DETROIT – Katie knows all too well the effects of heroin and how hard it is to overcome an addiction to the street drug. Her oldest daughter, Brittany, was a heroin addict for years.
During the addiction, Katie told few people about the problem, however she is no longer afraid to talk about it.
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"The more you talk about it the more you educate people," she told Local 4. "When I talk about it with people, they had no idea that there is heroin in Macomb County or 'I can't imagine my child doing that.' Guess what, I thought the same thing."
Brittany has been clean and in recovery for more than a year.
"I'm proud of it now and who she's become and what she's' gone through," Katie said. "I'm more proud of her for doing what she is doing than probably if she did graduate college because she fight."
Katie understands how sharing her story can help other families.
It's a message echoed by veteran journalist and author Sam Quinones whose most recent book, Dreamland:The True Tale of America's Opiate Epidemic, focuses in on the heroin and prescription pill addiction in America.
"The truth is, this epidemic spread because of silence. No one was talking about it. No one dared talk about it. Parents who had addictive kids were mortified and ashamed. Even when they died, they wouldn't really talk about it that much and that's why we have it coast to coast as well," Quinones said.
Over the course of Quinones 30-year career in journalism, he spent 10 years living in Mexico as a freelancer writer, tackling many stories centered around drug-use and trafficking. Quinones returned to the States and worked as an L.A. Times reporter, covering hard-hitting topics including gang violence.
Quinones said it's crucial parents participate and share their stories.
"There's almost nobody else, not even the kids, who can tell the kind of poignant stories for the public to consume that parents can," Quinones said. "Another person who's not addicted to drugs may not be able to understand a drug addict telling his story, but they would be able to understand the mother or the father whose gone through a nightmare because of this."
He said he has talked to parents who have kept quiet because they are mortified, ashamed and embarrassed because their children have become addicts and thought they ere the only ones in their neighborhoods with the problem and silence has allowed the problem to spread.
However, he has seen a change in the past couple of years with heroin and prescription pain pill addiction becoming part of common discussion with more families speaking out.
"You now see parents putting cause of death in the obituaries of their kids, which is, must be, a horrible thing to have to do," Quinones said. "On the other hand, its very, very important that they do that because people need to know. Before it was died suddenly or died of a heart attack or some euphemism people come up with to hide the truth and we have spent 15 years hiding the truth from ourselves on this topic there is no doubt in my mind."
Katie and her daughter Brittany works with Families Against Narcotics (FAN) in Macomb County to get the message out. Brittany has spoken at schools and starred in a public service message.
"The more you talk about it, the more you realize, 'Wow, this was journey.' And if we can help other people, don't be scared," Katie said.
"I think it’s very important to get people to understand that if you don't come out, the next person who gets a son whose addicted will not know, will think that she is alone too or he is alone too in all this and make mistakes that they probably don't need to make because they don't know who to talk to," Quinones said.
For more on Quinones and his work, click here.