The Record, February 5, 2015

ALLENDALE – Her rosy cheeks and propensity to fidget when she talks before the audience give away Stephanie Reifman’s youth.

But this 14-year-old is taking on a challenge most adults would balk at. She’s waging a battle against heroin.

Reifman brought parents and her peers together Wednesday night to hear from a recovering heroin addict and a father whose son fatally overdosed.

The event was the highlight of a week-long awareness campaign at Northern Highlands Regional High School organized by the Upper Saddle River freshman.

Reifman first started the program in 2013 at Cavallini Middle School — dubbed Heroin Addiction Prevents People’s Years (H.A.P.P.Y.) Week.

“She had a vision. She had a plan. It is an action,” said Northern Highlands Vice Principal Michael Koth as he introduced her Wednesday night to the roughly 100 people who gathered in the school’s auditorium.

The week also included public service announcements during morning announcements and stations set up in the cafeteria with material about heroin use and drug addiction — all organized by Reifman, Koth said.

In the past year, deaths of people 18 to 25 years old from heroin have risen 24 percent in New Jersey, authorities have said. The Bergen County Prosecutor has projected there were around 94 deaths last year.

Reifman was inspired to start the peer-to-peer substance abuse awareness campaign after the death of actor Cory Monteith, of the television series “Glee,” from a heroin overdose.

“It made me want to understand more about heroin,” Reifman said, adding that she looked locally and saw that in 2013 there were 27 fatal heroin overdoses in Bergen County and that the number doubled in 2014.

“I couldn’t believe what an epidemic heroin was in my own backyard,” she said. “I wanted to do what I could to prevent as many deaths as possible.”

Reifman spent more than an hour Wednesday night on stage interviewing Emily, 22, who is 19 months sober and Don, a father whose 25-year-old son died from a heroin overdose after battling drug addiction.

Emily, an alumni of Spring House in Paramus, started using drugs when she was 13. “I was more of a follower than a leader,” she said.

By the time she first used heroin, Emily said she’d already been in and out of rehab and met people who were recovering addicts.

“I wanted to know why everyone was doing it, so I tried it,” she said.

It was a downward spiral — stealing from friends, family, stores and then robbing homes — landing her in and out of jail.

“I believe if I had never been arrested I would still be using or dead right now,” she said.

In a motel room, during a week-long post-rehab binge in July 2013, Emily said she had a moment of clarity. “I realized I’m miserable … I don’t want to live like this anymore. I know there has to be something else out there,” she said.

After years of support, Emily’s mother finally turned her back.

“It just hit me right in the face,” she said. “I don’t think any of us think that’s where we’re going to end up.”

Her advice to middle and high school kids: “stay true to yourself, don’t worry what other people think .. find what makes you happy.”

* * *

Don said his son, Jason, the younger of his two children, grew up with a stay-at-home mother and an older sister who was an overachiever. That pressure, Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder and anger issues ate away at his self-esteem, Don said.

The New York Jets football fan and avid golfer eventually lost interest in his hobbies and began sleeping more. “We thought it was either depression or something with his medication,” Don said. “He was on a lot of medication.”

The couple discovered he was using drugs one Fourth of July weekend in 2012 when his wife found Jaskon unconscious, breathing shallow, lips blue. A responding police officer showed Don four or five wax bags and told Don his son was snorting heroin.

“That was shocking to me,” Don said. “I still didn’t want to believe it.”

Narcan revived him. “I remember telling my wife, I think we’re going to be lucky here, because for sure, he’ll never try that again,” Don said.

But eight months and three near-fatal overdoses later, Jason died from heroin ingestion, Don said.

“I know enough to know I couldn’t have changed the outcome,” he said. “Yet you relive every decision.”

In response to a question about gateway drugs, Don said his son had once been prescribed Oxycodone following surgery.

Principal Joseph Occhino asked what more Emily and Don could have done. Don said he would be more informed and clean out his medicine cabinet. Emily said the more her parents did for her, the worse she got. When her mother finally cut her off, she hit bottom.

“I can only imagine how hard it was for my parents … but it was only at that point where I realized how far I let things go.”

Aileen Blass, a mother of two from Upper Saddle River, said she didn’t know anything about heroin prior to attending the event.

“What struck me as a parent is the powerlessness,” she said. “To me, if you don’t get it in advance, your ability to fix it after is so greatly diminished. Knowing about the drug is the key.”

 

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