ANNOUNCER: Funding for this program
was made possible by:
[POLICE SIRENS BEEP]
POLICE CHATTER: Here in the 400 block of Center,
just before 4th Street,
a real big guy, he looks like he's about to overdose.
[RESPONSE OVER RADIO]
[POLICE SIRENS BEEP]
- I'm Sage Capozzi.
I'm 18 years old, and I'm an addict.
- There was my beautiful boy.
PITCAIRN POLICE: How long did you take the heroin?
ASHLEY POTTS: The life of an addict,
I could best describe as hell.
NARRATOR: Heroin has a hold on this country,
and Western Pennsylvania hasn't escaped its grip.
- There isn't a community,
a town, a county in our region
that doesn't have a major heroin problem today.
- It's cross-generational.
It crosses ethnic lines.
NARRATOR: The problem is so pervasive,
people are, literally, overdosing on the street.
PITCAIRN POLICE: Pay attention to this officer, okay.
- Yes, sir.
KENNETH AQUILINE: I could've lost my life so many times.
DR. CAPRETTO: It started with the dramatic rise
of prescription pain medicines.
- When I was 13 years old,
my uncle gave me my first OxyContin.
- I eventually moved to heroin.
- The pull of the drugs would grab me.
- Their brains have been hijacked.
ASHLEY: And in the end, I became a slave to the drug.
- I do not do what I want,
but I do the very thing that I hate.
DR. CAPRETTO: Stigma keeps people from talking about it.
NARRATOR: But now, people "are" stepping out of the shadows...
- Hi, I'm Jenn, and I am an addict.
- And I felt embarrassed.
- My life went south real fast.
- This is the place that really truly saved my life
and gave me that foundation that I had needed.
NARRATOR: Sharing their stories...
inspiring others...
HERB BAILEY: Recovery is something
that anyone can do at any point.
NARRATOR: ...working for change.
CARMEN CAPOZZI: We need treatment on demand.
NARRATOR: There "can" be "hope after heroin."
But how do we get there?
And who's leading the way -
to fight the epidemic in our backyard.
- This is the greatest drug epidemic of our time.
Question is, how are we going to respond?
[♪♪♪]
CARMEN ON VIDEO: Hi, Sage.
Sage was a happy baby.
ON VIDEO: Who loves you?
SAGE: You. CARMEN: Right!
He was that little kid trying to discover his world.
NARRATOR: Carmen Capozzi loves talking about his son.
CARMEN: One of his Cub Scout meetings.
We played music together, we golfed together...
Sage hit a hole-in-one. He was a heck of a golfer.
[NOTES ON GUITAR]
NARRATOR: Sage's other love was music.
It was a strong bond for father and son.
- This is where me and Sage
would spend a lot of time writing music.
NARRATOR: A home studio...
They built it together...
Sage was just 12 when he bought his own electric guitar.
CARMEN: The first thing he wanted to do
was write a song about his brother David.
- This next song is dedicated to my brother David,
who's no longer with us.
- David was 19, we lost him to drug-induced suicide.
So he wrote a song called, "See You Again."
And it goes, "Now you're gone,
but your memory lives on deep inside of me.
This ain't the end, I know I'll see you again."
- ♪ This ain't the end I know I'll see you again ♪
NARRATOR: At the time,
Carmen had no idea what those lyrics would foreshadow.
When Sage was 20, he overdosed on heroin, and died.
CARMEN: Sage started experimenting at 14.
But we didn't find out until he was 17.
That's when it was exposed.
NARRATOR: Carmen had gotten a call from the state police.
Troopers had Sage and two friends.
CARMEN: They were breaking into cars to get OxyContin.
NARRATOR: Carmen also found out about so-called "pharm parties"
that Sage had attended with friends.
CARMEN: They steal medicine from home
and they get together, they throw it in a bowl.
And put on a blindfold and you take whatever you pick.
A lot of these kids thought, well, this is harmless.
You know, it's not harmless, none of this is.
NARRATOR: Sage entered treatment.
That's when he admitted it wasn't just
pills and marijuana, it was heroin, too.
Then began an exhausting and emotional cycle
of rehab and relapse.
CARMEN: There was times he'd work a program for six months.
And he'd be doing good.
But it was a struggle, it was a struggle.
- I'm getting treatment and help to help my addiction.
NARRATOR: Sage opened up about his struggle
in a video he recorded for a friend's school project.
- I think about using every day, but it's just one day at a time.
You have to keep telling yourself
that it's one day at a time.
NARRATOR: Those days at home included regular drug tests,
and his parents kept a close eye on his behavior.
CARMEN: Some of the signs we looked for were
sleeping a lot, agitated, anger.
NARRATOR: Like many parents, Carmen tried punishment,
but that didn't work either.
- Here's the thing, you take everything off your child
and nothing matters.
Took his phone, took his car.
You take his stereo out of his room.
That's all you have to work with.
And when they're doing opiates, whether it's heroin,
prescription pills, whatever it is,
they don't care, they just don't care.
NARRATOR: The first time Sage overdosed, he was 18.
EMTs saved him with Narcan,
which reverses the effects of a heroin or opioid overdose.
Carmen and his wife rushed to the hospital .
- We got there, there's Sage in his bed,
in the bed crying, scared.
"I'll never do this again, Dad. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, sorry.
I never want to do this again."
NARRATOR: Sage entered another program.
But when Carmen once again saw the signs of drug abuse,
he made Sage leave their home.
CARMEN: That's what they say,
"Kick 'em out. Kick 'em out."
Kicked him out.
Two days later, I get a call from Sage,
"Dad, can I come home?
Please, can I come home? I wanna come home."
NARRATOR: Carmen let Sage come back.
When he did, Sage admitted that he had overdosed
just the night before.
- He told me, "Dad, I'm scared. I don't want to die."
He goes, "Dad, I came to a door with a light
and I didn't go through it."
We sat there and cried.
That day, the second time my son overdosed,
I realized I was powerless to help my son.
All I could do was support him.
NARRATOR: When Sage learned that his grandmother
was dying of cancer, he didn't take the news well.
CARMEN: Him and his grandma were very close.
They spent a lot of summers together golfing.
And just like people do with alcohol, they figure,
well, I'm going to go sit in a bar
and drink my blues away.
Sage decided, I'm going to, one more time.
[PHONE RINGS]
NARRATOR: Just a few days later,
another call in the middle of the night...
Carmen's wife answered.
CARMEN: I heard her say, "What?
Oh, my god, alright, we'll be right there."
And I knew. And I said, "No, please, no."
And she said, "Get dressed." And I said, "No, Cindy..."
and she said, "Get dressed now."
We got there, and the doctor couldn't look me in the eye,
he just stared at the ground.
And I knew. I said, "He's gone" and he just shook his head.
We go in, my uncle's holding me up,
I can't even walk, and there was my beautiful boy.
A kid that would sit on the golf course and tell me,
"Dad, look at the sky, that's God.
Look at the way the shadows come across.
It's me and you, dad,
it's me and you sitting right here together."
We cherished those moments, and there's my boy laying there.
When Sage died that night,
they took me to my parents' house...
to my old bedroom.
I spent two days on the floor...
Couldn't take the hands off my face.
And that night, it was pitch black in that room,
that night I heard Sage's voice say,
"Dad, get up, they're not bad kids.
You have to help."
[SIRENS WAILING]
NARRATOR: To show how badly help is needed...
POLICE RADIO: Here in the 400 block of Center,
just before 4th Street,
a real big guy, he looks like he's about to overdose.
NARRATOR: Pitcairn police allowed our crew
to ride along with Officer Robert Gowans.
And it didn't take long, in broad daylight,
just off the main street.
OFFICER ROBERT GOWANS: Yep, he's overdosing.
POLICE RADIO: It has to be heroin;
he has a needle in his hand.
PITCAIRN POLICE: How long did you take it?
How long did you take the heroin?
NARRATOR: The officer treats him with Narcan.
- Pay attention to this officer, okay.
- Yes, Sir.
- Lean back, lean back. Lean back, lean back.
Hey, we got you a medic on the way, ok,
alrighty, because you need to be treated, ok.
Kenny, it seems like that Narcan worked a bit.
You seem a little more coherent already.
OFFICER ROBERT GOWANS: When we first got there,
he was white as a ghost, he was grey,
his eyes were rolling into the back of the head.
He was about as close as most people will get
to going unconscious.
NARRATOR: Three weeks later,
we caught up with that man,
on that same sidewalk in Pitcairn.
His name is Kenneth Aquiline,
and he told us what he could remember from that day.
- Well, I had started off the day
taking Percocets, and then later on in the day,
I used probably a couple bags of heroin.
NARRATOR: Not too many years ago,
Kenneth was a Marine on active duty, deployed to Iraq.
These awards are memories of a much happier time in his life.
KENNETH: I was pretty much at the top
of everything that I did because I loved it.
But I got to come back
and I got to see the highest parts of life
to the lowest parts of life.
NARRATOR: Like homelessness, drug addiction,
and multiple overdoses.
KENNETH: At least 7, 8, possibly 10 that I could count.
NARRATOR: Kenneth's story is becoming all too common.
- There are at least nine heroin overdoses in five days
in one local township.
NARRATOR: Headlines have chronicled the problem,
county by county.
different ages, different backgrounds.
Dr. Neil Capretto has been on the front lines
from the beginning.
DR. CAPRETTO: I'm in my 27th year full time
because I know that recovery works, and treatment works.
NARRATOR: Dr. Capretto is the medical director
at Gateway Rehabilitation Center.
- There are more people addicted to heroin,
more families being devastated by it,
and more people dying from heroin
than in any time in our history.
NARRATOR: In Pennsylvania, drug overdoses
are now the leading cause of accidental death,
even worse than car crashes,
and sharply higher than the year before.
And of those deadly overdoses,
more than 80 percent were heroin or opioid related.
This crisis has been building for more than a decade.
- It started with the dramatic rise
of prescription pain medicines, the opioids,
the OxyContins, the Vicodins, the hydrocodones.
There was also heavy marketing of pharmaceutical companies
with some misleading information
that these substances are not addicting, are safe.
And a lot of well-meaning doctors started prescribing
more and more of these, with good intentions.
But we've now learned that the pendulum swung too far.
NARRATOR: From 1999 through 2013,
prescription opioid sales in the US nearly quadrupled.
Deaths from prescription opioids, also quadrupled.
DR. CAPRETTO: So much of this got diverted onto the streets
and by the thousands,
people in our region became addicted to them.
And these medicines became expensive.
OxyContin was going for a dollar per milligram.
The average person we were seeing,
was using close to 200 milligrams a day.
So, you do the math.
NARRATOR: When the pill habit becomes too expensive,
users turn to the cheaper option...
heroin.
- They go from pills, to snorting heroin,
and then, after a couple of months,
to get more for their money, they switch over to needles.
The last 5,000 new heroin users I've seen,
that's the exact path that they follow.
NARRATOR: Heroin tricks the brain into thinking
the drug is needed to survive.
That, combined with intense physical pain,
forces people back for more.
- The withdrawals from heroin are unlike anything.
NARRATOR: Ashley Potts started using when she was 17.
ASHLEY: Heroin, in the beginning,
made me feel euphoric.
But whenever I didn't have the heroin,
it was the worst sickness that I could ever imagine in my life.
Everything on you hurts.
You can't move, you can't eat, you can't sleep,
you're hot, you're cold.
You know, I always tell people,
imagine the worst flu you could ever possibly have,
and times it by a thousand. - But there is hope.
If they do get help and treatment,
they can break free of it.
NARRATOR: If anyone knows about breaking free, it's Ashley.
She's now 30 years old, and in long-term recovery.
- Today, I do everything that I can
in order to try to give back and let everybody know
that recovery is possible and that treatment works.
NARRATOR: Ashley shares her story often
at public hearings, drug summits, in schools.
ASHLEY: Every time I speak,
it just takes a little chisel out of the brick wall
to reduce the stigma and raise awareness.
NARRATOR: But awareness of the dangers
was not part of Ashley's childhood.
ASHLEY: When I was 9 years old,
I took my first drink of alcohol.
My mother had let us all drink on New Year's.
NARRATOR: By the time Ashley was 12,
she was smoking marijuana.
Then came prescription drugs.
ASHLEY: The first time I took OxyContin,
the prescription opioid, I was 13 years old.
It was an oxy 80 and I snorted it.
My uncle had given it to me.
And I remember I puked my guts out.
I got so physically ill from that pill,
but I had fallen in love
with the euphoric feeling that it gave me.
And I chased that feeling for years.
NARRATOR: Chasing it with cocaine, then crack,
and remembering the high from opioid pills,
she finally gave in to heroin, sometimes 25 bags a day.
- I couldn't shower, I couldn't brush my teeth,
I couldn't do anything until I got high.
And then, once I got high,
it's how am I going to get high again,
how am I going to find more money.
NARRATOR: Ashley stole from family,
bounced checks, even burglarized a home.
- I robbed an innocent person's home
and I stole their belongings.
And I just can't even imagine what kind of trauma
that imposed on somebody.
NARRATOR: Ashley managed to stay clean when she was pregnant,
having a healthy baby girl when she was 19.
And with her father's help,
she was getting her life back together.
ASHLEY: He helped me get a car, a job,
and I was trying to be productive again.
I remember saying to myself
that I was going to be the best mom that I could be.
NARRATOR: But not long after giving birth, Ashley relapsed.
Her father and stepmother took temporary custody of Baby Riley
and kicked Ashley out of the house.
ASHLEY: I felt like I had let her down,
I felt like she would be better off without me.
I felt like the world would be better if I would just die.
NARRATOR: But she kept using,
lived with a friend who also abused drugs,
and even missed her daughter's first birthday.
ASHLEY: I had done all of those things
that I said I'd never do.
Like I said I was never going to become a heroin addict, I was.
I was never going to hurt my daughter,
I hurt her more than words could possibly explain.
NARRATOR: Family intervention didn't work,
her turning point finally came when she was 20
when her mother had her arrested.
ASHLEY: She came in,
and the police came in behind her,
and walked me out in handcuffs.
I realized that I had no more people to manipulate in my life.
NARRATOR: Ashley was at her bottom
and decided to get clean one more time.
First, a detoxification unit
where medication helps ease the withdrawal from heroin.
ASHLEY: Nothing about detox is pleasant.
It is awful.
It's just a very, it's a very dark place.
NARRATOR: After an inpatient program,
she spent six months in a halfway house
in Washington, Pennsylvania.
- This is the place that really truly saved my life
and gave me that foundation that I had needed.
NARRATOR: It was here she had to turn herself in
to authorities.
ASHLEY: I had several warrants out for my arrest
from all these crimes I committed during my usage.
I had over a hundred counts of felony charges
pending against me.
NARRATOR: The judge's sentence was life changing.
Seven months' time served and immediate parole.
- That was whenever I truly, truly felt
that I had a second chance at life
because that judge could have sent me to state prison
for a long time.
DR. CAPRETTO: Welcome to Gateway Rehabilitation Center.
We're here to try to be of help to you.
I like to view addiction more as a public health issue.
NARRATOR: Dr. Capretto is among a growing number of advocates
in favor of drug "treatment"
versus incarceration for non-violent offenders.
- Because if you just incarcerate a person
with addiction and don't get them treatment,
there's a very, very high likelihood
they're just going to come back out
and continue to use.
NARRATOR: Ashley stopped using, but is still a convicted felon
now petitioning the state for a pardon.
ASHLEY: This is a letter from Dr. Capretto,
and he's writing a letter of my character
to present to the Board of Pardons.
NARRATOR: And for good reason.
At the halfway house,
Ashley tested at just the sixth-grade education level.
But years of study got her into college.
- This is my award to be a presidential scholar.
NARRATOR: She's now two semesters shy
of a Master's degree in Social Work
and currently working for
the Southwestern Pennsylvania Human Services Department.
- I oversee and supervise the crisis workers,
the crisis staff, and the crisis program workers.
[PHONE RINGS] - Hi, this is Ashley.
NARRATOR: She also counsels people in recovery.
ASHLEY: I see drug and alcohol, and mental health clients.
I assist them in obtaining achievable goals.
NARRATOR: Ashley has also achieved a goal
she failed at before--
ASHLEY: What's your favorite ride?
NARRATOR: --being a good mom to her daughter.
ASHLEY: My relationship with her now is amazing.
My father and my stepmother,
they adopted her and she lives with them.
She spends weekends with me, we go on vacation together.
She misses me when I'm not there
and she loves me unconditionally.
I had to lose everything
to know how great it is to have something.
NARRATOR: Loss has driven Carmen Capozzi, too.
And his mission started
just ten days after his son Sage died.
- A young man showed up at my house with a laptop.
He started a "Sage Capozzi Memorial Page".
I said, "Nick, Sage's heart was good,
he was always trying help his friends.
I need to create awareness; I need an army of people."
And he goes, "Oh, cool, dude, Sage's Army."
NARRATOR: That was the beginning of Carmen's effort
to start Sage's Army.
They're working to change laws...
- We've advocated for the Narcan,
we've advocated for the prescription database,
the Good Samaritan Bill.
NARRATOR: ...help families...
CARMEN: They're lost,
they don't know how to help the person battling addiction.
NARRATOR: ...and lead people to recovery.
CARMEN: We open our door to anybody that needs help.
And we try to guide and inspire them to the next step.
ABBEY ZORZI: I was struggling with my addiction.
NARRATOR: Abbey Zorzi needed help, and she knew it.
ABBEY: I was just not in a good spot.
NARRATOR: For this scholar and athlete,
it started in high school.
First drinking and marijuana, then a Vicodin prescription
after having her wisdom teeth pulled.
ABBEY: Some of my friends said,
you can get high off these.
So, I started taking them more than prescribed
and then I started buying them on the street.
Six months into taking those painkillers,
I moved to heroin.
NARRATOR: By the time she was in her first year of college
at Saint Vincent, Abbey had a full-blown heroin addiction
and didn't know where to turn.
But she remembered a friend, Sage Cappozzi,
and she reached out to his dad.
ABBEY: I was on social media at the time
and I saw his page of Sage's Army.
And I ended up messaging him.
NARRATOR: Abbey is now in recovery,
back at Saint Vincent College
finishing her degree in psychology
and still thankful for Sage's Army.
ABBEY: I just felt this love and this warmth.
I could cry right now just thinking about it.
NARRATOR: Abbey also volunteers with Sage's Army,
speaking at schools, attending events,
proving that personal stories impact people
in a way doctors can't.
- Get somebody who's been through
the exact same experience of heroin addiction
and talks to them about their own journey and says,
"I was like you once and because I took this journey of recovery,
here is my life today."
That's very powerful.
[READING OF NAMES AT VIGIL]
NARRATOR: This vigil in Beaver County
remembered people like Sage,
who lost their battle with drug addiction.
It was organized by the Pittsburgh Chapter
of a group called Not One More or NOM .
[READING OF NAMES ENDS]
- We're fighting a very serious epidemic
with drug issues, especially heroin.
NARRATOR: Laura Propst started NOM Pittsburgh
after both of her children became addicted to heroin.
LAURA: We have a lot of families,
parents, wives, children
who are experiencing a lot of loss and grief
and they just need like a comfortable place to land.
- For I don't do the good that I want,
but the evil I do not want.
NARRATOR: At the vigil, Herb Bailey said a prayer.
HERB: With my mind, but with my flesh,
I fight this battle to serve my addiction.
NARRATOR: He's used to offering comforting words.
Herb does it every day here in nearby Aliquippa
as ministry director at Uncommon Grounds Cafe.
HERB: Uncommon Grounds is a sanctuary.
NARRATOR: It's a restaurant,
and a community gathering spot with a spiritual mission .
HERB: Our mission is to reach the least,
the last, and the lost.
NARRATOR: Uncommon Grounds also hosts recovery meetings,
and Herb counsels people dealing with addiction.
HERB: People lose family,
lose contact with or cut off from their support systems,
and we try to be there and support them
and they appreciate that.
I'd roll my window down, and you'd be like,
bye, Mr. Herb, bye, Mr. Herb.
NARRATOR: Somona Woods comes here often.
Her addiction to heroin began like many others.
- A dentist broke my jaw by accident
when pulling a wisdom tooth
and I became addicted to opiates.
NARRATOR: Somona says she hasn't used heroin
for about six months, in part thanks to Herb.
SOMONA: He would tell me that he better not see me
out there using, and I'd say I promise,
I promise, Brother Herb.
Then later, the pull of the drug would grab me,
and I'd find myself on a street corner in a dark alley,
and he'd blow his horn and like be chasing me down.
It just made me want to change my life
because I knew he truly cared about me.
- The stigma of being a heroin addict
is that you're a bad person,
you're not worthy, you're killing yourself,
you just deserve to die.
CARMEN: When my son was battling his addiction, I was shamed.
I thought I was a bad parent.
NARRATOR: And that's a mindset advocates are trying to end.
Families don't need to suffer quietly.
People with addictions don't need to hide.
- Hi, I'm Jenn, and I am an addict.
- Hi, I'm Lauren, and I am an addict.
DR. CAPRETTO: Stigma keeps people from talking about it,
from even getting the treatment that they need.
- People are asking,
why do they have to wait for a bed in treatment?
People literally are dying waiting for a bed sometimes
to get into treatment.
NARRATOR: The need for treating the heroin epidemic
has not gone unnoticed in Harrisburg.
- How do we address this medical problem in Pennsylvania?
NARRATOR: It's so bad, Gov. Tom Wolf organized
statewide forums like this one at Saint Vincent College
in Westmoreland County.
- Frankly, we're using our jail as a detox,
and I can't think of a worse place to do it.
NARRATOR: The 2016-2017 budget
includes more than 20 million dollars
to expand treatment options
for thousands of people suffering from addiction.
Dr. Capretto says more help can't come soon enough.
DR. CAPRETTO: You've got these windows of opportunity,
and if we can't get them in within a couple hours,
they may be back in the street using heroin again,
and you can lose that person.
NARRATOR: At the root of the epidemic -
prescription painkillers.
In 2016, a state task force developed new guidelines
for prescribing opioids.
That means doctors will more carefully monitor prescriptions
relating to treating pain in emergency rooms,
pain related to dental care,
and chronic pain not related to cancer.
- I carry Narcan all the time.
NARRATOR: New laws also allow better access
to Naloxone or Narcan,
the drug that reverses the effects of an overdose.
Sage's Army was an early advocate
and now holds training classes on Narcan use
at its headquarters in Irwin.
- What if they're not breathing? How are they supposed to get it?
It actually soaks into the nasal cavity.
NARRATOR: You can now get Narcan at most pharmacies.
CARMEN: Anybody prescribed an opiate,
should have access to naloxone.
NARRATOR: The Pitcairn police,
who helped save Kenneth that summer afternoon in 2016,
was the first police department in western Pennsylvania
to carry Narcan.
- The officers have administered Narcan,
I can at least count about maybe eight, nine times,
with, then eight or nine lives that was saved.
KENNETH: I guess I'm one of the lucky ones,
one of the fortunate ones to be able to have made it through.
NARRATOR: Despite many second chances,
Kenneth isn't optimistic about his future.
- Probably death before anything.
That's just the truth.
NARRATOR: Just the opposite of what Sage Capozzi hoped for.
- I want to get into community college,
just make up for lost time with people in a positive way.
- He didn't mean to die. He just got weak.
You know, my son would be 25 years old,
and I sit and think.
Where would he be? What would he be doing?
NARRATOR: Sage's dad doesn't want pity.
He wants action.
CARMEN: We have a huge problem
and we need to accept it.
- So, this is a beacon call.
If we're going to deal with the issue,
we need to be-- Bye, Mr. Herb! --people who actually care.
NARRATOR: People who are willing to be honest and open,
fight for change...
or show compassion and offer hope
when it seems there isn't any.
- It's possible.
If I can stop using, I know anybody else can.
Recovery is possible.
- There is light at the end of the tunnel.
ASHLEY: It's a lot easier to fight a war
when you have an army than it is whenever you're by yourself.
CARMEN: We won't stay silent.
Our voices are gonna be heard.
[♪♪♪]
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