My Room 217 column began several years ago and was conceived for and has been dedicated to giving the public a look at some of what public education is all about. I once wrote about a hard lesson I learned — in front of a classroom full of students — about our vocabulary word “tithe.” It was a lesson I have never forgotten.



I have written about things that made my students proud, happy, and ashamed. I have shared their thoughts and ideas on peace with justice, on Elie Wiesel and Night, on matters of philosophy, freedom, and religion, on war, poetry, and political parties. I wrote on the Sept. 11 tragedy, on Christmas vacations, parent conferences, and letters of reference. I’ve written about and shared the work of excellent students, struggling students, and, sadly, deceased students.



Today I want to share with you something about some former students — because, see, once they’re your students it’s kind of like they are never again not your students. Let me just warn you that this will not be a really happy story but it will be a real story. Two of this group of graduates I reconnected with in their homes, another through a letter I wrote, and one through a sad article, which I first saw on fosters.com.

I will not tell you their names nor provide any kind of information that might reveal their identity, partly to avoid liability, partly to protect their privacy, but largely because they are still my kids and I love them, despite their current struggles.



I will tell you that they all share some common strands in their stories: most of them were good students, some of them were outstanding athletes, some of them went on to college, all of them are heroin addicts. I say that with no malice. I say it with no condemnation. I say it only with a deep sense of sadness.



One of these students I had in my classroom as a freshman. At the end of that year I found a note on my desk the last day of school in June: “Dear Mr. MacKenzie, just wanted to say I love you and will miss you over the summer.”



When I talked with this person recently, not that many years hence and three days “clean” following an overdose, he said, “I don’t know . . . I just want it . . . I want it all the time . . . I know I am lucky . . . I know I have a great family . . . I mean look at what I’ve put them through but they still take me back . . . I know they love me . . . I know you do . . . but . . . I don’t know . . . I can’t explain it . . . I just want it all the time . . . I want it right now.”

The “it” of course was heroin.



A few days ago I was chatting with another of the group, about 24 hours prior to a court appearance for possession. She was high when I arrived at her house. She needed it. She wasn’t proud she had sniffed only minutes before but she needed it. That’s how it is for her. The addiction is so strong that she needs the high just to feel “normal.”



Subutex and pot started early in high school, heroin sometime late in senior year, not too long before graduation. How did it happen I asked? You’re not a dumb person, how did you let yourself get started with such a dangerous drug? The answer was quite simple: “We were just hanging out and my friends, people I know, said it was OK, we’d just sniff a little.”



Not knowing much about heroin I asked if recreational use was even possible, like how many times could one do the stuff without becoming an addict? She said that if you do it once a day for as little as a week to a week-and-a-half you can’t stop. That’s it, you can’t stop. And I’m looking at this young person, someone who used to come into my classroom every day, and I know that the next day she may be sentenced to jail.

I have no idea how I held it together. They both really want to be clean but they don’t want to go to treatment, they want to be able to do it themselves. Sadly I’m not sure I see that happening. I’m not sure they do either.



The former student I saw on foster’s.com is in a hard place. There was a series of crimes committed to support the habit and there is definitely some jail time coming. I’d like to think it might help — I fear it won’t.



The one to whom I wrote a letter during time spent at a rehab center, I understand has been clean for a while. I hope and pray that is the case.



We have a problem folks, and no, it’s not just in Somersworth but it is in Somersworth, and not talking about it, or pretending it doesn’t exist isn’t going to make our city any better, our schools any safer nor the problem go away.



I love Somersworth. It has been incredibly good to me, but I love my students more and talking about a problem is a first baby step in solving it.



One of them said we need to do more to keep it out of the city. I don’t know what it would be but I agree. These kids may be drug addicts but that’s not all they are. They are former scholars and former athletes. They are sons and daughters and nieces and nephews of people who love them. They are the neighbors who maybe once helped you or shared cookouts with you. When I look at them I don’t see addicts. I see former students who wowed me on soccer or football fields and on basketball courts, who carried Fruit Loops into my classroom or left notes on my desk that made me weep.

Steve MacKenzie teaches English at Somersworth High School. He can be reached at room217@ttlc.net.