew that it wasn’t good for Kaitlyn’s two kids to see her like that. And so, she left.

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It may sound like a harsh thing to do, but after everything was over, she said that without that intervention, she never would have gotten the help that she needed to get better. Heroin is a dangerous addiction; it was easy for her to choose drugs over her family because they take over your life and it’s hard to see past the next high.

When she left the house, everyone was heartbroken. I think that we were all surprised that she actually left. We were all worried sick about her because no one knew where she was, what she was doing, or where she was staying. She also stopped talking to most people who were trying to help her because she didn’t want to be helped.

This all happened around the holidays, and Christmas Day dreadfully came. Still, no one knew where she was or whether or not she was going to show up.every year, the whole family goes to my grandparents house for brunch and to open gifts.

It was almost time to eat, and Kaitlyn was the only one who was not there.

I come from a Catholic family, so we always pray before we eat. It was always my Grandpa’s job to say grace before everyone got their food, but that Christmas was different. When we all gathered around, he could barely open his mouth. He said the first few words, but started to stutter as he continued. He stopped in the middle of saying grace and collapsed on my Grandma, crying. A man that I had never seen upset, better yet, cry, was bawling his eyes out because things were just not the same without Kaitlyn. We all wanted her there and wanted her to come back, in hopes that things could just go back to normal.

As the day continued, we all tried to act happy like nothing was wrong, but there was a strong emptiness throughout the house that everyone could feel. Kaitlyn’s brother, Stephen, got into contact with her and they met for lunch after he left my grandparents house. If it weren’t for that, I’m not sure that we ever would have found her.

Good news: she decided to get help.

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Treatment:

Recovery:

If you’re wondering what inpatient rehab is like, it’s extremely structured. You start out in the detox phase, where you clean your body of all of the drugs you’ve taken. In this phase, she wasn’t allowed to have visitors because it’s the most important part in getting better. After that, visitors were allowed and you eventually earned privileges.

The one thing about society and addiction is that when people know you’re an addict, they ONLY see you as an addict and a criminal. People need to understand that BEING A DRUG ADDICT DOES NOT MAKE YOU A BAD PERSON. Kaitlyn is one of the sweetest, kindest people I have ever known and she would do anything for anybody. It just takes a person who can see past her bad choices to know that.

The day after Christmas, Kaitlyn’s parents and other close family members checked her into an inpatient rehab facility.

When I found out that she was getting help, I was so relieved and I knew that this was just the start of what was going to be an amazing journey.

A lot of people assume that rehab places just make you better, release you, and make you find a good life without drugs on your own, but that’s not true. The program was designed to where each person in rehab had a job within the building, and it was pertinent that they showed up to work on time. They are expected to do their own their own laundry, make their own beds, and do everything that you would do if you were living at home.

After a while, she was able to leave the facility and go visit her family and go shopping as long as she was back at a certain time. In fact, she was required to leave and go to a specific amount of meetings per week as a part of her rehab at one point. Eventually, she was able to spend entire weekends at home as long as she didn’t have to work the next day.

In my opinion, it’s important for people to know that there are places that can give the right kind of help. An addiction is something that cannot just go away overnight, it’s a process.

People who need help need to know that they should not be ashamed to check into places like inpatient rehab, because it can and will save a life.

Kaitlyn has now been drug free for almost two years! No, the recovery was not easy, but sometimes things have to get worse before they can get better. She just had to find the will to want to quit and accept the support that she was getting.

An addiction is more of a disease than anything. It makes you do things that you can’t control and you have impulses that you can’t help. Addiction takes over your brain, your body, and your life. When Kaitlyn was refusing to get help, she chose drugs over her own family because she thought she couldn’t live without them. She thought she NEEDED heroin to live, when really heroin is what was killing her.

If people treated it like a disease and realized that it takes professional help to get better, addicts wouldn’t feel so ashamed to get help. Society just looks at them as junkies and criminals and low-lifes, but what society doesn’t realize is that addicts usually don’t know that they need help. It’s just like a person with any other similar disorder; they don’t realize that what they are doing is wrong. Also, no matter how much help they get, it will always be there. Diseases never go away. An addict will always be an addict.

Kaitlyn was lucky to have such a supportive family and the self-determination to change her life forever. She is one of the many success stories and it deserves to be shared.

Sometimes I wonder where she would be if she hadn’t gone to rehab. The possibilities are endless, but most of the situations I imagine don’t turn out as good as the one that actually happened.

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A family divided A different view on the family side of drug addiction.

b y ta y l o r h o l l ifi e l d Copy Editor

A them most.

ddiction not only affects the person who’s addicted, but the people who care about

Tarrah Lutz and her son, Andy Lutz, express what it is like to be on the other side of a family member’s drug addiction.

Growing up, sisters Tarrah and Angie Lutz had a wonderful, supportive family. The sisters had a great relationship when they were younger, always doing everything together.

Angie is now 34-years-old and has a son, who has just recently turned seven. Angie had everything-job, house, child-but lost it all because of her addiction.

Tarrah and Angie both lived in Mt. Washington and went to Assumption, a nearby catholic school. The girls didn’t have many friends because they lived so far away from their school.

Tarrah said, “Angie was a decent student who just never really found her place and I think she just fell in with a bad crowd.”

Andy would never have suspected his Aunt Angie had an addiction if it wasn’t for his mom coming out about the truth to him and his sister. “I knew my aunt pretty well. Whenever she was younger she would come over and visit a lot or have family dinners with us. Me and my sister were very surprised to have found out what was truly going on with our aunt. We would have never suspected anything like this from her. Addiction is definitely not something you would suspect in your family,” said Andy.

Angie got involved with drugs through two separate boyfriends. Nine years ago, Angie had a pain pill addiction.

She had gone to rehab for a year and got clean. Angie then starting dating a guy who happened to be a drug dealer and introduced her to heroin.

The Lutz family began to realize Angie’s addiction when she started becoming more absent and her appearance began to change. “She started calling into work sick a lot and she was a single mother, so it was just her and my nephew, who at the time was around four years old. She would ask my mom to watch my nephew all the time, she never felt good, and mainly she dropped about 40 pounds in just two months and that’s when we realized something was going on,” said Tarrah.

The Lutz family has tried to confront Angie about her addic-

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tion three times and three times she has looked them straight in the face and lied to them. Angie didn’t admit she had a problem until she lost her house and was arrested for stealing a woman’s wallet at Kroger while her son was in the shopping cart.

The family has told Angie’s son about her addiction, making him well aware of the situation at hand. Her parents then raised her son for about a year, and he is now currently living with his biological father in St. Louis, Missouri.

Her lifestyle has had a huge affect on her parents’ lives. “Her addiction has caused problems between my mom and I, because my mom tries to enable her and I have had to be the bad guy. Even though I am only 38 I have had to be the parent, the one who has gotten her into places and the one who has thrown her out of places. I have had to call the police on Angie because my mom would not, while my mom and I are super close there have been issues,” said Tarrah.

Angie has stolen from everyone in their family. She had broken into her parents’ business and stolen from them. They began raising her son when he was five years old and started his first day of kindergarten with him, which at the time they were 60 years old. “Angie’s addiction has broken their hearts and it has caused tons of problems between the two of them.

Our dad would say he was done with Angie but our mom would always try to fix it, so that caused tons of issues,” said Tarrah.

Their family has forced Angie to go to four different places to get help and she has never completed one of them. After a few days, Angie would just leave. She has been through detox several times and has been kicked out often. She is currently attending rehab in Florida, and this is the first time she has chosen to receive help on her own. A few weeks ago Angie did happen to relapse, but is now back in rehab receiving help.

Andy said, “While I have seen some pretty good rehab facilities and believe that rehab can honestly help people, I think she needs to take the opportunities presented to her herself.”

Andy said, “The situation has impacted the family as a whole causing everyone to be stressed. My mom has been really stressed because her and Angie were extremely close for about 20 years, so I don’t think she’s taking it very well.

There has definitely been some tension for the past two years between everyone. It’s a sore subject for everyone to talk about now just because it has been going on for so long and we don’t feel as if we have made any progress so now everyone is just becoming tired. It has hurt a lot. While I haven’t been

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impacted as much as everyone else it has definitely allowed me to become more educated on the subject.”

Their dad wants nothing to do with Angie and that has caused issues because while the rest of the family would like to see Angie at holidays, their dad does not. He doesn’t want her around at all. Andy also agrees with his grandfather, he is just done trying to help her when she keeps making the wrong decisions. Andy said, “It’s getting old.”

Tarrah does not shelter her children from their aunt’s problem. Andy has been involved with his aunt’s addiction for about three years now. “Andy is super mature for a sophomore. Andy has went to visit his aunt in rehab, he’s seen me get a phone call that she’s overdosed and has seen me drop to the floor in tears. He has watched her flat out lie to all of us.

Andy knows more about addiction than a 15 year old should,” said Tarrah.

Even though Tarrah kept Andy and his sister in the dark about their aunt the first few years, due to their young age, she eventually decided to tell them about what has been happening and how things aren’t getting better as they should. Tarrah will not keep her children from their aunt because she wants them to realize what it has done to their family.

lower income. The Lutz family is financially stable, and Angie had just happened to get caught up with the wrong crowd.

Andy himself didn’t know the seriousness of heroin until he experienced the addiction firsthand with his aunt. Her and her family are now recovering from the damages of her addiction.

While the Lutz’s have been through so much, they believe the situation has only made them stronger as a family. Andy said, “I will never be able to look at my aunt again, but I know once this is all done our family will come out stronger.” Angie’s addiction may have made them cut off all communication with her, but it has only allowed the rest of the family to become closer as a whole.

Many have thought to believe heroin is rare, but really it is closer to their hometown than they actually realize. Heroin is not just in other states and communities, it’s here in this community. The effects heroin has not only affects the person addicted but the people closest to them. Things will never be the same for the Lutz’s due to the lasting effects of Angie’s addiction.

“For anyone in my position with a family member or someone else my advice to you is to wait it out. All you can do is try to convince your loved one to receive help and let them know you’re there for them. There isn’t much you can do it’s mostly all on the person who has the addiction,” said Andy.

It is Andy’s hope that organizations at schools, such as UFE’s, will allow more students to become aware of the damages addiction can cause.

Angie lived on the street for 14 months, and at the time Tarrah didn’t see her or speak to her.

Tarrah and Angie have been talking for about six weeks now with one phone call a day. Their relationship has changed because of everything they have gone through.

Tarrah said, “My sister told me that I could walk out my front door in any direction and in less than five minutes I can buy heroin, and we lived in Twelve Oaks.”

Heroin is everywhere and it is not just for the

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Paying the ultimate price b y j e ssi c a m atti n g l y Executive Editor

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eo Craven, English teacher at Bullitt East, has experienced the effects that heroin has on the surrounding friends and family. One of his best friends, Michael, overdosed last year from heroin. He believes that telling his friends story will bring insight to the horrific disease that is addiction.

Growing up, Craven and Michael were next door neighbors. They became close friends due to the fact that they went to the same high school, St. X, and shared many of the same hobbies. Their families, both being Catholic, shared many of the same values when it came to the way they were raised.

“I grew up two doors down from him [Michael], and I’m still best friends with his little brother, like I was even in his wedding. They had a close family, they were religious, and it was very similar to my upbringing. We did the same things. We played baseball together, we went to St. X together, I played drums and he played guitar, he rode BMX and I skateboarded, and we played basketball together. His upbringing was very normal. It wasn’t like he was by himself or anything. I will say in our families, we’re Catholic, and alcohol was prevalent, but it was never abused. It’s just a normal thing. Like if I go to Sunday dinner, people have whiskey or beer or wine. It was nothing that you would stereotypically think,” said Craven.

Michael started showing minor signs of addiction at a very young age. When he was 16, he tore his ACL. Because of this, Michael was prescribed painkillers to help him deal with the extreme pain that came with the injury. Craven admitted that he noticed him slowly starting to overuse the pills, but it was nothing crazy. “He was prescribed painkillers and he would abuse them, but not in a terrible way. Like, instead of taking one pill in the morning, he would take two, and so he would come to school ‘feeling good.’”

From here, his addiction started to progress and his overall identity and personality began to change. Craven said he remembers his problem not really becoming per se an addiction until he was approximately 19. Even with that, the teenager could see his best friend gradually becoming different.

“He changed a lot. He went from a carefree guy that was always there to hangout and have a good time and he was very easy going, to someone you had a lack of trust with, and he was shady.

I don’t want to say darker, but he was more secretive. He would come visit, like once he got kicked out of school [college] he would come visit, and he was always in denial about things. We [friend group] would be like ‘Hey man we’re kinda worried about you,’ and he would just be like, ‘I’m good man, I’m fine, everythings fine.’ He became a liar, you couldn’t trust him. His priority was drugs. He was lazy and apathetic as far as anything goes,” Craven said.

Because Michael became someone that Craven no longer knew, him and his friend group strayed away from their former best friend. Michael’s family struggled with the drug addiction and

many roles and responsibilities shifted. “We lost friendships. Basically, we used to always hangout together and I kind of saw him shift to another group. We all kind of stayed closely knit and he went to a different group. I saw his parents just go through hell.

I hangout with his little brother and I saw him just become the older brother basically. The responsibilities shifted, and a burden was placed on people. Just everyone was concerned and you never knew if you were going to wake up and hear the bad news or when you were going to find him.”

Michael, with the advice from his friends and parents, was in and out of rehab. Once he was finished there, he moved into several different halfway houses, which were meant to help him transition back into normal everyday life. His addiction was a vicious cycle that, tragically, got the best of Michael.

“I remember being young, like 17, 18, 19 years old, and thinking that was snitching and I was telling on my friend to be like, ‘Hey he does these drugs’ or ‘he parties’ or things like that. But at one point, me and my friends looked at each other and we were like, ‘This is a serious thing, like we should probably tell him.’ One of the biggest coincidences of my life ever was his brother and his dad came over one day and they were like, ‘Hey Mike’s continually going downhill’ and to me it was a cycle. He would get bad and then he would go to rehab and fix himself , he’d come back and we’d have about between one year and 18 months of healthy Mike.

It was just a cycle. Last October I remember it becoming like the start of his downfall. I think it was February or March, his brother and his dad were at my house helping me do something and they decided we needed to sit down and have a discussion with Mike.

I had actually planned me and like five other friends to sit down with him on a Monday and he died on Saturday. Multiple multiple times he was given help. He was sent to rehab, he lived in halfway houses for like a year and he’d get out. There was always support for him,” said Craven.

Unlike Michael, who passed at the young age of 27, there is still time for anyone considering experimenting with drugs, or someone that is currently struggling with drugs, to receive help and to stop. The biggest thing, to Craven at least, is to know your limits and to know when enough is enough. There’s really three outcomes: you end up in jail, you become an addict and die, or you seek help and you quit before it gets out of your control.

Craven left off with, “If people are saying they just want to experiment, you have to know where the line and where the experimenting stops and when it becomes an addiction. At the same time, no one means to be an addict. It’s the same thing with cigarettes.

It starts with only smoking on the weekends, or only smoking when you drink. No one ever intends to become an addict. No one thinks, ‘Oh, I’ll be the one that dies and that’s okay,’ from a heroin overdose. No one thinks that’s going to be them. But once you get to a certain point, it’s out of your control.”

page by Eric Sanchez

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nursing back to health Nurse Ada Daugherty works closely with recovering heroin addicts. b y l i n d sa y r e n n e is e n Business Editor

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s a nurse for the last five years, 28-year-old Ada Daugherty has seen a lot. On a day-today basis, she primarily works with the addiction population.

Daugherty works with the detox center and monitors vitals and then works in getting her patients in a recovery program.

“Heroin is kind of a crossover drug, you have to think sticking a needle in your arm isn’t probably your first idea, but once you get to that point, a lot of people use heroin and keep using it to keep from getting sick from not having it,” Daugherty said.

Daugherty started working with people who were addicted to heroin by working at the jail in Jefferson county as a nurse.

She continued this for about four and a half years. “I really got introduced when the heroin epidemic got started here. In April of 2012, ‘bad’ heroin hit the area. It was laced with rat poison and so you would have people that were coming in the jail which was the first line that saw all of this because of just the statistics with the jail population and drug abuse. It is very interlinked. Also in that year, they changed the controlled substance laws to where hydrocodone became a scheduled three narcotic to where you didn’t have as good of access to it,” said Daugherty.

When users get sick from not using, it is called being “dope sick” and they are fighting their withdraw and this can transition users to heroin. In Daugherty’s experience, addicts aren’t only addicted to heroin, but normally a little bit of everything.

Different people have different cycles. “At the jail, we had different types of people. We had duos, which were people who were on heroin and Xanax, so if you get hooked on the pain meds and then your doctor cracked down on your prescription and then so now you’ve gone to heroin. Well when you start withdrawing off of heroin, it makes you panic. Then you go to your doctor and say ‘I’m panicking all the time,’ so then they give you benzodiazepine or xanax. So you get hooked on the xanax which are really dangerous, too. Then you basically break into this cycle of whatever you can afford and whatever you can get your hands on and you’re bouncing between heroin and xanax. It can take you up to two weeks to even start withdrawing,” she said.

Many people in small communities like Mt. Washington think that heroin is “too hard” of a drug to be in areas like theirs. In reality, this is probably the biggest myth that people are telling themselves. She feels that heroin is underreported and it is a bigger problem than everyone actually realizes. Recently, it has gotten a lot of attention because of the overdose rate. It is truly a tragedy that so many people have to die for this drug to get attention.

“You see a lot of regret and sorrow. When I work in a recovery place for rehab, you see a lot of ‘What am I going to do?’ and a lot of ‘How am I going to fix this?’” Daugherty explained, “Now they are in legal trouble, and getting their children taken away. Maybe their children are getting high and shooting up in the car and overdosing in their driveway because they watched mom get high for the past ten, fifteen years and it never phased her.”

The allusion that students and people in small towns are “untouchable” is not reality. “I went to my 10 year high school reunion and three people weren’t there because of heroin, and we are from here,” she said. Daugherty graduated from Bullitt East in 2005. As adolescents, people tend to think that they are invincible anyway. When thinking about something as dangerous as heroin, this generation can’t afford to think like that or it will catch up to them in the future.

There are also addicts in heroin rehab centers that show no remorse and are only there because the judge said they have to be there. But, everyone has a breaking point and some people’s is sooner than others.

“I think high school students need to know that it’s not a game and it’s not funny. It’s serious and I think that a lot of people start somewhere else and then move into that [heroin]. There are so many high school students taking their parents’ medicine and either selling it or using it. By the time they get out of high school, they are already ready to escalate to that point, and that’s scary,” said Daugherty.

As of now, it is easier to get heroin than it is to get pills and that is a huge issue. It is also more cost efficient compared to oxycodone and other drugs like that. In heroin addicts, there are normally gateway drugs before they become addicted.

When overcoming heroin, it comes in stages. “The first stage is the physical part. If you don’t overdose, then it won’t kill you. That part is hard for a lot of people. Especially now since I work in a voluntary situation versus the jail, people leave the facility on the third day of withdrawal because it is the worst.

In the jail they are forced to stay. Then you go into the next stage where they have to make the decision that everything in their life right now is toxic,” she said.

Now that Daugherty is working in the rehab facility, called Turning Point Center, she has had the chance to work with the addicts’ families and watch them go through therapy. She has gotten to meet their children, and their mothers. She is educating the families to the fact that addiction is a disease.

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“There is a lot of resentment and families thinking ‘How could you do this to us?’ and ‘How could you do this to your children?’ and ‘How could you do this at all?’. On some level, they are 100 percent accountable, but things can spiral out of control so quickly,” she said.

Daugherty has the chance to talk with her patients as they are going through rehab about what they plan to do when they get out. Many people will tell her they don’t know what they are going to do because they don’t have anyone because their families have walked away from them for their own sake.

“It [working closely with heroin] has really opened my eyes. I was doing CPR on someone who had just overdosed on heroin and that is a lot for a 23-year-old to handle. To be accountable and liable for someone else’s life who had no interest in taking care of themselves is unreal,” she said, “I showed up to do CPR one day and got lawsuit paperwork stating that I was being sued for being merely a nurse.

It got dismissed because I gave my best effort, but it’s tragic to see people younger than me go through this.”

One of the hardest parts is people that don’t want to be saved and having to deal with those people and try to help them anyways. At the end of the day, they are still people and they have to be treated as they are equals so their life can be saved. Heroin has a lasting effect on everything that comes in contact with it. It can take everything from people who use it; sometimes, even their own lives.

conclusion b y j e ssi c a m atti n g l y Executive Editor

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As you read our coverage on heroin, we hope that you kept an open mind. Every individual mentioned in this issue is a normal person that went down the wrong path and came face to face with the horrific disease that is addiction. We also hope that this was a very eye opening experience for our readers. Heroin seems to be this epidemic that is too big to affect a small town like Mt. Washington. As you’ve read, heroin has lingered in the shadows of our small home town for far too long and has destroyed the lives of people just like you and me.

If you or someone you know are struggling with addiction of any sort, never feel like you are alone. The whole purpose of our coverage over heroin was to bring awareness to a situation that a lot of us push off to the side because we feel like it isn’t that big of a deal. The only way to make progress and to heal is to reach out to someone. Talking about addiction is the first step to recovering. Many of the people that contacted us did so solely because they wanted more people to hear their story and to bring light to the situation., and we hope that the way we shared their stories did exactly that.

page by Eric Sanchez

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privacy over politics

With the aftermath of the recent technology case involving Apple and the FBI, American citizens’ rights are at stake. by grant skaggs Sports Editor

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ou got mail,” and so does the government.

With the surfacing of the San Bernardino shootings and the information that may be hidden in the cell phones of the terrorists responsible, the FBI looks to force Apple Inc. to break into those phones to search for information.

The future lays unknown as of now, but just by looking at America’s recent history, our privacy as American citizens may be in jeopardy. The formation of the NSA, or the National Security

The situation of breaking through the phones of these terrorists as of right now seems reasonable for the sake of fighting terrorism. Right now it seems the government is just interested in this particular case, but the future may hold a struggle for privacy. The American people cannot allow the FBI to invade Apple Inc. as it may lead to a violation of the constitution.

On December 2, a federal judge ordered Apple to help investigators by accessing encrypted data within the phone of Syed Rizwan Farook.

Farook, along with his wife Tashfeen Malik, took 14 innocent lives in San Bernardino, California. The FBI wants to access the phone for information, though Apple itself insists they will not open the encrypted phone.

Apple CEO Tim Cook signed off on a public letter that said, “The government is asking Apple to hack our own users and undermine decades of security advancements that protect our customers -- including tens of millions of American citizens -- from sophisticated hackers and cybercriminals.”

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conference with people in the Johns Hopkins University auditorium on February 17 this year in Baltimore.

The case isn’t just about unlocking one iPhone, it’s a setup where everyone’s civil liberties may be in jeopardy. These companies have to protect the privacy of their customers.

Letting anyone into that information corrupts the idea of encryption and the protection of data from American citizens.

Agency, was developed from that of the attacks of 9/11. This event put the pressure on the threat of terrorism in this nation, and that came with the cost of Americans’ privacy through the constant surveillance from the government. This situation looks very similar. The threat this time may lead to the total control of everything within electronic devices without any warrant or warning.

This case of cracking a code through a phone may be more important than many citizens realize. Edward Snowden, the man responsible for leaking information on the NSA, said, “This is the most important tech case in a decade,” during a conversation via video

page by Eric Sanchez April 2016

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SAFETY OVER PRIVACY

>> opinion

Regardless of Americans’ right to privacy, the United States’ first priority should always be the safety of its citizens. by luke young Staff Writer

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pple and the FBI have been in a battle over a phone that could reveal some secrets behind recent terrorist attacks in America.

of the terrorists to possibly reveal secrets that could give America the upper hand that they desperately need.

Bill Gates, CEO of Microsoft, Apple’s main competitor,

Security is our nation’s top priority, and today more than ever it is threatened by an enemy that we are struggling to contain. ISIS, Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and more, all threaten our way of life. To ensure that our nation is safe, all parties must come together and overcome obstacles in order to keep our nation safe.

FBI

Recently, two terrorists attacked the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino, California where 14 people were killed and 22 people were injured. Now the United States is trying to get help from Apple, the makers of the iPhone that belonged to one of the shooters, so that they can try to make some sense of what happened.

Apple has refused the request from the FBI, which they have every right to do under the First Amendment, (which lists rights such as Freedom of Speech, Religion, Press, etc.) but if this country has any hope of defeating terrorism, everyone must put in a little work. The FBI has asked Apple to crack open the iPhone

has said that he stands with the FBI and thinks that Apple needs to unlock the phone.

On the other hand, when pressured by the government other companies have said that they stand with Apple. Instead of fighting over the issue, the lead technical minds of today should come together and make a truly unstoppable force that could cripple the terrorists that

want to destroy our lives, homes, and families.

One of the strongest weapons that ISIS has against America right now is the recruitment of young people through the internet. Previously, America has used simple things such as Instagram pictures to triangulate the position of the base of known terrorists, and neutralize them. With the increased strength of the cyber anti-terrorism units, ISIS would not be a threat.

If our government can’t get the help that is required to end this case, then the fourteen victims who paid the ultimate price will have died in vain. “Fourteen people were slaughtered and many more had their lives and bodies ruined. We owe them a thoughtful and professional investigation under law.” stated FBI director James Comey on the FBI’s website.

Apple refuses to hack into the phone because, as Apple CEO Tim Cook said in a public letter, the government is asking him to “Hack our own users and undermine decades of security advancements that protect our customers.”

If Apple refuses to help the lives of more than these fourteen men and women will be lost. Cook refuses to see that his company’s denial of the request to support the FBI will cost more of his customers to die in his plan to “protect” the people of this country. In America, the citizens place trust in the service men and women for protection, and now it’s the people’s job to elect leaders that can put an end to terrorism.

This country suffered a great loss in San Bernardino. It is up to the people to elect the right leader that can compromise with companies and try to work with them to solve problems like this that could occur in the future. page by Eric Sanchez

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page by Lindsay Renneisen April 2016

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shining a light in the dark staff editorial

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hroughout this issue, readers have had the chance to hear the stories of members of our community whose lives have been directly hit by heroin use.

Some have struggled with it themselves, some have watched a family member spiral down the wrong path, some have been fortunate enough to save themselves, while some have had to watch helplessly as a loved one truly lost their battle to their addiction.

Either way, in every story, the family, the friends, and the abuser all have one thing in common: their lives have been irreversibly shaken by drugs.

One of the biggest reasons that heroin is such a growing issue is due to the fact that people aren’t always willing to talk about it. Heroin is such a hard drug that people tend to just brush it under the rug because they believe that it isn’t as big of an issue, especially in a small town like Mt. Washington. Moreover, drugs are not typically great conversation starters, and sometimes people may feel awkward or uncomfortable talking about them. That, in and of itself, is the very problem that is allowing heroin to grow into the monster that it is becoming. In order to bring light to the situation and make people understand how big of an issue this really is, we cannot be afraid to talk about it. We cannot go on pretending like Mt. Washington is safe from the hard drugs that are killing people left and right and rocking the worlds of millions everywhere.

The other major issue with heroin, and the reason that it has been able to grow and grow, is that there is such an irrational stigma that surrounds drug abuse. Starting in fifth grade DARE class, kids are taught to

always, under every circumstance, say no to drugs. And at just 10 years old, this is believable. At that age, everything you’ve ever learned has left you completely turned off of drugs. You probably have visions made up of what a drug addict looks like, and you probably see them as very different than a normal person.

It is that lack of understanding that makes them deny their problem and fear bringing it to light.

These messages don’t stop once you reach high school. At this point, the idea of what kind of person is a drug addict is ingrained into your brain, and you probably picture, for lack of a better term, a low life. You imagine someone homeless, dirty, and sketchy, barely scraping by and only thinking about the next time they’ll get to use.

The problem here is this: no one stops to think about who this person was before they got involved with drugs. No one considers that maybe this person was once a successful businessman who just happened to find themselves on the wrong track. No one considers that this person may have three different degrees from prestigious universities. No one considers that this person has a family, this person has friends and a life outside of drugs. No one considers that maybe, just maybe, this person was once just like them.

If we as a society and community are going to fix this problem, or at the very least start taking steps in the right direction, we have to be willing to talk. We have to learn to offer a helping hand and support those battling with addiction. We have to accept that having an addiction does not make someone a low life, and a lot of times, addiction is not a choice. We have to recognize addiction as the true epidemic that it really is, and we have to stop shaming those who have been swept up within its shadows and destroyed by its horrific ways. Solving the problem that is addiction is not the user’s responsibility. The responsibility rests on all of our shoulders, as peers, as a community, and as a society.

It is that lack of understanding that makes people continue to use and use until heroin literally takes away every last thing that they have, and ultimately, their life.

It is that enormous lack of fundamental understanding that creates the hideous stigma that makes it impossible for heroin addicts to talk about their problem with other people.

It is that lack of understanding that keeps users from getting the help that they need and deserve. page by Lindsay Renneisen

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