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Show Presorted Standard U.S. Postage PAID Permit No. 11 Gunnison, UT ECRWSS Volume 3 • Number 42 Thursday, October 18, 2007 Copy Price • 75 cents GVHS presents Oklahoma Gunnison Valley High School presented Oklahoma, under the direction of Mr. Mark Lyons, as this year’s musical. Oklahoma played before good size audiences on both Friday and Saturday evenings. The musical received great reviews from those who attended the performances, showing once again the great talent we have here in our valley. Many felt this year’s play was the best that they could remember. The production not only highlighted the talent of the cast and crew but brought together a very talented orchestra made up of twelve high school and middle school musicians and seven adult members from the community. This year’s orchestra conductor, Lisa Johnson said, “Being in the orchestra for the high school musical, Oklahoma, has been a great experience for everyone involved.” Congratulations and thank you’s go out to Mr. Lyons and all those who took part in helping make Oklahoma a successful and entertaining production. Courtesy Photo Emily Wegener, Brianna Young, Heather Matthews, Halie Garff and Lisa Kroll. Top right: Heather Matthews and Jessie Ward. Middle right: Curly (Sam Matthews) visiting Judd (Jon Warren) in the smokehouse. Bottom right: “With me, it’s all or nuthin’ is it all or nuthin’ with you?” B.J. Starks and Cari Garff. Bottom left: Oklahoma cast and crew. Rehab grad looks forward to living her life drug-free Editors Note: This article originally ran in the Deseret Morning News, Saturday, September 22, 2007 and is reprinted in the Gunnison Valley Gazette with the permission from the Deseret Morning News. by JAMES THALMAN Deseret Morning News With a little fanfare and a small slice of chocolate cake, Lindsay Kersh on Thursday celebrated the official start of her life off heroin. Kersh, 19, actually stopped using June 19. That’s the same day she was kicked out of her house for good. It’s the same day her boyfriend left her at a West Jordan gas station with a suitcase and a promise to pick her up later. He came back to tell her they couldn’t see each other anymore and drove off. She had told herself the previous year and a half that she could quit her habit any time she really wanted to. “You know, I always had the attitude that, ‘This is scary but I can handle it; I know what I’m doing.”’ Standing there in the 100degree heat staring into the sun, she realized just how much she’d been kidding herself. She was just a few blocks from her mother’s house, but she couldn’t have been further from home. “I wasn’t doing anything else but the drug,” Kersh said after the small graduation ceremony marking the completion of her rehab program at Volunteers of America. “I stopped seeing my friends or they stopped seeing me. I’d get mail and wouldn’t open it. I was stealing money from my mom, taking her debit card and just lying about everything. We cover up in lies. I was living a secret life and thinking I was getting away with it. I was going to take care of things — just not right now, just not today.” The last thing Kersh really wanted to do that day was quit using. “But I knew I had to right then and there. Nothing was working. My mom had changed the locks because she just couldn’t take me any more.” Kersh went home anyway and walked into her back yard and sat on a lawn chair. “I just needed somewhere I could feel a little safe.” Her mother was out of town and a neighbor took her in for the night and took her to the VOA’s Center for Women and Children in Murray the next day. She said she was sicker than she’s ever been but had the relief of being taken care of, and she had the one thing she had fought against for so long — structure. Even though every day is exactly the same when you’re doing drugs, she said Thursday, you never know what’s going to happen next. “Sometimes when I would eat I would forget to chew,” she said. “It’s like I would do it and forget I was alive even. It’s kind of nothing — there’s no love there really. There’s pain, but you can get that to go away when you use.” There was plenty of pain the first weeks Kersh was in detox. “I didn’t sleep for five days because I had these huge goosebumps all over my body. I couldn’t stand my skin to touch anything and I couldn’t even lie down. I was sick to my stomach and felt like I had the worst flu ever. The movies don’t come close to showing what kicking (the habit) is really like.” Consider Kersh the new face of heroin and cocaine addiction in Utah. Substance abuse prevention workers and statistics they keep say statewide at least 8,700 young people between 18 and 25 are using hard core narcotics, and 10 to 15 more try heroin or cocaine for the first time every weekend in Salt Lake County. “And most have told themselves they would never do any drugs, and every single one of them never planned on becoming an addict,” said Jeff St. Romain, president and CEO of VOA. Kersh is lucky that she didn’t quit the way in which about at least a third of heroin users do it — death. In the past three years in Utah, at least 17 heroin users between ages 18 and 25 have died by overdose. Most were Where to go for information Those wanting general information about programs and services in the state can contact the state Department of Human Services at 5383939 or www.dsamh. utah.gov, or the National Institute on Drug Abuse, www.nida.nih.gov. Those wishing to donate to Volunteers of America can call 363-9414, visit www. voaut.org or can participate in a special fund raiser. using without the knowledge of parents or friends. Best estimates by state and county public health departments are that on any given day in Utah, there are 52,000 Utahns using illicit drugs. About 22,000 of those are age 18 to 25. About half that many are 12 to 17 years old. About 19,000 Utahns 26 and older will be using illicit drugs today. Those drugs the state classifies as illicit are marijuana, cocaine (including crack), heroin, methamphetamine and inhalants. “People who walk through our doors come from every Laura Seitz, Deseret Morning News “I was living a secret life and thinking I was getting away with it,” says Lindsay Kersh of her heroin addiction. She stopped using drugs in June. ZIP code in the state,” VOA’s St. Romain said, “and most are ashamed and struggling and doing the best they can. And some will have the sweetest faces you’ll ever see.” “And some will be people you know,” said Michelle Templin, VOA communications manager. “We do several tours a year at the women’s center in Murray. We always tell people that if they see someone they know as they go through, don’t react and don’t go home and say ‘Guess who I saw in rehab today?’ People always say they are certain they won’t see anyone they know. But they do almost every time.” Kersh still can’t believe she became one of them. “It’s weird that this stuff that looks like a little ball of sand could just take over my life.” Now that she’s got it back, she’s going to Germany in a couple weeks to live with family stationed there in the Army. She will complete her high school diploma there — one of the many things she was pretending to do here. “I got my passport today,” she said Friday. “I’m so excited to go. I’m so excited to have my brain back, and to be able to think and to remember things, and to care that it’s a beautiful day.” |
