By Todd Collins
What does a parent do when one of their children dies? For Henry “Skip” Gates, he retired from his 40 year career as a math teacher and travels from school to school talking to the students about the dangers and the risks of using alcohol and experimenting with drugs in the hopes it will prevent another parent from experiencing the gut wrenching, heart breaking pain that his family has and continues to endure. To prevent another child from starting down the same path that ultimately killed his son, William.
March 23, 2009 was like any other day. Skip was teaching his math class when he was called to the principal’s office. Once he arrived, he heard the words every parent hopes they will never hear, “We regret to inform you that your son William was found dead this morning at his home.” Skip describes his feelings of first, disbelief, and then the feeling that the floor under him was falling. A million questions ran through his head and over the next few days they were slowly answered. However, the answers were not what he expected. His precious, brilliant, passionate, fun loving son had died of a heroin overdose. How could this have happened to someone who excelled in everything he had ever done? Someone who was a top notch ski racer and held a high GPA as a molecular genetics major at the University of Vermont? What was he thinking?! How will we, his family, continue to go on through this life without him?
William’s death from a heroin overdose was not where anyone expected his life to end, but listening to Skip tell his story, it isn’t just the end of William’s journey with drugs that Skip would change if he could — it’s also the beginning. William’s drug abuse didn’t begin with heroin, but with a sip of beer; then a cup; then a shot of hard liquor; then a puff of a marijuana joint; then a prescription pill; then a snort of a pill; and then, finally, with a fatal heroin ingestion. When Skip learned William was using marijuana, he talked to him but unfortunately he got the answer so many parents get, “Don’t worry, I know what I’m doing.” William thought he had it all under control. Skip talks with young people, encouraging them to go down a different path at the beginning of their lives by sharing with them about the tragic and painful end of his son’s life; a life that may have begun, just like theirs.
Aroostook County may seem isolated from the rest of the world, and the story of Skip and his son may seem simply like a story from “away”, but their experiences with the dangers of substance abuse — alcohol, prescription medications, and illicit drugs, like marijuana and meth — are echoed everyday from the river banks of the St. John Valley, through the woods and down the city streets of the “hub”, to the rolling hills of the Grand Lake region. Substance abuse in “the County” is here with a vengeance, and it has been for quite a while.
While not every journey with drugs and alcohol ends with a young, suddenly dead addict and a grieving family — some just end earlier than they should with a premature and preventable death; others succumb to illness and disease precipitated by years of self-poisoning; some flounder from the consequences of petty crime and stolen property, from family trust that has been destroyed and traded in for powders and pills; others choice of drugs over sobriety results in broken homes and abandoned children; some wallow in lost time and lost opportunity; and still others end in a long prison sentence.
The ends of substance use and abuse are not limited to the person using the drugs, like the victim of an OUI or a home burglary. These people may have no personal relationship with drugs other than simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time. To be fair, many lives touched by alcohol and medicinal drugs are largely unaffected by the negative consequences listed here; some are enhanced by an occasional celebratory drink or the marvels of modern medicine. Although the destinations are varied and range from the normal and uneventful to the devastatingly tragic, every life touched by substance use and abuse begins in roughly the same way: with a sip of beer, then a cup, then a shot, then a snort, then maybe a needle … just like William Gates.
How does a community begin to combat such a widespread and sweeping problem — how do you successfully wage a war against drugs and substances?
Our tools in responding to the problem have been rough — prison and the threat of prison. Jail offers a deterrent, but only to those who will listen. Those who are not deterred often wait for a “bottom” before they seriously attempt to remove themselves from the influence of drugs and other drugged-people. Far too often, that “bottom” comes at the expense of others — usually in the form of significant criminal activity.
Drug treatment and sobriety can play a role in mitigating the problem and in fighting the war. For those who refuse or are unable to remain substance-free, “forced” sobriety through supervision and imprisonment must be a reality.
But these tools and community responses come too late in the process and they haven’t been enough; the problem has been growing, deeper and wider with each new drug and each new generation. Maybe Skip Gates has it right — maybe the solution isn’t changing just the end of the story, but giving power to alter the beginning of the story, too. If our kids see not just how the story ends, but also understand how it begins, then maybe they can choose a different path — one that doesn’t begin with experimental, casual, and recreational drug use or end with a downward spiral into addiction and abuse.
Maybe, in addition to fighting a war on drugs and its impacts of this generation in the present, we need to be showing the next generation a vision of a hopeful future and how good decisions at the beginning of their lives will help them reach the happy ends they are ultimately looking for. By providing a wealth of hope in a drug-free and productive future we may be able to help our children avoid the intoxicating though ever-so temporary “high” of substance abuse that could take an unshakeable hold on their lives; or the allure of easy money from the sale of poison to their friends; or, if they are already entangled, to help them find a way to the leave drugs and drug abuse behind as they move toward a more hopeful future than the drugged-life can ever provide.
While interest rates are at historic lows, now is the time for the State Legislature (and those Mainers running for U.S. Congress) to invest in the future — building roads, enhancing schools, expanding rail, and solving its energy supply, all the critical infrastructure necessary to a bright and hopeful future – by focusing on Maine’s rural communities to bring jobs and opportunities to our most precious resource — the people of Maine. Maine should not shy away from investing in itself with public sector jobs; it’s smart business. A robust public-sector economy drives many private business opportunities; it reduces poverty in the present; and it increases hope for a better life in the future – it can provide our young with a path away from drugs and substances, but toward a viable and wonderful alternative to the drugged-life.
Maybe it’s time for our community to mature beyond our own adolescence into a more responsible adulthood when it comes to the use and abuse of intoxicants. We should not simply accept that the pain, loss, and fear that accompany substance abuse are “normal” or an “inevitable” part of life, as though we have no ability to impact the problem; over the years we’ve affected youth smoking rates with a similar strategy; we can do it with alcohol, prescription pills, and illicit drugs, too. Maybe it’s time to empower our children with the fact that they can choose, right at the beginning of their young lives, to go down a less-traveled path above the influence of drugs and alcohol.
If we would do this, then maybe Skip Gates would get an acceptable answer to his question of why his son had to die from a drug overdose — that in his son’s tragic death others will learn that alcohol and drugs don’t need to be indulged in for a person to be “cool”; that a drugged-life is not glamorous; that getting high cannot solve anything; that every good thing that happens in their life will happen (and maybe a few more)even if they remain sober; that the end of their lives has much to do with the decisions they made at the beginning of it; that drugs don’t care whose life they destroy — that no one is immune from the destruction; and that the costs of substance abuse, both personal and societal, are just too damned high — that maybe William didn’t die from an overdose for nothing.
Maybe then our children won’t have to continue fighting a costly war against drugs or become victims of it; maybe then we won’t have to live in fear of the opiate effect crashing indiscriminately into our own lives. Maybe we should listen to William Gates’ life and learn from his death, even here in Aroostook County.
Skip Gates has channeled his grief into a remarkable presentation for any school who would like to hear his story. At this point, he has spoken at over 30 schools in New England. He does this free of charge, just give him the time and room. Recently Skip spoke to students and staff at four schools in Aroostook County; MSSM, Limestone Community School, Wisdom Middle/High School and Fort Kent High School. He was accompanied by representatives of the Aroostook County District Attorney’s Office, the Fort Kent Police Department and the Maine State Police.
If anyone is interested in having Skip come speak to your students, please contact Heather Putnam at the U.S. Attorney’s Office at Heather.putnam@usdoj.gov or 780-3257. The short movie, “The Opiate Effect” can be seen here: http://www.grpvt.com/blog .
Todd R. Collins is the district attorney for Aroostook County. His office is located at 144 Sweden Street, Caribou and his number is 498-2557.
