One 13-year-old girl started out drinking alcohol and smoking marijuana, but in four years, she found herself addicted to prescription pills. More than a decade later, she’s hoping her message of recovery keeps someone from ever starting down that same path.
“One day, when there were no pills, a feeling I never experienced happened: I was sweaty, my skin was crawling and my body pains were immense,” said Lynde Noel. “I was physically addicted, and now I was sick.”
Noel, a 25-year-old who lives in a halfway house in Catskill, said the pain of withdrawal was something she wouldn’t wish on anyone.
“This disease is so cunning and powerful that the heroin I was offered instead seemed like the only solution,” said Noel. “Right then and there, I wish I had known the long, tiring battle I would be facing with active addiction for the next seven years.”
Noel said she “never wanted to use heroin,” but the “insanity of her addiction” led her to believe what she was doing was OK and she could stop anytime.
“This disease told me that I was a better person with heroin in my system. That I needed it,” she said. “So quickly, and right before my eyes, I lost who I truly was and the power to do anything about it.”
The Regional Underage Drinking and Drug Use Prevention Coalition is seeking to have no other child get to the point where they feel powerless to addiction. The coalition is a combined effort among the counties of Albany, Schenectady, Rensselaer and Schoharie.
The coalition held a media conference Wednesday, Oct. 1, at Capital Region BOCES’ central offices in Albany to kick off National Substance Abuse Prevention Month. Noel shared her story alongside lawmakers and community leaders calling for enhanced support for prevention efforts and initiatives.
Senator Cecilia Tkaczyk, D-Duanesburg, said if more kids heard Noel’s story, there would hopefully be fewer kids getting addicted. She also said Noel’s story could give hope to those already battling addiction.
“We have to do everything we can to educate our kids and prevent them from becoming addicted,” Tkaczyk said, “but we also have to make sure there are treatment programs available for people when they are addicted.”
A bill Tkaczyk recently introduced would help parents identify if their child is using drugs.
The legislation would allow 12- to 18-year-olds to be tested for drug use during their annual physical examination and require heath insurance to cover the cost of it without co-payment, deductible or co-insurance. The drug screening results would remain confidential, even from health insurance companies.
A positive drug screening under the bill would not fall into the requirements for mandatory child abuse reporting if there are no other indications of abuse or neglect.
“If you can catch a child that might be experimenting with drugs early on, you have a much better chance of diverting them before they are in a situation where they are so addicted that it is much harder to get off of,” said Tkaczyk.
Albany County Sheriff Craig Apple Sr. said he has had a fifth-grader’s mother call him asking if she could show him something, which ended up being a bag of heroin.
“It was intact. I think he got his hands on it and didn’t know what to do with it, thank god,” said Apple.
A couple years ago, Apple said, he was wondering if heroin use was going to peak and then taper off, but these days, heroin is showing no signs of going away. A month and a half ago, Apple said, police confiscated a pound of pure, uncut heroin less than a mile from the BOCES office.
“It is non-stop. We had an overdose last week,” said Apple. “We can’t arrest our way out of it. We’ve tried that, and it doesn’t work.”
Noel said drug use prevention should be mandatory for schools, so young people are reached before their first drink.
“Somewhere, we are losing our youth,” she said. “Heroin especially has become an epidemic. Every day I pray for the addict using for the first time not knowing what they are getting themselves into.”
Apple said there are not enough places for treatment and more resources are needed. He also believes targeting prevention efforts in school is key but might need to evolve from popular methods.
“I am a big advocate for trying to get people in the schools more,” he said. “Yes, D.A.R.E. is there, but I just think it needs to be a little dirtier than that and let the kids know.”