Families Join Together for Drug Crisis Awareness Efforts in Mahopac

Harnessing their intense grief after having both recently lost their adult sons to drug overdoses, the Salomone family of Mahopac and the Christiansen family of Somers have joined together to bring awareness to the scourge of prescription drug abuse, both locally and nationwide, so that other families might avoid the pain and heartbreak they have lived through.

All community members are being encouraged by the two families to attend a meeting to be held from 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. this Thursday, Aug. 9 at the Mahopac Public Library located on Route 6 to discuss and better understand the drug crisis in local communities and schools.

A panel of experts will discuss how to spot signs of drug abuse, the potentially unknown dangers of prescription drugs, and ways that people can keep their families safe, among other topics.

Mahopac High School graduate Justin Salomone died of a drug overdose on May 29 of this year at the age 29. After another drug overdose late last year, which Justin survived, his mother Susan Salomone began to write about her experience dealing with her son’s drug addiction.

After her son’s death, she submitted an article to a local publication, with the hope that sharing her story could help to save someone else’s child or family member.

“When something like this happens you can’t sit still or  you become overcome with emotions….I opened up so that other people are not afraid to,” she said.

Very soon after the publication of the article, her phone rang.

“I buried my son today,” Salomone said Lou Christiansen said to her from the other end of the line.

His son, Erik Christiansen, an undercover detective with the New York City Police Department, had died from a drug overdose in the early morning hours of Saturday, June 9. After having read Salomone’s article, he felt compelled to reach out to her.

Salomone said that her son’s battle with drugs began during high school and escalated to prescription drugs when he went off to college.

He eventually dropped out and the following years included an arrest for possession of oxycodone, an opiate-based prescribed pain killer that is recognized as being highly addictive, followed by rehab, where his use of heroin began, his parents later learned. He was enrolled in a medical trial for a drug to treat heroin addiction that was followed by nine months of sobriety and then two more years of struggling with his addiction. Justin suffered brain damage from the overdose at the end of last year and went through months of therapy to regain movement. Two weeks after he moved out of his parent’s house to a supervised residence, he died from another overdose.

Erik Christiansen’s battle with addiction began much later in life, only two years ago, his father Lou Christiansen said. An avid body-builder, Erik hurt his back in the gym and his doctor put him on prescription pain pills.

Christiansen said his son’s doctor was prescribing him 240 oxycodone per month; enough to take one every two hours, if his son was sleeping eight hours a night.

Honored in 2010 for his diligent detective work with the cop of the year award for his unit, Erik soon was chronically late to work and moved to desk duty.

Calls from the family doctor to Erik’s doctor, warning that he had become addicted to the pain killers, fell on deaf ears, Christiansen said.

Eventually police department counselors convinced Erik to go into rehab. He did, then left and was convinced to return.

But on June 4, once again, he checked himself out and the following day, his father said, Erik’s doctor prescribed him more oxycodone and 10 fentanyl patches, which is 100 times more potent than morphine.

Four days later, he was found dead from an overdose with unused portions of heroin in his car.

“It robs your soul. He used to say, ‘I want to be the old me’,” Christiansen said of his son. “I fully blame his doctor.”

Salomone said addiction similarly had overtaken her son.

“He really wanted to be clean. It was truly a battle,” Salomone said. “He was carrying a dark passenger. It was  like another voice inside of his head saying, ‘You can handle this.’ Like an alter ego saying that it’s OK.”

Salomone and Christiansen said that after losing their sons, they want to sound the alarm on the dangers of prescription pain killers and how the abuse of them can lead to heroin because of its easy availability and extremely low cost.

“These are things that people need to know,” Christiansen said, adding that he hoped awareness would place pressure on lawmakers to institute better oversight and regulations on the prescription of pain killers. “The general public’s awareness needs to be elevated. It will effect what politicians do.”