Son’s Death Moves Dad to Action; Mounting Drug Use Killing Youths

VILLAS — Christian Thomas O’Rourke was 26, had a job, girlfriend, and parents who loved him. In short, he had every reason to live.
O’Rourke died Feb. 9, 2011 at home here. His parents found his lifeless body in his room. For the third time in his life, Christian used heroin. His father, John O’Rourke, is adamant that Christian was not a drug addict. Although many might think that way of one who over-dosed from illicit drugs; even the physician who pronounced Christian deceased under-scored he could tell that he was not an addict, his body was too healthy.
Christian was the fifth young adult to die locally of a drug overdose, either by heroin or Oxycontin, that same week, a nurse at Cape Regional Medical Center told O’Rourke. “The nurse grabbed me and said, ‘Please, don’t let this end here,’” O’Rourke recalled. He also remembered a male nurse there said, “This is like genocide.”
He wondered aloud, “If there were five deaths from the flu, this would be national news, but five young people died in a week from drug overdoses, and you don’t hear a word about it.”
“This is something I would not wish on my worst enemy,” O’Rourke said.
O’Rourke believes that the U.S. government bears responsibility, to some degree, for the proliferation of illegal drugs that are awash, not only in Cape May County, but in the nation at large. His belief is fueled by Internet reports and on Fox News of U.S. troops in Afghani-stan protecting farmers, who raise poppies, the source of heroin. He is unflinching that there is a sinister connection between the war in Afghanistan and drugs that arrive here. “Where is most of the heroin the world grown?” he asked, “Isn’t it grown in Afghanistan?”
O’Rourke further cites the pharmaceutical industry which supplies many of the legal prescription drugs that are addicting. He saw an ABC News report in early December that dealt with thousands of foster children being overmedicated by prescription drugs, which resulted in serious medical and mental problems.
O’Rourke points to the drug industry profiting from all manner of aches and pains from headaches to sleeplessness. For that reason, he believes, that industry has every reason to snare possible users at the earliest possible age to use their products for long periods.
Such sorrows are not the O’Rourkes alone. They are shared by every Cape May County family, which has lost a daughter or son to a drug overdose.
O’Rourke told the Herald that many, he estimated 80 percent, of his late son’s friends freely told him they use illegal drugs, usually Percocet or heroin, both of which are readily accessible to those with cash in hand and the right connections. Christian bought the lethal dose of heroin in a Rio Grande motel room from a man with whom he was acquainted, said O’Rourke.
At Cape Assist, based in Wildwood, Executive Director Lynne Krukosky acknowledged that such drug use among young adults is common and distressing. She said many seek such illicit relief, and the trend needs to be addressed by the community at large.
Krukosky cited the disturbing practice of young people getting prescription drugs, dumping them into a bowl, and taking a handful at a “party” for thrills. Often, those drugs were legally secured, and taken from home medicine cabinets, she noted.
O’Rourke is troubled by what he views as a society that all but expects its children, from an early age, to use drugs. He pointed to an overabundance of children diagnosed with Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) who must take medication for the condition.
“A lot of it has to do with conditioning,” said O’Rourke.
The website for the prescription medication Vyvanse, states, “ADHD is one of the most common psychiatric disorders in children.” The medication is a federally controlled substance “because it can be abused or lead to dependence,” the site states.
Those with the condition, potentially 9.5 percent of those aged 4-17, often exhibit continuing patterns of inattention or will act in an impulsive or hyperactive manner.
O’Rourke’s son suffered from a four herniated discs, the result of a work-related injury. “The doctors got him addicted,” said O’Rourke. Those first painkillers were perfectly legal prescription drugs. Then, prescriptions ran out, and the physician was unwilling to write a refill, said O’Rourke.
At that juncture, his son, seeking respite from wrenching pain that raked his body, went in search of Oxycontin. At $50 a pill on the black market, Christian used that for a brief time, but unabated pain drove him to seek less expensive concoctions.
He found that illegal relief in a Rio Grande motel room where a willing peddler, who was well known to him, sold O’Rourke what he sought for $10 a dose. Arrested by police, and still incarcerated, the seller’s case remains in the judicial system.
O’Rourke has attended each court date when the drug seller appeared. He pressed the County Prosecutor’s office to have the crime changed from simply drug distribution to knowingly causing a drug-induced death. He told the Herald that seemed to be the latest development in the case, and it was encouraging to his wife and him.
Christian and his girlfriend had a disagreement. Distraught, Christian said he was going to use his last dose of heroin in a lethal manner: “He said, ‘I hope this kills me,’” said his father. It did.
Ten months later, grief still grips the O’Rourkes at the loss of their beloved son. Christian graduated from Lower Cape May Regional High School. The pain is as piercing as it was on that terrible February day.
The O’Rourkes remember their son as a young man who loved the outdoors. He savored hunting and fishing, riding bicycles and surfing.
“He was a good kid. He didn’t cause us any problems,” said O’Rourke.
Looking back at his son’s school years, O’Rourke recalled a time when Christian was in high school, playing street hockey at Mulligan Field in Villas. In a conversation with a friend, Christian asked if he had seen a mutual friend smoking marijuana on one of the bleachers at the field.
“They (school officials) accused him of doing drugs because a teacher overheard them talking about drugs. He (Christian) was sent to the principal’s office. When asked if he would take a urine analysis, Christian took the test, which cleared him of using illicit drugs, yet school officials refused to apologize. “It took me two weeks and threats to take action before we got an apology’” O’Rourke recalled.
A school psychologist tested Christian for ADHD, and “wanted to put my son on Ritalin. I did not want him on it, yet people accused my son of being on drugs. It’s faulty conditioning,” O’Rourke said.
Wildwood Crest resident Dennis Donnelly, mental health professional and counselor, was acquainted with O’Rourke’s case. He has talked and advised many local people from “every profession” who found themselves leaning on drugs to cope with pain or life itself.
Donnelly believes prevention and education are “a really good place to start.” Still, he knows the battle against drug use is an uphill battle. Simply watching television exposes viewers, many of impressionable age, that drugs can alter many physical conditions.
Thus, he acknowledges, drugs are a multi-faceted problem.
One of the ways O’Rourke is attempting to deal with his grief is through use of the Website of Grief Recovery After a Substance Passing (G.R.A.S.P.). He went to several local grief support groups, but found none offered the solace and consolation needed by a parent who lost a child to drugs. Many do not or cannot understand why their loved one used and succumbed to drugs, he said.
That is why G.R.A.S.P. was founded, and why O’Rourke is anxious to help others in Cape May County who also lost a loved to substance abuse. If interested contact him through G.R.A.S.P.’s Website.
The organization’s website (www.grasphelp.org) states it was “created to help provide sources of help, compassion and most of all, understanding, for families or individuals who have had a loved one die as a result of substance abuse or addiction.”
“It is true that you need not be a professional counselor of any sort to do this work, but you DO need to have experienced the pain of struggling before this tragic, life changing event,” the site states.
“Anyone who has lost a loved one through addiction knows that society treats that death in a much different manner than a death from any other cause. There is the unspoken feeling that the individual who succumbed to drugs must have somehow been less than a good person. And for the person who has survived, surely they too must have somehow been a failure, for “letting this occur.”
“Why were they not strong enough to stop this from happening? You were, they feel, in whatever way, partially a factor in the demise of the person you grieve.
“As Dr. Carlton K. Erickson, Professor of Pharmacology, and Director, Addiction Science Research and Education Center from the University of Texas, Austin, commonly states in his lectures: SPAM – Stigma, Prejudice And Misunderstanding kills more addicts and alcoholics than anything.
“We believe that it does great harm to those who love the person suffering from this disease and ultimately impairs their ability to grieve as well.”
Contact Campbell at (609) 886-8600 Ext 28 or at: al.c@cmcherald.com