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Once a month, Rose Jelinek visits Gateway Rehabilitation Center's Cranberry office and relives the worst day of her life: The day her oldest child, Ryan Schatzel, 21, died of a heroin overdose.
She revisits his death on Sept. 11, 2004, in speaking as a trained volunteer to a group of adolescents and families in Gateway's youth outpatient drug program.
"I try to encourage them," said Mrs. Jelinek, a hairdresser from Ambridge. "I pass Ryan's picture around and explain what they're doing to their parents and themselves. ...
"I let them realize it's a disease, that they need meetings, a sponsor."
Her audience generally finds her message gripping but it comes at a price for her. "Some times are worse than others," she said. "It's actually rewarding when the kids respond to me. I think maybe I hit a nerve, that they're going to do something to change their life.
"They always hug or shake my hand. The parents are extremely grateful to hear Ryan's story. I tell them they shouldn't feel guilty. They're not bad kids, just sick kids."
That, she said, was the case with Ryan, who suffered from both obsessive compulsive disorder and attention deficit disorder, which weren't diagnosed until he already had a drug problem. Those, she believes, contributed to his addictions. In addition, Mrs. Jelinek said, there were among his friends two kids who "just weren't nice kids. He seemed to get into trouble with those kids, and we didn't want him hanging around with those kids."
Mrs. Jelinek isn't quite sure when Ryan got started down the path of addiction by drinking and smoking marijuana.
"I would say around 15. It could have been earlier. When I knew about it, he was 15," she said.
PG video: Sharing Ryan's story
• Gateway Rehabilitation Center uses volunteers to assist clinical managers and therapists and/or to help with administrative work. For information, call 412-766-8700, ext. 1234.
• To contribute to a fund in Ryan's memory for young drug users who can't afford therapy, write a check to Gateway Rehabilitation Center with the memo: "In memory of Ryan." Mail to: Gateway Rehabilitation Development Office, 6600 Steubenville Pike, 3 Robinson Plaza, Suite 430, Pittsburgh, PA 15205.
His grades were declining; he was tired and irritable. "He used a lot of Visine," Mrs. Jelinek said. "He wore contacts and I thought that was why, but he was getting his eyes red [from smoking marijuana].
"I was very naive about this whole thing."
But she soon learned the hard facts of drug use as the family tried to help Ryan beat it.
"He started going to Gateway as an inpatient in his middle-teen years. ... We went to different counselors, different psychiatrists," she said. "We had him on medication. He was an outpatient at Gateway several times, an inpatient at White Deer Run [in the Harrisburg area]."
The treatments sometimes worked and, while sober, he'd tell his mother that he was going to stay that way and return someday to Gateway to counsel younger patients.
Mrs. Jelinek believes Ryan, who had earned his state-issued high school diploma at Gateway, was in one of those clean periods until just before he OD'd.
"He was doing very, very well before he died," his mother said. "He was lifting weights; he had a job at Target. He was not a functioning addict; he couldn't work [when he was using]."
Mrs. Jelinek will never know what led to that final, fatal dose of heroin. All she can do is try to prevent some other youth from following in his footsteps.
"I hope what I'm doing will help other families," she said. "When Ryan first died I had a hard time. I'd go to church, but cry a lot. I made myself go.
"The priest talked about addiction and families. I thought 'I'm supposed to be here.' " She also told herself that "if I don't do something, I'm not going to be able to go on."
Mrs. Jelinek figured out what she should do after a teacher at a private school asked her to tell her story to a class.
"That's how it started," she said.
Two years later, it's still going strong.
"Through the story of her son Ryan's battle with addiction, Rose illustrates for families the often painful effects of addiction on a family and an addict," said Rosemary Rush, outpatient therapist at Gateway's Cranberry office.
But Mrs. Rush said Mrs. Jelinek also provides hope and courage for parents who are unsure where to look for help.
The young user also benefits, Mrs. Rush said.
"Adolescents tend to operate from the perspective that 'It's not going to happen to me,' " she said. "Rose addresses this unrealistic belief through her story and she helps to break through the patterns of self-deception."
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