If this meeting at the Rotterdam Senior Center can save the life of even one person, than I don't think it will be a waste of taxpayer dollars.Heroin's harrowing addiction, heartbreaking death of 22-year-old West Sand Lake man
Couple describe their son's slide into the hell of addictionBy Paul Grondahl Times-Union Updated 11:17 pm, Saturday, December 5, 2015
Sand Lake
Tim Murdick couldn't sleep. He heard a car drive up in the predawn hours to their Cape Cod-style house along a quiet, suburban road.
There had been many sleepless nights for him and his wife, Kim, during the hellish months that their 21-year-old son, Sean, had spiraled down into heroin addiction.
Something didn't seem right about the sound of the car in the darkness, so the father crept down the staircase and peered out a front window.
He watched as the car driver stopped, pushed something into their mailbox and sped off.
A father's nagging fear was now a horrible truth: his son had relapsed.
A primal anger at the drug dealer surged through his body, catapulting him down the walkway toward the mailbox outside their West Sand Lake home.
Sean had been waiting for the delivery and stepped outside to smoke a cigarette. His dad passed him in a blur and the son, too, sprinted toward the mailbox, wide-eyed and crazed, a few steps behind.
His father got to the mailbox first. He grabbed the small plastic packets filled with heroin and squeezed them tightly inside his fist.
More Information
To view a video about Sean Murdick or other videos in "The Dragon Lives Here," a multi-media heroin series collaboration between the Times Union and WMHT, go to http://www.wmht.org/dragon
He roughly shoved past his son, the 6-foot-4, 270-pound former co-captain of the Averill Park High School football team.
His son made a grab for his father's clenched fist. They argued. There was a struggle.
His wife heard the commotion and rushed downstairs. Her husband pressed the packets into her palm and yelled at her to flush the drugs down the toilet.
There were raised voices now, the muffled keen of a young man who was sick with withdrawal symptoms, craving the warm, numbing rush of heroin through a needle into a vein.
Their other son, Tim Jr., two years older than Sean, was awakened. He and his father wrapped up Sean with their arms and braced themselves against the door frame outside the bathroom. The sound of a toilet flushing and Sean's guttural, wounded weeping echoed in the narrow hallway.
Tableau of sorrow
The scene crystallized in one horrible moment the scourge of heroin that plagues the Capital Region: a young man in the grip of addiction, an overwhelmed detox and treatment network that turned him away, failed attempts at rehab and the desperation of parents who didn't know where to turn.
After being rebuffed or washing out at a half-dozen hospital detox units and treatment centers stretching from Albany to Rhinebeck to Vermont, Sean was accepted at The Treatment Center in Lake Worth, Fla. He had been clean for nearly six months in the residential treatment program there. He was drug-tested daily and graduated to a sober living apartment with three other roommates who were also recovering heroin addicts.
Sean seemed to be flourishing. He was working out at the gym every day and bench-pressed 400 pounds. He regained lost weight and took long walks on the beach. His shattered self-esteem was repairing itself in a program that tended to his mind, body and spirit. He talked about joining the military.
"It was finally starting to feel like the old Sean was back again," his mother said.
He had a setback in early September and began to crave heroin again. He checked back into the residential program for a week of stabilization. "He said he felt like he was getting shaky," his mother said. After a week of the rigorous regimen — which did not include a maintenance drug such as methadone or Suboxone — he felt his recovery was solid once more.
On Sept. 28, Sean called his mother, which he did most days.
They spoke briefly. He sounded good to her.
"Mom, I've gotta go. My steak's ready," he said. "Love you, mom."
"Love you, too, bud," she said.
A video surveillance camera in the apartment recorded Sean as he walked into the bathroom and disappeared from view.
His roommates returned and found him dead on the bathroom floor, a syringe and empty heroin packet nearby. He was 22.
"Sean was doing very well in our program and was well-liked. Losing a patient to the disease is very heartbreaking," said Bill Russell, CEO of The Treatment Center. He said Sean was the first fatal overdose of a patient in the 144-bed program since it opened in 2009.
A Mass of Christian Burial was held on Oct. 6 at St. Henry's Church in Averill Park. Several hundred mourners packed the church, including many of Sean's fellow alumni from the Class of 2011 at Averill Park High and former teammates.
Why had heroin addiction claimed the life of this golden boy, the gentle giant who seemed to be everybody's friend in their small town, the son his dad called "a big goof?"
And why had heroin killed more than a dozen other young people over the past three years in the town of Sand Lake, population 10,000, which includes Averill Park and West Sand Lake?
The Murdicks have many questions, but few answers. They've been lost in a fog of grief since their son's death two months ago.
They want to speak out in Sean's memory, to reclaim what heroin stole from them in the hope that it might help other parents struggling with a child's addiction.
"Sean did not die in vain," his father said, choking back tears.
"We tried our best to save him. It wasn't enough," his older brother said, his voice cracking. He leaned against the refrigerator near where his parents had poured out their heartache for more than two hours at the kitchen table.
His mother walked over, embraced her son and spoke soothing words into his ear. The father buried his head in his hands. It was a tableau of sorrow.
A cry for help
Their sons enjoyed a comfortable life in the suburbs of Rensselaer County, raised by two loving parents with good jobs — she at a local college, he in communications for the government. The couple's lives revolved around their sons and sports. They installed a pool in the backyard where the boys and friends spent summer days. The brothers rode go-karts and dirt bikes around the farmland behind their house. Their dad coached his sons in Little League baseball, Pop Warner football, lacrosse and basketball. Their mom ran the concession stand. Their lovable yellow Labrador retriever, Nicky, was at the center of it all.
Sean suffered from migraine headaches as a preschooler, caused by sinus problems treated with medication. He had a certain level of anxiety, but nothing that was crippling. He was a solid B student and was very social in school, with a wide smile and a goofy laugh.
After graduating from high school, Sean took classes at Morrisville State College and Hudson Valley Community College. But he lost interest in academics. He worked at an auto body shop and as a cook. He was good with his hands. He landed a construction job, but fell and broke his arm on a job site. A doctor prescribed oxycodone, an opioid painkiller. He ran through his prescription and started buying oxy on the street, but the pills became scarce and expensive. He found a readily available, cheap substitute: heroin.
His parents could see something was wrong with Sean. He lost a lot of weight and seemed distant and fidgety. He nodded off at the dinner table.
His father found a syringe in the bathroom and confronted Sean.
"Dad, I'm sick. I need help," he said. "This is not me. I don't want to be like this."
Their journey through the nightmare world of the disease of addiction began a year ago. They made the rounds of detox units, from St. Peter's Hospital in Albany to St. Mary's Hospital in Troy. They were turned away more than once, told that Sean didn't meet "the criteria" or insurance didn't cover it. He eventually was admitted for three-day detox stays, but relapsed each time. They tried Conifer Park in Glenville three different times, but Sean was limited to five days of treatment because that's all their insurance covered.
He tried Cornerstone rehab in Rhinebeck a couple times, but none of the five-day treatments stuck. He went twice to Maple Leaf Treatment Center in Underhill, Vt.
It was a revolving door of failure: detox, intensive outpatient care, relapse. He did not qualify for the most intensive and costliest level of care, inpatient residential treatment. They denied him because he was not homicidal or suicidal and had a stable home environment. "It was a never-ending battle with the insurance companies," his mother said. "They treated him like the scum of the Earth."
His parents spent tens of thousands of dollars on failed treatments and exhausted their savings.
"We didn't know where to turn. We were so desperate," his mother said.
Sean tried to detox at home over the course of days of sweating, shaking, vomiting and diarrhea.
"It was a horrible thing to watch," his mother said.
Trying to beat demon
Sean kept trying to get clean and found the Florida treatment center after a long Internet search. His parents liked the place and its focus on mind, body and spirit. They did not rush his detox, which continued for 30 days. They were relieved the focus finally was not on gaps in insurance coverage. They sent a check for $500 once as a thank-you, but never saw another bill.
Meanwhile, his parents are angry and frustrated at the system of heroin treatment in New York.
"Sean was sick, he had a disease and he asked for help," his father said. "If he had diabetes or heart disease, they would not have turned him away and treated him like a criminal."
Sean described his addiction as "this demon inside me."
"He tried everything he could to beat it," his mother said. "He was a big man with a little boy inside, scared of what heroin was doing to him. And he kept getting pushed away around here. If he didn't meet the criteria, who does?"
The addiction drove the brothers apart. "He was ashamed of heroin and did it in secret," his brother said. "He never told me any of the details."
Sean left his parents a final solace. Not long before he died, he thanked them for their unconditional love and how they supported him through the long road of misery.
"You did everything right," he told them.
And then he was gone.
pgrondahl@timesunion.com • 518-454-5623 • @PaulGrondahl
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