Pubdate: Tue, 13 Sep 2005
Source: North Shore News (CN BC)
Copyright: 2005 North Shore News
Contact:  http://www.nsnews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/311
Author: Niki Hope
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/heroin.htm (Heroin)

LOSING TO THE NEEDLE

The First Of A Two-Part Look At People Who Have Struggled With Addiction On 
The North Shore

Before 20-year-old Hans William Haga relaxed on the couch to watch a movie 
with his girlfriend at his parents' Blueridge home, he went to the bathroom.

He came out with his pupils pinned and his manner heavy and slowed. His 
brother, James, could tell he had just shot up. James, like the rest of the 
family, was aware of Hans William's addiction to heroin. It had been an 
on-again, off-again three-year battle with the drug.

Tonight the fight was off.

James had already been upstairs to tell his mom, Susan Haga, that they were 
back from the video store. She went to sleep on that February night in 2004 
thinking that everything was OK, given that Hans William had only just 
returned from a six-week work trip in Texas, Trinidad and Venezuela with 
his father and was suntanned and healthy.

But an hour later James woke her up, explaining that Hans William was high.

"Oh no, not again," she thought. But James said his brother was all right, 
reassuring his mom that he had told Hans William's girlfriend, who didn't 
use heroin, to wake him up if his brother seemed strange.

"In retrospect, how I wish I went downstairs to check on him," she says. 
Her voice rises and falls.

At about 3:30 a.m., James, frantic and hyperventilating, woke her up again.

"You'd better come downstairs now," he told her.

Susan put on a robe, ran downstairs and saw Hans William lying on the floor 
where James had moved him. He looked asleep, but he had no pulse.

James, who had already tried to revive his brother before he went upstairs, 
struggled to perform CPR - though he and his mom were trained in it, James 
was so emotionally charged that he blanked out and the 9-1-1 operator had 
to talk him through the process.

Eventually Susan got hold of herself and took over. She pumped on her son's 
chest, trying desperately to revive him, but she knew it was too late.

It was the final attempt to save her son from the fierce grip of drug 
addiction. This time she lost for good.

It was a battle that, like most parents, Susan and her husband Hans never 
thought they would face when their eight-pound-12-ounce, fair-haired, 
healthy boy was born on Dec. 15, 1983 at Lions Gate Hospital.

"I couldn't believe I had a blond and blue-eyed baby," says Susan. Her 
large hazel eyes beam and she smiles - even chuckles slightly - for the 
first time since she sat down for the interview at the coffee shop on Lonsdale.

Her son's childhood was, by all accounts, idyllic. Hans' work as a marine 
engineer took the family all over the world. The boys broke baguettes in 
France and ordered food from menus they couldn't read in Korea. They 
visited Hans' family in Norway and Susan's in England.

Photos, lining the walls of the Haga's six-bedroom, three-level home, 
depict Hans William through the years: a grinning five-year-old with fine, 
vanilla-coloured hair stands beside his tall Norwegian grandfather; a 
smiling Hans William riding a pony; rock climbing and making sandcastles at 
Ambleside Beach. The final photograph, taken in Trinidad days before he 
died, shows a handsome, fit and cheerful Hans William.

In another four-by-six photo, a youthful brown-haired Susan, dressed 
elegantly in a red blouse and white pearls, beams proudly at her newborn 
baby boy on his christening day.

Hans William started smoking pot in Grade 7. Susan, a preschool teacher, 
and Hans didn't find out about their son's new pastime until a year later.

They came home one day to find Hans William and his friend in the living 
room, which was laden with the unmistakably pungent stench of marijuana.

Though they were disappointed, Susan and Hans didn't worry too much because 
Hans William was doing well in his French immersion school. But in Grade 9, 
his scholastic career took a swift nosedive and the smart, funny boy they 
once knew began to change as he started using harder drugs like cocaine.

Hans William was kicked out of a number of schools in North Vancouver. The 
final one was Keith Lynn Alternative secondary where they asked him to 
leave for bringing in drugs. Susan and Hans tried military school in an 
effort to straighten Hans William out. He stayed less than a semester. 
Eventually he stopped attending school altogether.

By now Hans William was 16, which meant Susan and Hans had little legal 
control over him.

Along with his education, Hans William's drug use was impacting their home 
life. One night when Susan was away for the weekend (a family counsellor 
suggested Susan should go despite the chaos at home), their house was 
turned into a scene from a bad teen movie. A party that started with a 
handful of kids using drugs and drinking turned into a full-force 
house-wrecker. Hans William and his guests, who were high on cocaine, stole 
big-screen TVs, stereo systems and snowboards. They also took jewelry, 
including the pearls that Susan wore at Hans William's christening. They 
punched holes in the walls, threw furniture in the pool and took the family 
car out for a joyride.

The police were called and Hans and Susan made sure their son was charged 
for his part in the debacle. They hoped criminal prosecution would force 
him to face consequences.

"It became evident that the whole problem stemmed from drugs," Susan explains.

In response, his parents told him he had to go to rehab. His age made it 
difficult to find a centre to take him. There aren't many detox beds for 
teens, which meant Susan and Hans watched their son go through withdrawal 
on several occasions. He would kick the drug in their house, which was 
scary "because I felt we knew nothing and I felt all we could do was 
provide him with the bed." Later, when he was older and he could get into 
detox beds in Vancouver, it was still a challenge.

"It's almost like you have to make a reservation for detox," says Susan.

Eventually they found a place in New Westminster that would take him and he 
started attending 12-step meetings.

Finding help usually meant leaving the North Shore.

There was a long-term facility for teens in Alberta that Susan wanted Hans 
William to attend. As his parent, Susan would have had to live there while 
he stayed at the treatment centre. She was willing to do that - she was 
willing to do anything - but Hans William refused to go.

It wasn't long after his first stint in rehab that Hans William tried heroin.

This new narcotic escalated the erratic behaviour, and eventually Susan and 
Hans told Hans William that he wasn't welcome in the home if he continued 
using drugs. He started staying in a home in Vancouver for troubled teens. 
He also tried twice, with the financial help of his parents, to live in a 
one-bedroom apartment. He was evicted from both after only a month.

In his late teens, his parents realized that Hans William was good with his 
hands. You could tell him once how to do something and he would grasp it 
immediately. Sometimes he didn't even need to be told.

Hans had started taking his son with him on his work trips to get him away 
from the drugs.

"I'd take him with needles hanging out of his arms," says Hans, a lifelong 
seaman (with the tattoos to prove it) who joined the Royal Norwegian Navy 
at 15.

But when he was away he was clean and he worked hard. His father was proud 
of his son's abilities on the barges.

Taking him away seemed to be the only solution near the end.

"There wasn't enough help around here," says Hans, a stout man with a beard 
as white as salt, green eyes and a thin gold hoop earring in his left ear. 
"We'd been everywhere."

Their last trip together was the best they'd ever had, Hans says from the 
back porch of the family home where two neighbourhood kids play in the 
Haga's backyard pool on a gorgeous June afternoon.

During that troubled time, Susan and Hans also had to think of their 
younger son's well-being. James, who looks like Susan with his dark hair 
and big, easy smile, was carrying on like a typical teen. Susan and Hans 
wanted to make sure he didn't get lost in the shuffle to save Hans William.

James knew the brother he'd looked up to was a drug addict.

Once he drove with his mother to pick up Hans William after a crystal-meth 
binge. James went along to help bring back a car that Hans William had lost 
when he was high. They found Hans William pacing frantically in a parking 
lot. He had picked open sores on his face. His hair was dishevelled, he was 
wearing someone else's clothing and was mumbling incoherently.

They took him to the hospital where he stayed overnight. When Susan picked 
him up the next day a nurse took her aside and said, "He's a nice kid but 
he doesn't seem to want help."

Eventually Susan and Hans ran out of options and brought their son home for 
his own safety.

Sounding exhausted and defeated even now as she tells it, Susan says, 
exhaling slowly, "And so we said, 'We don't have many rules anymore. The 
only rule we have is don't bring drugs into the house.'"

One afternoon when Susan and Hans were out shopping her husband suggested 
they go out for dinner. But Susan had something at home that she needed to 
cook or it would be wasted. When they walked in the front door, Hans told 
her he had a bad feeling and went upstairs to check on Hans William. He 
found him passed out, clammy and pale. They called 9-1-1 and the paramedics 
came and managed to revive their son.

When he came round, he was sitting on the bed with an oxygen mask on his 
face. He looked up at Susan and said, "I don't want to die, mommy," Susan 
says, as tears fall down her cheeks and drip onto her soft-blue cotton 
sweater. She wipes her eyes with a napkin.

Her lips quiver and her voice shakes, but she musters up the words to carry 
on. "I said, 'I know you don't, but you will if you carry on doing this.'"

A month later Susan had some friends from her walking club over for a 
Christmas party. The house, smelling of cinnamon and gingerbread, was 
festively decorated with a tree and white lights. Again, that night, Hans 
found his son unconscious in his bedroom.

The Christmas get-together was interrupted by the onslaught of emergency 
vehicles and paramedics, who were able to save Hans William again.

Susan, a remarkably open woman who never hid her family struggles from her 
friends was, nonetheless, horrified.

The last time Hans William overdosed, on that early morning in February 
2004, his heart was restarted.

He was taken to the hospital where they put him on life support. They would 
keep him there for 72 hours to see if he came out of the coma.

Hans was still away finishing up with work. Hans William had come home a 
few days before his dad to see his girlfriend for Valentine's Day; less 
than 24 hours later he'd shot up.

Those last hours in the hospital were surreal because he looked in good 
physical shape, Susan says. He was tanned, his light hair made blonder by 
the hot tropical sun.

It was hard to see him look so good and peaceful while barely clinging to 
life. Even though his addiction overshadowed some of the joy Hans William 
brought to her life, he was still her angel - that little fair-haired boy 
she held so proudly at his christening. And she couldn't help but smile 
when he'd call her his "English mum," a phrase left on her cellphone from 
the time he programmed it.

The day after he was taken to the hospital, Susan, sitting at his bedside, 
watched his nose bleed.

"That means his organs are shutting down," the nurse told her.

Time has not yet healed 53-year-old Susan's grief. Usually it's as 
overwhelming as the day her son died.

"Even though we've had no choice but to accept the reality and carry on as 
normally as possible, it still doesn't seem real," she says, weeping. "I 
still see him everywhere."

- ----------------------------------------------

Next Sunday: One mother's search for detox facilities and a look at what is 
planned for the North Shore.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Elizabeth Wehrman