Witness to self-destruction
Danielle Leight always ended conversations with her daughter, Haley, with the same four words.
“Angels on your pillow.”
Leight has those words tattooed onto her arm in remembrance of Haley, who died in December 2016 of an opiate overdose.
“She hated (her addiction),” Leight said. “She said, 'Mom, sometimes I just want to die. I don't want to live like this.'”
But Haley succumbed to the addiction, and was one of 74 people in Butler County who died from an overdose in 2016.
She was joined by Brad Zulick, 29, of Butler Township, who died in March 2016, and Sarah Archer, 27, of Clearfield Township, who died four months later, in July.
Their addictions, and subsequent deaths, left friends and family members walking a long road back from heartache.
“Every day is still different,” said Kelly Zulick, Brad's sister. “(I'm) able to function, but there's still days where you just cry, and it's hard to get through the day.”
Haley, Brad and Sarah all were once social children.Haley, nicknamed “Bean” by her family because she was small, was involved in Girl Scouts, dance and her church.She loved to make people laugh; once when she was a child, she stuck marshmallows to her eyelids and walked around the house, bumping into things to elicit laughter.“Anybody that knew her could tell you that she'd make you laugh,” Leight said. “She was just funny.”Brad played football, basketball and baseball, and enjoyed going to amusement parks.“He had a lot of friends,” said Sue Zulick-Check, his mother. “He never liked to be home. He was always doing things.”Sarah was a talented singer who achieved good grades in school and was very popular.“She was wonderful,” said Judy Scott, her grandmother. “She was very giving.”But all three had issues that led them into a life of addiction.Leight said Haley was molested by a family member at age 7, and she never felt comfortable with herself.Brad struggled to find his path in life. Though he graduated from Butler County Community College with an associate degree, he felt inferior to his friends who were more career-driven and financially successful.Sarah struggled with depression and anxiety, which Scott said surfaced when she began using drugs and alcohol.
Haley began using heroin at 17, not long after she began dating someone who was using. One day, Leight discovered track marks on her arms, and was devastated.Haley eventually agreed to go to rehab, and was clean for five months following discharge. However, the company she kept led to a relapse.“I always told her, 'people, places, things,'” Leight said.Brad suffered a sports-related knee injury in his early 20s, not long after the death of his best friend, who died of a drug overdose.“Him passing away, that took a huge toll on my brother,” Kelly Zulick said. “He never got over that.”Brad didn't have health insurance, so he didn't seek treatment for his injury. Instead, he took OxyContin to ease the pain.He became addicted to opiates, and eventually began using heroin. He went to his mother in 2013 and told her he needed to go to rehab.“I just thought, 'This is it, he'll get his life together,' and it just didn't happen that way,” Zulick-Check said.Brad got out of rehab and was in recovery for several months, but self-worth issues continued to gnaw at him. He worked at FedEx, but his hours were cut. Discouraged, he quit.Kip Zulick, Brad's father, said that often times when something negative happened, Brad coped with opiate use.“A lot of (his addiction) had to do with his life and his job,” Kip Zulick said.Sarah began drinking alcohol at parties in Butler when she was in middle school. Her drinking led to other drugs, and eventually, heroin use.Her family discovered her addiction when she was 17, but didn't know much about heroin.“It was bad,” Scott said. “She was totally out of control.”They talked to Sarah, offering support and helping her get into counseling. But eventually, trust became a factor, and her family had to set boundaries.Sarah was thrown out of her mother's house, while Scott had a rule; Sarah could live with her as long as she didn't use. When she broke that rule, she had to find somewhere else to stay.Scott recalls a recurring conversation she had with her granddaughter.Sarah would tell her, “Grandma, nobody in high school decides, 'Oh, I'm going to be (an addict).'”“You've got to quit doing it,” Scott would say.“It's not that easy,” Sarah would reply.“Other people do it,” Scott would tell her. “You can do it.”“I'm trying,” Sarah said, time and time again. “I'm trying.”
Sarah tried for years to get clean and stay in recovery. She had several stints in rehab, and was even in recovery for nearly two years in her early 20s.During this time she was receiving shots of Vivitrol, which blocks the effects of opiates.It worked for her, but eventually her health insurance stopped paying for the injections. She managed to stay in recovery for a few months after she stopped receiving shots of Vivitrol, and relapsed just short of her 2-year clean date.Then, Sarah reverted to avoiding family members, including her little sister and cousins whom she loved so dearly. Scott said Sarah's addiction changed who she was.“It's like identity theft,” Scott said. “They don't want to be that way; nobody in their right mind would. It's so powerful.”Brad became more withdrawn. There were still glimpses of his personality, but when he was using, he was depressed and less trustworthy.When he did stop by to see his mother, it was briefly, and for lunch or dinner.Zulick-Check prayed with Brad about his addiction on at least three occasions.“He was open to that,” she said. “He wanted it.”Like Brad and Sarah, Haley avoided family members during her addiction. She willingly had two more stints in rehab, but relapsed each time.Haley's addiction damaged or ended relationships; her childhood friends cut off contact with her.“They didn't want to watch Haley destroy herself,” Leight said.She began hanging around people whom Leight considered strange, and only contacted Leight when she was hungry.Even then, Leight was wary of her daughter, because Haley had gotten into the habit of stealing to support her addiction.“It got so bad I couldn't even let her in my house,” Leight said. “I would leave food outside for her to come get it.”<h3>The toll</h3>Haley's addiction not only affected her physically, mentally and emotionally, but also weighed heavily on her family.In turn, Haley felt worse for the burden.“She saw how bad it was hurting her grandma, me, her sisters,” Leight said.Leight knew she had to maintain boundaries, but that didn't make doing so any easier. She continued to feed her daughter, but never gave her money.“It was just hard for all of us to have to stand back and watch the self-destruction, but there was nothing we could do,” Leight said. “It had to be her choice, and tough love was probably the hardest thing ever.”Brad lived with his father, who one day found that his son had overdosed on the bathroom floor.Kip Zulick couldn't open the door fully because Brad was leaning against it, so he called his daughter to wedge herself into the room.“He was so blue,” Kelly Zulick said. “I thought he was dead then. He was barely breathing.”They managed to wake up Brad, and he was taken by an ambulance to the hospital.Kelly tried to get through to Brad about his addiction after the incident, but he was in denial about overdosing.Brad's immediate family stopped giving him money, but never stopped worrying about him. His sister even took Brad along with her on a vacation to Florida to ensure his safety.“My anxiety was crazy,” Kelly Zulick said. “I couldn't sleep. You're just worried about when you're going to get that phone call (telling you he died). And any normal phone calls you get out of the blue, your heart just starts racing.”Through it all, Brad still wanted to change.“He was ashamed,” Kip Zulick said. “We would cry together.”Sarah, too, wanted to change, but hung around friends who used.“If you happen to be around somebody that's using, it just seems like it was too big of a temptation,” Scott said.Scott eventually told Sarah that her addiction would end one of two ways: prison, or death.For Sarah, like so many others, addiction claimed her life.<h3>Giving in to addiction</h3>Sarah had had multiple stints in jail related to her addiction, and was on house arrest when she died.She was 60 days into recovery, and went to a recovery meeting that evening with someone she knew. Later that night, that man overdosed at her house and was revived by Narcan. He was asked to leave by Sarah's stepfather.A few hours later, Sarah went into the bathroom, turned on the faucet to indicate she was taking a bath, and used heroin.The heroin was laced with fentanyl and cocaine, and Sarah died in that room.Scott said her granddaughter's death was “terrible,” even though she had expected it to happen eventually.“I cried and cried,” Scott said. “I still cry.”The day before Brad died, his friend died from Lupus. Brad sent out a text to his family asking for prayers for his friend.“That was Brad,” Kelly Zulick said. “He was always thinking of other people.”The next night, Kip Zulick was watching television when Brad asked him to leave money on the kitchen table for oil for his car.What happened next still wracks Kip Zulick with guilt.Brad had his door closed and his bedroom light on, but his father didn't think anything of it because Brad would often leave the light on all night.“I shouldn't feel guilty, but I will until the day I die because I don't know when he died,” Kip said.The next day, he knocked on Brad's door. There was no answer. He knocked again, and there was still no answer.He opened the door to find Brad face first and, having hemorrhaged, in a pool of blood.“I couldn't even cry for I don't know how many days after,” Kelly Zulick said. “It's just shock like, your mind, you just can't comprehend it.”Haley had not used in eight days before overdosing. She spent Christmas Eve with her family. It was like old times.“She didn't feel good at all, but we were all together and it was awesome,” Leight said. “It was the best day ever.”Haley was working on finding a rehab facility to enter when she got into a fight with her boyfriend, whom Leight said was verbally abusive.Haley told her mother, who told her to stay away from him.She stayed with a friend whom Leight said also used, and she died from an overdose of heroin that was cut with carfentanil, a powerful synthetic opiate used to tranquilize elephants.“I don't think she went and said, 'Sell me elephant tranquilizer,'” Leight said. “I very highly doubt that.”Haley's family was traumatized. Leight turned to alcohol to cope.“I didn't know what to do,” she said. “What do you do? It was like, so surreal.”<h3>The aftermath</h3>More than a year later, Scott still thinks of Sarah all the time. She still drives around with Sarah's cremated ashes in her car. She still wonders what could have been.“She was a really, really good singer,” Scott said. “Good enough to be on America's Got Talent.”Scott owns a three-quarter way house for people in recovery which she purchased a few years before Sarah died, with Sarah's encouragement.She also runs a beauty shop, babysits her grandchildren and attends Hope for Broken Hearts, a support group for those who have loved ones struggling with addiction.“I really am busy, which is the best thing for me,” Scott said.Brad's family also stays active almost a year and a half after his death.Zulick-Check relies on her faith in God to get her through hard times. She takes comfort knowing that Brad also had faith.“I believe he's in a better place,” she said.She volunteers at The Bridge, a service for people in recovery at First United Methodist Church, and Seeds of Hope, another support group for people who have loved ones in addiction.She also attends Hope for Broken Hearts meetings.Brad's family holds the Brad Zulick Memorial Golf Outing, which raises money for scholarships to Butler County Community College.“I'm going to always keep his name going, because a lot of these people you see die, you don't hear anything from their parents,” Kip Zulick said.Kelly Zulick said doing things in Brad's memory is “healing.” She, along with her parents, still have hard times.“Now it's a little bit easier, but if something sets me off I usually cry at least once a week,” Kip Zulick said. “He's always on my mind.”The Leight family has been open about Haley's struggles in an effort to raise awareness about opiate addiction. But the healing process has been difficult.“We miss her, “Leight said. “And we know that she could have been so much more. (She was) just an amazing girl.”Leight struggled to cope after her daughter's death, so her boyfriend broke up with her.She now cares for her friend, J.J., in Renfrew who suffered from a stroke, and attends opiate awareness events.Haley's grandmother, Gloria Shaffer, is active in the city's neighborhood watch, which is aimed at reporting suspicious, drug-related activity.Leight has a granddaughter on the way by her oldest daughter. She says the baby was conceived the day Haley died, and will be named Amelia Dawn, sharing Haley's middle name.“If it wasn't for this baby, I'd just go to a different state,” Leight said. “I'd just go. But right now, J.J. needs me and my kids need me, and that's not an option.”Leight said Haley was a Christian, and is confident she will see her daughter again.“I'm not in a big hurry,” she said. “But I can't wait.”
