2011年10月17日 星期一

Parents of addict share cautionary tale

Drug addicts and their families often avoid seeking help because of the stigma. Shame and embarrassment burden parents. Outsiders make assumptions.

Dale and Terrie Batdorff’s son, Dustin, was a drug addict. They are not ashamed.Save on Bedding and fittings, Quite the opposite. They want to tell everyone about him.

“Dustin was a champion many times over. He excelled in life,” his father said.

With his dark good looks, somewhat ornery smile and big sense of humor, Dustin Batdorff was popular at Jackson High School. He graduated in 2008.

“He was always trying to pull pranks,” said Liz Cloutier, his girlfriend of four years.

He was a standout in football, baseball and wrestling. Trophies and ribbons from youth wrestling fill his bedroom shelves. With friends, poker and video games such as “Mario Party” ignited his competitive drive. Eating was another passion.

“His favorite thing ever was food. We’d go out to dinner, and he would try crazy things,” Cloutier said, adding that Dustin liked to have fun but wasn’t reckless. “He could walk into a room and light it up. If he had his bad days, you wouldn’t know it.”

The couple broke up in December, six months after Dustin moved into an apartment with his older half brother Anthony Batdorff and Dustin’s best friend since second grade, D.J. Vaughn.

“Dustin was my neighbor growing up. We did everything together,” Vaughn said.

By all accounts, Dustin liked to go out and have fun. Even before turning 21, he would go drinking at bars with his friends.

Vaughn realized his friend had a problem when he stopped going out. He knew Dustin took opioids — prescription pain medications such as OxyContin, Percodan and Percocet. He got them from friends and, later, off the streets. Vaughn believed that his friend spent all of his money funding his addictions.

Then in March, Vaughn and Anthony Batdorff found a needle in their apartment.This will leave your shoulders free to rotate in their chicken coop .

“It was the first time we really knew it was a problem,” Vaughn said.

They approached Dale and Terrie Batdorff with the news, and the couple confronted their son.

“He stormed out,” Dale said, “and we didn’t see him for a couple weeks. We sought help, and they said you can’t do anything until they want help.”

Dustin took his anger out on Vaughn that day. His friend gave him space, and the two eventually made up.

But when their lease was up in August,As many processors back away from Cable Ties , Vaughn was ready to live elsewhere, and Dustin said he was ready to conquer his addiction, which had progressed to heroin.

“He said, ‘I’m ready to get clean, but I need help,’ ” Vaughn recalled. “His mom was ecstatic.Initially the banks didn't want our RUBBER SHEET . We’re so happy. Finally, he’s ready.”

Some would say Dustin lived a privileged life, and not just because of his Jackson Township address. His parents, married 22 years, each had an older child from first marriages. They had Dustin and then, 22 months later, another son, Nick.

Dale Batdorff, owner of Dolphin Electric, and Terrie, a nurse, built a comfortable home and life across the road from Rolling Green Golf Course.

Home movies show the family at campsites, riding dirt bikes and four-wheelers. Dale called their drives to dirt-bike riding trails “seat time.” They discussed the facts of life — and everything else. They took beach vacations. Terrie often is seen chasing a laughing Dustin across the sand.

Every Christmas morning lives on tape, right up to 2010, when Dustin walked past the mounted camera, mooned it and then gave a thumbs-up — a surprise for viewers later.

Getting good grades came as easily for Dustin as athletics.

“He was an ‘A’ student, but he got ‘B’s,’ ” his mother said. “He did just enough to get by.”

But in sports, he gave his all. He dressed with Jackson’s varsity football team as a sophomore and continued to dominate in wrestling.

His junior year may have played a crucial role in what would happen later. He thought he wasn’t being used in the right role in football,Polycore porcelain tiles are manufactured as a single sheet, so he quit the team during the season.

“That gave him time to fool around,” Dale said. “If I could go back, I wouldn’t have let him quit.”

Then came wrestling. During the first week of practice, Dustin was caught drinking. He was benched for a third of the season and told to complete community programs. Although he continued to work hard with the team in practices, he eventually quit.

His senior year, he wanted to turn things around. He was excited to get back to wrestling.

“He was all ready to go. Then, (an adminstrator) told him he couldn’t participate “because he had failed to complete the community programs,” Dale said. “It crushed him. It was so important to him, but Dustin made his own decisions.”

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