Surviving Family Drug Addiction, One NJ Teen Tells His Story

BRICK, NJ – Cameron Cohen was 12 years old the first time he had to administer CPR.

He had been watching a movie with his older brother, Dylan, when Dylan got up and went to the bathroom. Cameron heard the water running … and running … and running. And he heard Dylan making noises that sounded like he was crying.

“I wasn’t going to go in there, because who wants to see your 20-year-old brother cry?” Cameron said, drawing chuckles from the audience at Brick Township High School. “But 5 more minutes went by, and the water was still running.”

So 12-year-old Cameron got up and went into the bathroom. There he found his brother collapsed.

“He was foaming at the mouth,” Cameron said. “I started doing CPR.”

* * * * *

Cameron Cohen is 18 years old. The Brick Township High School senior pauses for a moment. "Sorry," he says to the crowd, "I'm a little bit nervous. I didn't expect to be talking to so many people."

He shifts his feet, and resumes speaking. There are roughly 600 people in the auditorium at the high school, many of whom are his schoolmates. It is one of the largest crowds to turn out for one of these forums presented by the Ocean County Prosecutor's Office — forums that aim to drive home to both students and adults the dangers of substance abuse and the importance of getting help.

The forums put a heavy emphasis on opioids because of the raging heroin and fentanyl crisis, but it's not all about heroin; alcohol is a concern as well.

"(Substance abuse) steals from us each and every day," said Dennis Filippone, acting superintendent of the Brick schools, who was the emcee for the night. Filippone, who has been an educator in the school district for 40 years, has seen the impact of alcohol use, particularly by underage youths. He's seen it in a larger pattern of substance abuse, and he's also seen it in drunk driving accidents that have killed students, both during their high school years and after. He sees the impact on behavior; the district has wrestled with issues caused when students consumed alcohol before and during football games.

"Have the courage it takes to be that kid who is different," Filippone said, urging the teens to be willing to say no thanks when they're offered a drink at a party. But he also urged parents to take a hard look at their attitudes toward both alcohol and marijuana, and to resist going along with the idea that hosting parties and providing alcohol to teens is acceptable.

"Parents and coaches have to say it's not OK to go out and drink on Saturday after the game," Filippone said. "And we have to stop saying, 'Oh, thank God it's only marijuana,' when a kid fails a drug test. I've heard that way too many times. We have to stop thinking that's OK."

Ocean County Prosecutor Joseph Coronato and Brick Township Police Chief James Riccio spoke about the opioid crisis, saying there has been some progress made in reducing the number of deaths and in getting people into treatment. In 2017, there were 163 overdose deaths in Ocean County, Coronato said, down from 211 in 2016, and the Blue HART program, where drug users can turn themselves in to a police department and get help getting into treatment, had 290 people enter treatment in 2017.

"In Brick we had 112 people go into treatment," said Riccio, who noted the Blue HART program on Thursday marked its one-year anniversary in Brick and Manchester, the towns that piloted the program.

"We have tried to get every community group on board," Mayor John Ducey said of the ongoing battle to curb the opioid crisis, and noted efforts that have been made through the Brick Municipal Anti-Drug Coalition to reach a variety of groups, from businesses to senior citizens, in addition to the teens and parents.

"We need to get that number (the number of overdose deaths) to zero," Coronato said.

That's what Cameron Cohen and Trish Holder hope to help accomplish by sharing their stories with the audience.

Holder, a Realtor from Tuckerton, told of how her son, Christopher, became addicted first to OxyContin that was prescribed to him. From there, he developed a full-blown heroin addiction. He worked to get clean, even moving out of state to get away from the influences and friends who made it easier to backslide, to get hooked again. In September 2006, just days after returning home and the night before he was to start a new job, Christopher took what he thought was heroin.

Trish Holder was awakened at 6:30 a.m. by the sound of Christopher's alarm going off ... and not shutting off.

She found him in his bed, blood coming from his mouth. She tried to do CPR, but it was too late. They had to force her to leave the bedroom, which turned into a crime scene as they investigated Christopher's death. She remembers them taking him out in a body bag.

The medical examiner found Christopher had taken fentanyl, which is multiple times more potent than heroin.

"If he had taken heroin, in the small amount that it was, he might still be alive," Holder said.

* * * * *

Cameron Cohen shifts his feet again, and looks out at the crowd. "Most of you know of me from what you see me share on social media," he says, talking about his kitten, his selfies with his mom, and his jokes. "But you only know what I've let you see."

He proceeds to tell the audience the darker side of his life: At the age of 5, he witnessed his first overdose. He found his father in the bathroom, appearing to be asleep on the toilet. Cameron describes the noises he could hear, a gurgling, moaning sound, the result the overdose caused when his father drank alcohol and took Percocets with it. He talks about Dylan's overdose and giving his brother CPR. He talks about how plans last year to treat his mom to a special Mother's Day were ruined when a male friend overdosed in their home.

"He was purple," Cameron says of the man. Narcan reversed the overdose, but by then "he was so far gone that he was a zombie when he came to."

The auditorium is so quiet that the rustle of sheets of paper turning over and the scratching of a pencil from furious note-taking seem to echo.

Cameron takes a deep breath and continues. He tells of the day he was supposed to play in his first football game since his family had moved to the area, which he was very excited to do. "But first my mom needed to go pick up her friend in Newark." The "friend" was actually a drug dealer. As they made their way back south to go to Cameron's game, an argument started in the car, because the dealer couldn't find his bags of heroin. He tells of how they pulled the car over 10 minutes from where the football game was to be played and the drug dealer strip-searched Dylan, because he believed Dylan had taken the drug. "I will spare you the details," he says, but leaves the audience with a mental picture of his brother naked, bent over, as the dealer searched for his missing heroin. Cameron missed the game.

"I have seen things you can't imagine," he says.

Cameron then tells what's clearly the most difficult part of his story: His uncle, a big, burly, tough-as-nails biker-type of man breaking the news to Cameron that Dylan had died of an overdose. "We got outside (the high school) and he took off his sunglasses and his eyes were bloodshot. I had never seen him cry." Dylan Lomboy had just turned 23 a few days before, Cameron said of his brother.

His mother has battled addiction as well, Cameron said. A fall on ice in Atlantic City left her with a broken arm and several herniated discs. "We laughed when she fell," he said. "If we had any idea what would happen we wouldn't have laughed." His mother has spent time in jail, but more recently has gotten sober and has 3-1/2 years clean, he said.

"How many years have I walked beside you and you had no idea," Cameron said to his classmates in the audience. "I'm here today because I don't want any of you to deal with what I have, losing a loved one."

Frankie Edgar, the mixed martial arts fighter who has a title bout coming up on March 3, showed off some of his moves with the help of Brick Memorial Assistant Principal Dan O'Cone. The Toms River High School East graduate told the audience, many of them members of Brick's sports teams, that it's critical to choose your own path.

"I went to those parties in high school," Edgar said, adding that he refused to drink or do any of the things his classmates were doing.

"Too many of them are gone now," he said. One of his best friends overdosed when he was in high school. "It changes you."

"You have to think about the future," Edgar said.

It's a sentiment Filippone echoed. After having the athletes stand up, Filippone said, "I want to see you all standing here 10 years from now."

Cameron Cohen is thinking about the future. As classmates and parents from the audience come up to shake his hand and thank him for his courage in telling his story — the audience gave him a standing ovation — he thanks them for listening.

"Thank you for speaking," Coronato says as he shakes Cameron's hand. "As you pointed out, your peers are far more likely to listen to you than to some old fart prosecutor."

The levity of Coronato's comment prompts a laugh and a smile from Cameron. There's a guarded quality behind the blue eyes of the young man, eyes that have seen far too much for someone so young. He says he wants to go into law enforcement, to try to help battle the opioid scourge that has killed so many. His brother's death weighs heavily on him. It will be three years since that day at the end of January, he said after the program. "He would be 26 if he was still alive," he says.

"I felt like it was so important to tell my story," Cameron says, "so no one else has to go through what I went through. It has to end."

Photos by Karen Wall, Patch staff, and the Ocean County Prosecutor's Office