By Lauren Young

Staff writer

The Eastside School Coalition of Jamesville-DeWitt, East Syracuse-Minoa, and Fayetteville-Manlius presented “HEALing Together,” a public presentation for parents and community members to educate themselves on drugs and teen addiction, namely heroin, on Tuesday, Oct. 16 at East Syracuse-Minoa High School. Representatives from Helio Health, Belvedere Addiction Services, Prevention Network and HEAL of Onondaga County were present to offer information before and during the event, which focused on personal addiction experiences, medical perspectives, preventative measures and treatment for addiction.

ESM Executive Principal Greg Avellino said the coalition began a couple years ago with himself, J-D Principal Paul Gasparini and F-M Principal Ray Kilmer to inform their communities about teenage addiction after a similar event was held at West Genesee High School.

“Our goal is always to give information, education and maybe you walk away and learn something tonight that may be applicable in your own personal lives,” said Avellino.

Michaline Younis, MS, president of HEAL of Onondaga County, said the effort was started about six months ago by “many dedicated people who recognized that Onondaga County, since 2016, has had the highest overdose rate in the entire state of New York.”

“If somebody said to me, you’re going to go to a presentation about heroin on a Tuesday night after work when you have laundry piling up and dinner to make and kids running all over the place … I would say, no, I’m not. There’s no heroin in high schools, that’s a dirty drug and does not exist amongst teenagers,” she said. “But I would definitely be sadly mistaken.”

In small groups, attendees rotated through four of five different sessions for 20 minutes, listening to various perspectives about drug addiction and how parents can help by being informed.

“Worst roller-coaster ride of your entire life”

Six years ago this November, Jordan Eubanks, a former heroin addict, took a greyhound bus from Denver, Colorado to Syracuse for rehab, and has since made it his mission to help others who were once in his position. Eubanks, a peer specialist at Helio Health, presented his personal story of addiction and recovery during Session C, explaining how turning to alcohol and drugs in high school “quickly became tied with social acceptance.”

“I always had this mentality of, whatever I did I was going to be the best at,” he said. “I found out, really early on in high school, that the best way for me to socialize and to get in with people, was through drinking and smoking cigarettes.”

After starting to drink around freshman year, Eubanks was bringing water bottles of vodka to school by senior year, taking prescription pills, cocaine and, by the time he graduated high school, crack cocaine. Opioid painkillers then led to heroin in his early 20s because it was “more readily-available,” cheaper and “a better high.”

“[Addiction] tricks your brain into thinking that there’s this necessary element for life that you’re missing, and you absolutely have to have it or else,” said Eubanks.

After his grandmother took him to the hospital during a heroin binge in 2012, he weighed about 110 pounds and was treated for malnourishment. It was during that time he received a call from an old friend who decided to check up on him. When his friend mentioned how her mother worked at Syracuse Behavioral Healthcare — now Helio Health — Eubanks bought a one-way ticket from Colorado to Syracuse and was “floored by the amount of resources that New York had available” for those recovering from addiction.

Eubanks is now a peer specialist at the Center of Treatment Innovation at Helio Health, which focuses on community outreach with a peer-based model, featuring peers in recovery to help addicts get treatment.

“It’s very effective in the sense that the trust is automatically there in the relationship,” he said. “We really take a person-centered approach and do what people find to be most effective for themselves. It’s been a very powerful experience for me and my own recovery.”

Michaline Younis, MS, helps others for a career, but not being able to help her loved ones overcome addiction or cope with a death caused by it is “the absolute worst feeling in the entire world.”

During Session D, Younis, a sex offender therapist specializing in mental health and substance abuse to the “highest recidivist sex offenders in New York State’s Department of Corrections,” said her younger brother started using drugs at nine years old, beginning with marijuana and leading to “some very hard stuff” by 12 years old.

“When you have a person in your life who is actively addicted, they take you on the worst rollercoaster ride of your entire life,” she said.

Her brother is now four years clean and has discovered Buddhism, said Younis, but a similar story did not end the same for her late partner Eric. Though Eric was an All-American lacrosse player, Younis said “his drug use didn’t get any better because of lacrosse,” but in fact, athletes have the highest rates of drug use.

“Through Eric’s addiction, that was the only thing he was able to maintain,” she said.

After a tragedy prompted his recreational drug use to “go from zero to a million overnight,” two years ago on Oct. 16, Younis received a phone call that Eric had been found dead on the third floor of a parking garage. Having to tell her son was one of the most difficult things she’s ever done, she said.

“There’s nothing you can even prepare yourself to say for that day,” she said.

Through it all, Younis said she felt alone, but she assured others that they never are, and the people she met through HEAL of Onondaga County have made her “see humanity different.”

“Just know that there are people who get it, because they’ve lived it — they completely understand,” she said. “That’s more consoling than having nobody.”

“It doesn’t discriminate”

According to 20-year paramedic Matt Maule, the progression from painkillers to addiction “doesn’t take much.”

Maule, who has worked for NAVAC (North Area Volunteer Ambulance Corps, Inc.) for about 12 years, presented a medical perspective of the opioid epidemic during Session A.

“Opioids are bad for chronic pain — anything over two weeks, give or take [is enough], it’s not really beneficial for long-term [use],” said Maule. Tolerance to painkillers leads to withdrawals, which can lead to addiction — common among older patients who switch doctors and are cut off from pain medications, he said.

“You’ve now created a drug user right there,” said Maule. “You’ve now put them right into withdrawals, and they have no mode of fixing this. You didn’t ween them off, give them services or anything.”

Because pills are expensive, many switch to heroin, he said. And when it comes to heroin overdoses, Maule said most calls received by NAVAC happen when an addict relapses after about a week and overdoses on an amount they would have normally taken as a regular user.

While overdose rates have increased over the years, Maule said in the last five years, there hasn’t been much of a change. “The only thing that’s changed is the age group,” he said. “It’s getting slowly younger.”

In fact, since the Camillus Police Department first received Narcan, the youngest person administered it was 14 years old.

This topic, along with policing adolescences, Good Samaritan Law, mental health and drug addiction, was discussed by Camillus Police Sergeant Kristen Afarian during Session B.

To show parents how teens can hide drug paraphilia, like pipes and stash cans, in plain sight, the Prevention Network featured a “hidden mischief room,” a mock teenage bedroom where parents were given six minutes to search for items during Session E.

The difference between marijuana and its concentrated form was also discussed, as were e-cigarettes, namely JUULs, that come in flavors like bubblegum and mint.

“The liquid that’s in those pods is equivalent to a pack of cigarettes,” said Elizabeth Toomey, team leader for Prevention Education & Information Services. “They’re actually more potent than cigarettes, and more addictive than cigarettes at this point.”

Closing remarks for the evening were given by the Medical Director of Helio Health, Inc. Dr. Ross Sullivan, who also runs University Hospital Bridge Clinic, is the director of Medical Toxicology and assistant professor of Emergency Medicine. Sullivan reviewed the history and science of addiction, namely of heroin, concluding that prevention awareness and open communication is key.

“It’s everywhere — it’s in every school, every neighborhood,” said Sullivan. “I take care of just as many adolescents and adults from Fayetteville and Cazenovia as I do from the inner city — it doesn’t discriminate.”