AHS Views

Natalie Ciappa, an 18-year-old high school student who overdosed and nearly died on Memorial Day weekend, promised her parents (and probably herself) she was going to stop using heroin. But less than a month later, she was dead. The drug problem had been going on for over a year but she had refused addiction help.

It’s hard to know how long it would have taken for someone to figure out she was dead - when her mother awoke the next morning and Natalie wasn’t home, she went to the location of the party Natalie was attending and found her there dead on a sofa. Still with other people there. They hadn’t even noticed she was dead.

Natalie’s mother and father had been coping with her drug problem for over a year. They had tried everything, but hadn’t gotten her to rehab. She’d overdosed and wound up in the hospital less than a month before she died and her parents had thought she’d stopped.

The chances of stopping heroin because of an overdose are slim without drug addiction help. The drug has such a hold on you - and the same is true of many other drugs - that it really doesn’t matter that your life, or anyone else’s, is threatened.

Natalie was a top student and an excellent singer - with an excellent future. The last person you would expect to be a drug addict. The same as your kids. Don’t mess with it - get them addiction help services, no matter what you have to do. It’s really the only way to overcome drug addiction.