The National Addiction Memorial honors the loved ones we’ve lost.

Andy started with prescription drugs (Oxycontin) and moved to heroin. He died of an overdose after 6 wonderful months clean.

Jim's journey into the disease of addiction began when he was 13. In an early treatment program, we were told he wouldn't live to be 16. That spurred Jim and I to prove "the experts" wrong. He lived to be 35 with many wonderful years, many friends and great experiences. From pot, prescription pills through cocaine and alcohol, Jim fought and conquered each. His life was on track despite setbacks when heroin was introduced to his group of friends. This proved to be the final dual for life. Ultimately Jim died from an overdose of heroin and alcohol. The true cause of death was the toll taken by the long term effects of the disease of addiction. He never gave up fighting for his life. He remains my hero.

At 15, a 31 year old man introduced her to heroin. She spent the next 24 years of her life struggling to stay clean. She was diagnosed bi-polar in her 20's. When things were good in her mind, she managed to live clean- marry, have three beautiful children, make a life for them and herself. But then she would fall.

Stephen struggled with anxiety, bipolar disorder, and depression from his early teens. He turned to drugs as early as 15. Like most kids, he started out smoking pot, which eventually turned into pills and harder drugs. Stephen's drug of choice was Xanax or anything similar. Like any good parents, Stephen's mom and dad took him to doctors they trusted to try to find help but it was just more and more pills they would wind up putting him on. Once his addiction got out of control, over doses, suicide attempts, and rehabs weren't far behind. Stephen's life became a cycle of getting clean and slipping up. He could not hold a job for very long and was very unhappy with his life. Stephen hated his addiction as much as everyone around him. His last time in rehab was different. He seemed better. The happiest we had seen him in maybe years. "Back to his old self" we said more than once. Which is why it was so shocking when on August 17, 2012, Stephen's father found him dead in his apartment after overdosing on a mixture of Heroin and Xanax. He was 28 and had been clean for months.

Denial preceded her fall. Even after hospitalization after heart failure in the emergency room she was in denial. Telling her friends she had a stomach virus. She never admitted to having a problem. And those around her were ignorant of as well as addicted themselves. Denial, then Shame and embarrassment, and more denial escorted her to the end.

He comes from a long line of addicts, even five generations that I know of. One of his great grandfathers was know as the drunk of Bountiful Utah. So by the time he was 14 he gravitated to kids who were consuming alcohol and by the time he reached 16 we had placed him in a treatment program for drug and alcohol addiction. We got him sober by 17 and he graduated from High School. Soon afterward me and his mother divorced and he married another addict. Their sobriety ended about three years into their marriage. From then on his life was filled with being successful when he was sober and tumbling when he acted out. He was in and out of jail along with his wife. Getting jobs and loosing them for not passing drug tests. At the age of 23 his friends started dying form their addictions, but this did not stop him or keep him sober. In 2005 he got into prescription drugs and found doctors who would prescribe them in abundance. So instead of working he sold these drugs on the street. Into 2010 I called an ambulance because I thought he had overdosed when the police arrived and checked his prescriptions he had 7 of the most highly controlled drugs and not just 30 pills but each prescription had over 300 pills. He was on Medicare for a bad back and depression so he got most of his prescriptions for less than 10 dollars, but often sold them on the street for over $1,000 of dollars. After selling them he would buy cocaine and had overdosed 3 times before his overdose death. I struggled with him and tried very hard not to be a codependent parent. I held him accountable for most of his acting out, but like most parents I wanted to believe him when he told me he was sober, but each time it was just a lie. The last month of his life he again said he was sober we had been going to movies and had plans for the summer. I took to a pawn shop to sell his movies he said it was to by food, but 5 days later he died of drug overdose. His last words to me was I love you, Dad.

Once pain meds were taken from him, he struggled to function so he started experimenting with heroin in 2010. I thought we had beat it and was shocked when his autopsy came backand it said heroin overdose, it wasn't even on my radar, total shock.

Georgie began smoking pot and drinking at the "gateway age" of 13. As I stated previously, he escalated to heavy cocaine use by age 15. By 16 he was arrested for stealing a car radio, and was sentenced to probation with sealed records. Later that year, not being able to endure sleepless nights, crying, searching the neighborhood for my teenage son, and almost losing my job, he finally entered rehab. He spent 20 months out of a 24-month program. He was clean for two years, having graduated from high school at the rehab facility in full cap and gown ceremony. It was my proudest moment! Six months after rehab, Georgie relapsed. He was in rehab several more times over the years, but nothing seemed to help. Georgie was dealing drugs, using drugs, and escalated to heroin. He also began freebasing. There were several suicide attempts, perhaps to cry out for help. He had several run-ins with the law, and once served 30 days in jail, swearing he would never go to jail again. Every time he got too deep, over his head with drug dealers, he turned to me for help. I always helped my son, except when I discovered drugs in my home. At that point I made him leave. Georgie told me that he found it difficult to control the urges to use drugs. During his early years, he claimed that he really liked getting high. However, when he reached his thirties, he reflected on his entire life and told me that he threw his entire life away on drugs, and really wanted to stop. He died two months later.

His struggle began at the age of 17 when a bandmate gave him a line of cocaine for his 17th birthday. He was instantly addicted. He once told me that drugs made him feel like what he thought normal people felt like. For some reason he had low self-esteem although he had everything going for him including a family who loved and appreciated him dearly. He was in and out of 5 rehabs, lasting anywhere from 7 days to 28 days and he seemed to emerge from them worse than when he went iin. He told me he'd wake up every morning wishing he were dead because of how he'd ruined his life. He told everyone though how lucky he was because he had parents who loved him.

"She began experimenting with alcohol (which I don't like not only because it has always tasted nasty to me but was the cause of all the physical, verbal & emotional abuse I endured throughout the 11 years with my ex-husband & father of my daughters), but also with Marijuana which I believe has benefits medically for people suffering from cancer, anxiety, chronic pain & other conditions & illnesses. I DO NOT believe children under the age of 21 should smoke it however. I have personally seen the relief it can provide for people with chronic pain or nausea or other disorders. I always spoke to my children very openly about anything that they had questions about or wanted to know about & it was something I felt was important to have in a parent/child relationship. I, along with my husband both had to combat addiction to prescription pain medications which became very bad after I lost my mom in 2008. So when Tia told me she was using OxyContin which was not prescribed to her I became very concerned & scared. When I discovered she was smoking it I confronted her & said I would help her in any way I could to get through her Opiate addiction & she seemed so sincere that I thought for sure that with a support plan & medical help she could beat her addiction. She was truthful with her employer & was able to enroll in a Suboxone treatment as she had good insurance at the time. She soon began using Opiates again & then admitted she had switched to smoking Heroin once the OxyContin became too expensive. I was so scared then & when I then found out thru a friend of hers that she was injecting it I feared for her life. She, at that point had lost her job & moved to Portland, OR & began dancing to support her habit. When she finally agreed to move home to get clean I was relieved thinking once she was home I could keep her safe. The next few months were hard but she finally completed treatment & I had hope. Then on Sept. 2nd she relapsed & I found her dead in her room. "

Matthew's struggle with addiction began years ago. My awareness of it as an issue started when he was 16 but I know it began probably a year or so before that. It all started with alcohol. Unfortunately there is a lot of alcoholism in my family so it's not terribly surprising that this became something we had to cope with. Matthew was arrested for the first time about 12 years ago for pushing a grocery cart through the glass door of a local pharmacy because they would not sell him cigarettes. He was 16 and he was drunk. He was arrested that night. That was the first time but not the last. Several arrests between 16 and 18 followed while he was, going to an addiction counselor and making a hash of his high school record. Finally in 2004, his attorney told me that Matt would likely go to jail if I didn't offer the court a residential alternative. That's when I sent Matt to a small program for at risk youth in the mountains of western NC, called Cove Creek Farm. I am convinced that this decision gave me several more years with Matt. I believe that I would have lost him much earlier either to death or to state prison had I not done so. Matt stayed there for 2 years over a 3 year period. He did great while he was there and relapsed when he was out. In 2011 Matt moved to Greensboro, NC to do EMT training. It was then that the addiction really began to take over. More and more kinds of drugs, overdoses, bad choices, more arrests, treatment, relapse and ultimately his death on May 19, 2013.

In Junior year of high school, Bryan started taking pills he bought from "dirty doctors." We had no idea. His friends were doing it too. Bryan came to us in his senior year of high school begging for our help. At that time he was smoking heroin. He wanted to be healed of his addiction. We were by his side for over two years in and out of rehabs and doctor's offices trying to help him. He just couldn't beat it. We found him on his bedroom floor early in the morning on February 11, 2011. He had overdosed sometime around 4 a.m. that morning. Bryan's autopsy report showed he had alcohol, pot and heroin in his system. He was only 21 years old.

"Our sweet, tender, easily hurt boy, often so concerned for others that he had nothing left for himself, had an underlying mood disorder which he stopped treating with proper medication at 18. An adopted child with the genetic pre-disposition for addiction, at first the alcohol soothed…but then quickly overwhelmed him. He'd been in treatment for alcoholism many times - ten to be exact - in Minnesota, Colorado and Utah - and that after wilderness at age 14 followed by three years of therapeutic boarding school - dealing with his pot use. In December 2011, he went up to Boise, ID where he took a position as a mentor in a young adult internship program. From the get-go it was up and down…in part because that mood disorder mentioned earlier was ever-present. He tried and tried to connect with a psychiatrist in Boise…I think he was ready to try medication again…but it never happened. He finally saw a nurse practitioner who treated him for anxiety…but there was more to it. And, we suspected that he’d started drinking again….but he denied it. He was supposed to come to visit his dad and me in Milwaukee in April to see the psychiatrist here who had known him since he was in 3rd grade but missed the plane because he was loaded in the airport lounge. It was clear he was seriously binge drinking again...and his father and I feared the worst. A few days later, Charlie impulsively quit his job. With all of the structure gone and feeling oh-so-lonely, the drinking escalated. Realizing he was quickly spinning out of control...and believing the demon would always win…that he couldn't stay sober...and that he couldn't stand disappointing us -- or himself -- one more time...he took his life. Charlie died on 5/28/12 of a single, self-inflicted gunshot wound. We'll never know if he pulled the trigger intentionally or whether it was an accident. "

This is my beautiful daughter. She was truly an inspiration to so many people fighting addiction. She got clean and sober at age 20 and stayed that way for 6 years. In that 6 years she did whatever she could to support others through the struggle to stay clean and helped countless numbers of people. But, the demons came to call and before she could control them they took her into a world of hell.

Justin's addiction took us by surprise. It seemed as though one day he was different. I knew he drank and smoked pot; but I didn't realize he had gotten into pills. Those pills and pot, led to heroin. He went down fast and hard. The things he did are so sad to recall; but they did happen. Lying, stealing, and disrupting; as well as trouble with the law. We tried to get him help, but he wanted nothing to do with it most of the time. He did try very hard with NA, and he was so proud when he had an achievement. But, that devil always dragged him back in. Justin hated that he couldn't control his life. I fully believe there is no social or economic boundary to this killer called Heroin; or any drug for that matter!

Chris's troubles seem to have began in High School around his sophmore year. We found that he was smoking pot and he wasn't wanting to work real hard at school. We made it through high school thank god! He found a beautiful girl to spend time with that was going to college, Chris chose to work instead, but soon after was introduced to Heroin. The relationship fell apart and his life began to spiral out of control. I had no idea what was happening to my smart, charming beautiful boy. I believe it was 2003 when it was the worst, he started stealing from us, pawning things to buy what he needed so desperately to survive this addiction. in 2005 he overdosed for the first time, we were scared to death and still didn't know how to help him. 2 months later, his Dad took his own life. Of course this only made things much worse! He knew he needed help, but still thinking he could get clean on his own. We moved him closer to a Methadone Clinic so he could get his monitored dosage daily. Couldn't keep any job longer than a couple of months. That lasted a year. We knew he didn't want to be on that either. So he moved home again and tryed on his own now replacing with Xanax and of course whatever else he could find to help thru the withdrawals. He had overdosed at least 4 times of which I found him 3 of those 4. Finally sent him to a Rehab in Florida then to a safe house after. He said Mom, they told us here that you could relapse many, many times and then there are those that end up in prison or dead. I couldn't bare to think that this could happen to my son. Well it did, in 2010 he was sent away to prison for non-violent offense of running from the police and pills in his pocket for an entire yr! He was let out in June of 2011 and I lost him to an accidental overdose of methodone and xanax on July 5th. I always knew that time of year was extremely hard for him, since his Dad took his life on July 3rd, 2005. My life and the world I now live in, has changed forever. God, I MISS HIM SO VERY MUCH!

I knew he smoked pot. AJ was brutally honest..well about most things anyway. He told me about pot, he talked to me about girlfriends, sometimes things I really didn't want to know! I could tell he was high sometimes and I asked him repeatedly if he was using anything stronger and he swore, " no, no...that's not for me." The girlfriend was on prescription drugs for depression so she always seemed spacey...it worried us, she had a "dark side." They returned to Florida within the year because she wasn't happy in NY. It wasn't till a year later, when we got a phone call saying AJ had ben arrested, that we found out about HIS prescription pill problem. Addiction, I should say, He had gotten into a car accident and had found a Dr. that gave him pain medication and he took it for a long time, both he and his girlfriend were addicted. He had a good job as a pharmacy technician and had just gotten his pharmacy technician's license. But it was like a kid in the proverbial candy store. He had gotten caught stealing pills, a lot of them. We bailed him out, I flew down to get him a lawyer and see about bringing him back to NY...to 'save him.' The girlfriend chose not to come. He started a drug program here and was doing really well for a couple of months. Then he dropped that program, he didn't like it for some reason and was trying to get into another. He was on probation, no jail time, mandated drug program so getting into one was imperative. Another girlfriend. Family wedding in Jamaica on 7/20/13, he couldn't go because of probation. Girlfriend's dad bought them a weekend at the Marriott to celebrate their birthdays for the weekend we were away. They went into the city on Friday morning, he overdosed that night. After his death, reading his text messages, we found out he started using heroin about 2 months earlier, supposedly occasionally the girlfriend said. We never knew. I had suspected he was high at times but thought he was getting tested at probation.

Jarrod's drug of choice was marijuna, He wasn't getting the high as he did at the begining. He tried a opiate called, "Opana" and got hooked! Jarrod passed away from an overdose on Opana ( a quarter of a pill, which he inhaled the fumes) as well as the drugs the doctor prescribed to get him off the opiates and weed. He had Klonopin, Seroquel and Cymbalta in his system, as well.