WADSWORTH: Rob Brandt doesn’t want any family to endure what his went through.
His son, 20-year-old Robby, died in October 2011 of an accidental heroin overdose after a long struggle with addiction. Brandt is now president of Robby’s Voice, a nonprofit dedicated to spreading awareness about addiction throughout Northeast Ohio. He was invited to speak at Wadsworth High School, where school officials recognize drug addiction among their students as a serious issue. On Wednesday night, a group of about 70 parents attended.
“We as a family live every day incomplete,” Brandt told the crowd. “There is no celebration that’s what it should be. There is no holiday that’s what it should be. There’s an empty bedroom in our home. We have nothing but pictures left.”
Robby’s struggle with addiction began between his freshman and sophomore years of high school. Like four-fifths of today’s heroin addicts, his condition was triggered by prescription painkillers.
“He had his wisdom teeth taken out and got a prescription for pain medication,” Brandt said. “We knew pain medications were addictive, so in two days we had him off the pills — but see, there was something we didn’t know about. We didn’t know about drugs and about addiction.”
Looking back, Brandt said there were red flags right away that his son was at risk of addiction.
“We didn’t know,” Brandt said, “that when he said at three hours on a six-hour dose time that, ‘Oh my gosh, my mouth hurts. When do I get my meds again?’ — we just thought he had a low pain tolerance — we didn’t know that could be a sign of an issue.”
He said too many parents are unaware of the dangers of prescription drugs and their prevalence in juveniles’ lives.
Studies have shown a strong link between the risk of drug addiction and genetics. That’s especially dangerous for youth, Brandt explained, considering how many prescription pills are kept in homes.
“Where are they getting these pills? At home,” he said. “We are, as parents, the biggest drug dealers in the United States of America.”
He said parents should be resorting to prescription painkillers only when necessary for their teenagers, and they should be disposing of unused painkillers at drop-off points, which are usually located at police departments.
Parents in the crowd said they were astounded by the facts Brandt presented to them.
“It scared the crap out of me — in a good way, though,” said Lorie Toolis, who has two children attending Wadsworth High School. “I thought I knew about it, but I didn’t.”
Toolis said the issue hits close to home because a nephew of hers died of an accidental heroin overdose recently.
“We’ve had a lot of discussions at home about this issue,” she said, “but it’s never enough.”
Other parents agreed.
Terra Ruthenburg attended the talk with her husband, David. The couple has a set of twins in seventh grade.
“This is a disease,” she said, “and if everyone’s hush-hush about it, then we’re not providing any support to people who are going through this.”
Ruthenburg works with expectant mothers who are addicted to opiates and their newborn babies. She said the work has led her to talk with her children earlier on than most parents.
“But I don’t know what will happen in their future,” she said.
Brandt said it’s up to every parent to talk to their children about drugs — and to avoid anger when the children say something a parent doesn’t like.
“If we as parents are on top of it, if we’re educated, everything that needs to happen and everything that can be done, can be done at home by us,” he said.
Finally, Brandt said the stigma of addiction needs to dissolve. He said the most effective way to overcome the problem, which claimed the lives of thousands across the state and country just last year, is to raise awareness.
“I used to be one of the parents that said it’s not my kid. It would never be my kid — we eat dinner together, we’re involved in activities together, I told my kid don’t do drugs,” he said. “It’s not your kid until it is, and then what do you do?”
Nick Glunt can be reached at 330-996-3565 or nglunt@thebeaconjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter @NickGluntABJ.