Kyle Foley was a happy-go-lucky, all-American kid.

He loved country music, horseback riding, fishing and hunting. He rode dirt bikes and quads. He played soccer in high school and played baseball while growing up in Brown County.

On Oct. 16, his mother, Barb Foley, stood in front of Brown County High School freshmen and sophomores, holding his photo.

Not long ago, Kyle sat where they were sitting. He graduated from Brown County High School in 2011.

[sc:text-divider text-divider-title=”Story continues below gallery” ]

“He’s not able to be with us today because he overdosed on heroin on July 20, 2017,” she said.

He was 24 years old.

“I come to you today to say please, don’t ever start. … The drugs that are out there today, that you all are having to do deal with today, are very evil drugs. Meth and heroin are killers. Don’t think you can try them one time and walk away from it,” she said.

The convocation was organized by the school district and the Brown County Sheriff’s Department.

Students were shown news clips about parents who lost teenage children to heroin overdoses, photos of people who overdosed with children in the back seat, and a teen who was in recovery.

“Heroin stole my son’s last breath,” Barb said. “It left a big hole inside of me. A big part of me is gone that can never be replaced.”

Kyle’s story

Kyle started taking hydrocodone pills his senior year of high school. Barb was unaware.

“I would never, ever have thought he would go down this path,” she said. “That’s where it all started. He made a bad choice.”

“If he would have known that the choice he made in high school was going to cost him his life a few years later, I knew he wouldn’t have done that. That wasn’t what he wanted. He had too much to live for, too many people who loved him.”

Kyle built up a tolerance to hydrocodone, so he started using methamphetamine and heroin. Heroin was his favorite, his mother said.

After admitting his addiction to his mom, he went to rehab in Florida for about six months and then lived with family friends in North Carolina.

He was sober for about three months until he met somebody on the job site who offered him heroin. He began using again.

“Once you’re an addict, you struggle. You don’t want to see it. You don’t want to be around it,” Barb said.

Kyle went into rehab at Tara Treatment Center and was sober for about 30 days. But again, he relapsed.

“A lot of it has to do with the friends that you keep. Watch who you hang out with. I want you all to look out for each other. If you know someone struggling be there for them, talk to them, talk them into going to someone for help, but first of all you need to believe in yourself,” Barb said.

Kyle was arrested for unlawful possession of a syringe in May and June. He spent 30 days in jail and was released July 18. He set up an appointment to go back to Tara Treatment Center.

On the night of July 19, Kyle told his mother he loved her and that he was going to finish packing for rehab.

“He was bound and determined. He was going to get clean this time,” Barb said.

The next morning, Barb went upstairs to wake him. She couldn’t.

“I used Narcan and did everything I could do, but I couldn’t bring him back,” she said through tears.

“Don’t think for one minute that this couldn’t happen to you, because it could. He was just like you. He had a beautiful future, a beautiful smile and a beautiful life ahead of him. … The best thing you can do is don’t ever start, ever.”

‘I was so selfish’

Jeffrey Howard stood in front of the students wearing a striped jail jumpsuit with shackles on his hands and feet.

Howard, 31, is a lifetime resident of Brown County. He attended Brown County High School where he played baseball and basketball. At the age of 15, he started smoking marijuana.

“I wasn’t raised in the life of addiction. It was something I picked up because my friends were doing it or because I felt cool,” he said. “I always told myself I wasn’t the guy who would let it control or ruin his life.”

At 16, Howard quit school and started using methamphetamine. He went to work “just to support my habit.”

About six months after he turned 21, Howard was charged with manufacturing meth. He went to prison, and after three-and-a-half years, he was released.

He got married, had a son, started working through a recovery program with a sponsor, and was studying to become a certified welder. He was clean for two-and-a-half years when one day, an old friend stopped by.

“I knew I should have told him to leave. He shouldn’t have been there. I knew the power of addiction,” he said.

“Everything I worked towards, I threw away in just a matter of days of getting around the wrong crowd.”

He was eventually arrested again and had to serve 18 months behind bars. After he was out, he began working on a recovery program again and was able to start a job in the county. He helped to start a men’s recovery group on Tuesday nights.

He was married again and had a second son.

“I had life in my hands. I had everything in the world going for me. I was doing real good,” he said.

When his son was 2 months old, Howard and his wife began having troubles.

“Once again, I just threw my hands in the air and gave up. I went back to that old lifestyle that numbed to where I didn’t have the feelings of pain,” he said.

When his son was 3 months old, Howard was involved on a 120 mph police chase in the county with the baby in the car. He ditched the car with the baby still in it.

He was arrested a few days later after he totaled a car and ran from police a second time.

Howard is serving a 15-month sentence in the Brown County jail for that case. He has 60 days left.

“I’m not wanting to say that I’m scared of getting out, but I am scared of getting out, because I know what that lifestyle is out there. I am afraid people will come around me again,” he said.

Since Howard has been in jail, he has become a father for a third time — to a daughter, who is now 10 months old.

“My first girl, I’ve looked at her the last 15 months through the glass once a week for an hour at a time. It absolutely tears me apart, just rips me down,” he said. “I don’t want my little girl to go through that. It devastates me to think that I was so selfish, that I worried about myself more than I did any of (my children). It just devastates me.”

Howard said he has learned that he has to ask for help in order to beat his addiction, and he has a strong group of friends behind him to help him stay sober.

“Today, I can accept the fact that I am a recovering addict and accept that no matter what, it’s always going to be a day-to-day struggle for me to stay sober.

“I would give anything to have that struggle more than to have that worry about that next high, because that next high ends. Sobriety lasts for a lifetime if you work it.”

Howard’s message to students, like Barb Foley’s, was to never start using. He said he wished he had been educated on the dangers of drugs while in school.

“I hope, if anything, a couple of words I say touches you guys and stays on your mind,” he said. “I didn’t know how addictive it would be and how much it could ruin my life.”

‘Think rationally’

Samantha Taylor, from Decatur County, also spoke about her experience with methamphetamine and heroin addiction.

She started using heroin at 16 after giving birth to a stillborn baby at the age of 15. She was introduced to the drug by her boyfriend at the time, who was 24. She used methamphetamine with him when she was 17.

“I fell in love with it. It was everything that I needed,” she said.

She was clean during her two pregnancies and after giving birth, but both times, started using either meth or heroin again.

She shot up in jail bathrooms. She came in contact with the Mexican cartel. “I thought I was the biggest, baddest person there was and I had my life under control,” she said.

“But really, I was alone and I was broken and I was ashamed, and I didn’t know how long I was going to live,” she said.

The last day she shot up was July 28, 2014. She was cold and shaking and decided to take a shower, and she looked at her track mark-covered, bony body.

“I saw myself and I was scared I was going to leave my children without a mom,” she said.

She began attending Narcotics Anonymous meetings. She continued to drink, but became completely sober after using cocaine at a party on July 4, 2015.

Taylor has been clean now for more than two years. She is now working on a degree in nursing. She dropped out of high school in 10th grade, but earned her high school equivalency after getting clean.

She has lost friends and family to overdoses or violence related to drug use. Her own sister has been revived five times with naloxone.

“I want to let you guys know that I love you, every single one of you. I don’t know you, I don’t care, I love you,” Taylor said.

“I love your life, and there’s more to life than that. Just think rationally.”

[sc:pullout-title pullout-title=”Students react to presentation” ][sc:pullout-text-begin]

Students at Brown County High School say drugs are a problem, namely marijuana.

Even though they don’t hear about heroin or methamphetamine use, some students said it would be “easy” to get heroin, even if they had never done drugs.

“Those people were all normal people who had normal lives and it showed them it could happen to anyone,” said Junior Emma Summers. She said the convocation was helpful.

“It might not affect me personally, but I can definitely use what I learned today to help other people that may do drugs,” sophomore Riley Arnholt added.

For freshman Joey Romick, the convocation brought up old memories. A family member of his is currently suffering from addiction.

“Ever since I was child, she’s always been back and forth. … I haven’t talked to her in over a year,” he said. “She could be gone right now and I would never know.”

But the convocation helped him realize it’s possible to escape addiction, he said.

The presentation was also touching for sophomore Brendon Asher because he recently lost a friend to a heroin overdose. He said his friend shot up thinking it was steroids.

“For me, I don’t think I’ll ever do drugs because of what happened to him,” he said.

Students who are involved in extracurricular activities or who park on school property are subject to random drug testing.

Several students at the convocation said they would like to see the high school get students who test positive for drugs into a treatment program.

Principal Shane Killinger said when students test positive, he calls their parents.

“Most of the time it’s not a surprise, because when the kids get drug tested and they know they’re doing drugs and they know they’re going to test positive, nine times out of 10, they’ve gone and talked to their parents,” he said.

Sometimes the parents ask Killinger for suggestions on treatment options and he tells them about Centerstone and other resources, he said.

The school doesn’t see a lot of positive test results for drugs. Killinger said the school most often sees tests come back positive for tobacco.

“The bad thing about drug testing is it really is only testing a small group of people,” he said.

“The amount of people being caught for actual drugs is minimal.”

[sc:pullout-text-end]