Connie Goldsmith - Addiction and Overdose: Confronting an American Crisis

Adam Kull died in 2015 from an overdose of fentanyl-laced heroin. Fentanyl is an opioid prescription painkiller. He was one of nearly thirteen thousand Americans who died from a heroin overdose that year.

Kulls coworkers heard her anguished cry and gathered around her. I said that my son had died and I needed to go. They wanted to take me, told me that I shouldnt drive, but I wouldnt listen. I dont remember my thoughts, I just knew that I had to leave and get to where Adam was. I grabbed my things and cursed God as I ran for my car. I drove as quickly as I could to Adams apartment, about forty minutes away from my office. She knew her son used heroin, and she suspected an overdose had killed him.

Left Behind

Stories similar to Adams happen far too often in the United States. Drug overdoses and deaths can happen anywhere: in the dark side streets and alleys of large inner cities; in small towns, rural areas, and suburbs; in poor as well as wealthy neighborhoods; and in small apartments and large homes. Its victims include teens and twenty-somethings with bright futures, high school and college athletes, blue- and white-collar workers, parents with young children, men and women, people of every race and identity, and older adults living with chronic pain. In 2015, the latest year for which the government has complete data, the states with the highest rates of overdose deaths in order were West Virginia, New Hampshire, Kentucky, Ohio, and Rhode Island.

Who dies of drug overdoses? A college athlete in Kentucky on Vicodin for a football injury. A suburban mother in New Hampshire taking Percocet for a broken ankle and Valium for anxiety. A farmworker in Ohio who was injured on the job. An unemployed coal miner in West Virginia using heroin because its cheaper than the prescription painkillers he took for his back pain. Celebrities such as Prince and Michael Jackson, who both started taking prescription painkillers for legitimate reasons, became addicted, and eventually died from overdoses. And twenty-seven-year-old Adam Kull, a top wrestler and soccer player in high school who became addicted to a prescription medication for anxiety and then to heroin.

Michael Jackson died in 2009 after his physician, Dr. Conrad Murray, injected him with the surgical anesthetic propofol, which Murray routinely used to help Jackson sleep. Jacksons years of addiction to Xanax and opioids likely contributed to his death. Jacksons addiction to prescription painkillers dated back to 1984, when he suffered serious scalp burns while filming a commercial.

When Donna Kull arrived at her sons apartment, two police officers escorted her up the stairs. I remember taking a very deep breath and looking into Adams bedroom, she says. He was lying on the floor with blood spilling from his mouth. The officers wouldnt let me go into the room, as it was still a crime scene. (Authorities consider the scene of a sudden, unexplained death to be a crime scene until the cause of death is determined and foul play is ruled out.) From the doorway, I squatted down and looked at him, tears welling up in my eyes, shaking my head. I said, Why Adam! Why? I cant believe it. I told him that I loved him, that I was proud of him, and then I said good-bye. Adam was on his way to the medical examiners office in Newark [New Jersey] and I had to get home to tell my family. Like Donna Kull, the authorities suspected that Adam Kull had died of a drug overdose. The medical examinera doctor who investigates suspicious deathswould run blood tests to determine the specific cause of death.