slimvictor
Bluelight Crew
Candice Williamson was getting sick from withdrawal. She craved a fix, but she was at her parents' house in Bromley, Ky.
She drew a bath and quietly prepared a syringe of heroin.
"I was going through the sickness," the 19-year-old heroin addict recalled. "I told my mom I was going to take a bath. I was sitting on the floor.
"She walked in. She took it from me. It was really bad."
For Robin Knott, turning the doorknob of her bathroom and seeing her then 18-year-old daughter with a needle was the end of suspicion that Williamson was addicted to heroin. It was the beginning of Knott's determination to fight for her daughter's life -- even if it might crush their relationship.
Knott turned to a friend in her anguish, and he recommended she file a Casey's Law petition to get her daughter treatment.
Knott filed the petition and told her daughter, who was living at her boyfriend's Grant County, Ky., home.
Williamson declared her hate for her mother.
"I told her, 'You can hate me. But you'll be alive hating me,' " Knott said.
Casey's Law allows parents or other concerned people to petition the court to order involuntary drug treatment for an adult.
Ohio has a similar law that was enacted in March 2012.
The Kentucky Legislature enacted the Matthew Casey Wethington Act for Substance Abuse Intervention in 2004, named for Casey Wethington of Kenton County, who died of a heroin overdose Aug. 19, 2002, at 23.
His mother, Charlotte Wethington, initiated the law, which is modeled after one in Florida. She has been pushing for such laws throughout the country ever since.
At a petition hearing in early May, Kenton County (Ky.) District Judge Ann Ruttle let Williamson go to her mother's home instead of jail, cautioning her that if she fled, she'd be tracked down and jailed.
(...)
A 'good girl' addicted
"My daughter was a good girl," Knott said. "I never, not one time, had to go to the school. She graduated from Walton High School with honors. She wanted to be a nurse."
Williamson described herself as "the good one."
"I had a 3.4 grade-point average," she said, waving halfheartedly toward a diploma on her mother's living room wall.
She said her parents were free with her because she earned good grades and kept a job.
By the time she met her boyfriend during her senior year, she had already dabbled in prescription painkillers. He had, too. They hung out with friends who were unabashed about taking drugs, she said.
One day, Williamson gave a friend a ride and asked for gas money. The girl's boyfriend offered heroin instead.
Williamson was reluctant until he told her it was an opiate, "like pain pills," she said. "I snorted it."
"After that I said, 'I don't want to do that ever again -- because I like it way too much.' "
What started as a one-time pay-off escalated to a $140-a-day addiction to heroin by snorting. She worked, but money was tight. Her mother said once her daughter junked a car her grandmother had given her for $300 to buy heroin.
It wasn't long before Williamson developed a tolerance to it. When snorting no longer worked, she started shooting it up.
Shooting up is more powerful, she explained, so it gets you high at a cheaper cost.
Waiting for treatment
In her first days without heroin, Williamson endured sleep-deprived nights with jerking legs and aching muscles. Now, she sleeps better and attends Al-Anon and Nar-Anon meetings when she can.
At a recent meeting, she listened to a mother express hopelessness about her child's addiction. Williamson told her about how her own mother used Casey's Law to save her life.
In the hours after the hearing that ordered her into treatment, Williamson was sure her boyfriend would quit for her: "He loves me," she said, tears filling her downcast eyes. Within a week, she broke up with him.
Out on her parents' deck recently, Williamson dragged on a cigarette, glanced at the sky and pondered what she might do with her newly clean life. She said she wasn't sure about the medical field anymore; she'd heard it's a bad idea for recovering addicts, with all the drugs around it.
After a few minutes, the teen shrugged it off, concluding, "I don't have to know. I've got time."
And she smiled.
full article at
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/05/28/kentucky-caseys-law-drug-treatment/2368131/
She drew a bath and quietly prepared a syringe of heroin.
"I was going through the sickness," the 19-year-old heroin addict recalled. "I told my mom I was going to take a bath. I was sitting on the floor.
"She walked in. She took it from me. It was really bad."
For Robin Knott, turning the doorknob of her bathroom and seeing her then 18-year-old daughter with a needle was the end of suspicion that Williamson was addicted to heroin. It was the beginning of Knott's determination to fight for her daughter's life -- even if it might crush their relationship.
Knott turned to a friend in her anguish, and he recommended she file a Casey's Law petition to get her daughter treatment.
Knott filed the petition and told her daughter, who was living at her boyfriend's Grant County, Ky., home.
Williamson declared her hate for her mother.
"I told her, 'You can hate me. But you'll be alive hating me,' " Knott said.
Casey's Law allows parents or other concerned people to petition the court to order involuntary drug treatment for an adult.
Ohio has a similar law that was enacted in March 2012.
The Kentucky Legislature enacted the Matthew Casey Wethington Act for Substance Abuse Intervention in 2004, named for Casey Wethington of Kenton County, who died of a heroin overdose Aug. 19, 2002, at 23.
His mother, Charlotte Wethington, initiated the law, which is modeled after one in Florida. She has been pushing for such laws throughout the country ever since.
At a petition hearing in early May, Kenton County (Ky.) District Judge Ann Ruttle let Williamson go to her mother's home instead of jail, cautioning her that if she fled, she'd be tracked down and jailed.
(...)
A 'good girl' addicted
"My daughter was a good girl," Knott said. "I never, not one time, had to go to the school. She graduated from Walton High School with honors. She wanted to be a nurse."
Williamson described herself as "the good one."
"I had a 3.4 grade-point average," she said, waving halfheartedly toward a diploma on her mother's living room wall.
She said her parents were free with her because she earned good grades and kept a job.
By the time she met her boyfriend during her senior year, she had already dabbled in prescription painkillers. He had, too. They hung out with friends who were unabashed about taking drugs, she said.
One day, Williamson gave a friend a ride and asked for gas money. The girl's boyfriend offered heroin instead.
Williamson was reluctant until he told her it was an opiate, "like pain pills," she said. "I snorted it."
"After that I said, 'I don't want to do that ever again -- because I like it way too much.' "
What started as a one-time pay-off escalated to a $140-a-day addiction to heroin by snorting. She worked, but money was tight. Her mother said once her daughter junked a car her grandmother had given her for $300 to buy heroin.
It wasn't long before Williamson developed a tolerance to it. When snorting no longer worked, she started shooting it up.
Shooting up is more powerful, she explained, so it gets you high at a cheaper cost.
Waiting for treatment
In her first days without heroin, Williamson endured sleep-deprived nights with jerking legs and aching muscles. Now, she sleeps better and attends Al-Anon and Nar-Anon meetings when she can.
At a recent meeting, she listened to a mother express hopelessness about her child's addiction. Williamson told her about how her own mother used Casey's Law to save her life.
In the hours after the hearing that ordered her into treatment, Williamson was sure her boyfriend would quit for her: "He loves me," she said, tears filling her downcast eyes. Within a week, she broke up with him.
Out on her parents' deck recently, Williamson dragged on a cigarette, glanced at the sky and pondered what she might do with her newly clean life. She said she wasn't sure about the medical field anymore; she'd heard it's a bad idea for recovering addicts, with all the drugs around it.
After a few minutes, the teen shrugged it off, concluding, "I don't have to know. I've got time."
And she smiled.
full article at
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/05/28/kentucky-caseys-law-drug-treatment/2368131/
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