Zach Crotty, of Colden, passed away from an accidental overdose in 2009. His parents have vowed to share his story and help end addiction.
Tuesday August 5, 2014 | By:Colleen
Mahoney | Social /
COLDEN—Suzanne Crotty, like any
other mother, speaks to her son Zach often. Zach, however, doesn’t respond, not
in the traditional sense. Suzanne and her husband Mark lost their son Zach to
an accidental overdose in 2009 when he was 19 years-old. In those four years,
it’s been a roller coaster ride, the Crottys said, but Suzanne often receives
signs from Zach.
Last week, Crotty had six encounters she believes were at the hand of her son, including one that involved James Taylor and another concert-goer. The Crottys were in line to meet Taylor at his concert when a women standing next to them asked him to play “Suzanne,” referring to Taylor’s song “Fire and Rain.” She told Taylor that her son had just relapsed, Suzanne Crotty got the chills.
“That was Zach,” she said as she retold her encounter. “That lady could have been ahead of me, behind me, she could have called [the song] “Fire and Rain,” but she was right next to me. That was Zach.”
After Zach passed, the Colden couple went through his room, and learned a lot more about their son. He had journals filled with writing about his addiction to prescription opioids and how the life he was living wasn’t the life he wanted for himself.
“Zach loved helping people,” Mark Crotty said. “He was a good kid.”
It is with that legacy of Zach, in addition to the current addiction epidemic, that the Crottys began their journey to help other parents and individuals who are affected by addiction.
The Crottys, with help from The Buffalo News reporter Sue Schulman, have decided to publish Zach’s writings, first on a blog and eventually in book form.
With a push from Dr. Richard Blondell, who had treated Zach, the Crottys began telling their story in hopes it would spark a conversation about addiction.
“[Dr. Blondell] said we need to be able to get this information out there and it’s going to take someone like [the Crottys] to put people together and tell our story,” Suzanne Crotty said. After that conversation, the Crottys began speaking with senators and other politicians to get something done.
“Addiction used to be something you kept in the family,” Mark Crotty said. “Even with Zach, we didn’t say too much.” The Crottys realized, however, that addiction was becoming more and more of an issue, including in the Western New York region.
“Zach used to go to Springville to get drugs,” Suzanne Crotty said. “It’s happening here. To our kids.”
The Corttys, with help from local politicians, were able to get the I-STOP Act passed in New York. I-STOP, which will be effective March 2015, requires all medications prescribed to a patient to be electronically filed and transmitted so anyone practicing medicine is aware of a patient’s regiment.
The Crottys explained that their hope is that the I-STOP Act will cut down on addicts going to different doctors, lying about their prescriptions and getting more drugs. They have also been involved in prescription drug drop days, and have participated in speaking at local high schools.
The Crottys stopped speaking at high school when it got too hard to relive their story, but know their fight isn’t over.
“Speaking on social media, the blog and the book, it gives us the chance to do it at our own pace,” Suzanne Crotty said. “If one day I don’t want to write, I don’t.”
While posting about Zach, and reliving the pain, isn’t easy for the Crottys, they know the importance of what they’re doing.
“It won’t bring Zach back, but I’ll keep telling Zach’s story, so other people can share it,” Suzanne Crotty said. “Even if we help just one person, we’ve made a difference.”
The blog, “Zach’s Story,” posts one chapter a month but houses other information for battling addiction. The first chapter was posted in July and the second is set to appear later this month. For more information on the Crottys’ work, or to read Zach’s Story, visit Zacharycrottystory.blogspot.com or https://www.facebook.com/zachs.story.9
Last week, Crotty had six encounters she believes were at the hand of her son, including one that involved James Taylor and another concert-goer. The Crottys were in line to meet Taylor at his concert when a women standing next to them asked him to play “Suzanne,” referring to Taylor’s song “Fire and Rain.” She told Taylor that her son had just relapsed, Suzanne Crotty got the chills.
“That was Zach,” she said as she retold her encounter. “That lady could have been ahead of me, behind me, she could have called [the song] “Fire and Rain,” but she was right next to me. That was Zach.”
After Zach passed, the Colden couple went through his room, and learned a lot more about their son. He had journals filled with writing about his addiction to prescription opioids and how the life he was living wasn’t the life he wanted for himself.
“Zach loved helping people,” Mark Crotty said. “He was a good kid.”
It is with that legacy of Zach, in addition to the current addiction epidemic, that the Crottys began their journey to help other parents and individuals who are affected by addiction.
The Crottys, with help from The Buffalo News reporter Sue Schulman, have decided to publish Zach’s writings, first on a blog and eventually in book form.
With a push from Dr. Richard Blondell, who had treated Zach, the Crottys began telling their story in hopes it would spark a conversation about addiction.
“[Dr. Blondell] said we need to be able to get this information out there and it’s going to take someone like [the Crottys] to put people together and tell our story,” Suzanne Crotty said. After that conversation, the Crottys began speaking with senators and other politicians to get something done.
“Addiction used to be something you kept in the family,” Mark Crotty said. “Even with Zach, we didn’t say too much.” The Crottys realized, however, that addiction was becoming more and more of an issue, including in the Western New York region.
“Zach used to go to Springville to get drugs,” Suzanne Crotty said. “It’s happening here. To our kids.”
The Corttys, with help from local politicians, were able to get the I-STOP Act passed in New York. I-STOP, which will be effective March 2015, requires all medications prescribed to a patient to be electronically filed and transmitted so anyone practicing medicine is aware of a patient’s regiment.
The Crottys explained that their hope is that the I-STOP Act will cut down on addicts going to different doctors, lying about their prescriptions and getting more drugs. They have also been involved in prescription drug drop days, and have participated in speaking at local high schools.
The Crottys stopped speaking at high school when it got too hard to relive their story, but know their fight isn’t over.
“Speaking on social media, the blog and the book, it gives us the chance to do it at our own pace,” Suzanne Crotty said. “If one day I don’t want to write, I don’t.”
While posting about Zach, and reliving the pain, isn’t easy for the Crottys, they know the importance of what they’re doing.
“It won’t bring Zach back, but I’ll keep telling Zach’s story, so other people can share it,” Suzanne Crotty said. “Even if we help just one person, we’ve made a difference.”
The blog, “Zach’s Story,” posts one chapter a month but houses other information for battling addiction. The first chapter was posted in July and the second is set to appear later this month. For more information on the Crottys’ work, or to read Zach’s Story, visit Zacharycrottystory.blogspot.com or https://www.facebook.com/zachs.story.9
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Thursday July 31, 2014
| By:Lizz
Schumer, The Sun editor| News
HAMBURG — Zach Crotty loved
snowboarding and music. He serenaded his mom, Suzanne, with rap songs in the
car, and mixed his own music before Garage Band existed. His favorite singers
were Lil’ Kim, Tupac and Bob Marley. He tried drugs to overcome his anxiety as
a teenager and got dragged into a world he never could have imagined and
ultimately, was unable to escape. Zach Crotty died of an overdose at 19, on
Oct. 26, 2009. Today, his parents, Mark and Suzanne, along with Buffalo News
reporter Sue Schulman, are telling his story, one chapter and one month at a
time.
“I’ve worked as a newspaper reporter for over 30 years, and have met thousands of people and written thousands of stories. But few, if any, stories touched me the way the Zach Crotty story did,” Schulman explained. “I think it’s because I’m a parent. At the time, all three of my kids were teenagers. The Crottys had experienced what has to be the worst pain imaginable – losing a child. Yet they were willing to open up their house and their hearts, to share Zach’s story, to share their grief, in hopes of preventing others from dying and preventing more parents from experiencing the pain that has remained with them since Zach died.”
Suzanne and Mark Crotty decided to start Zach’s Story, a serialized book about Zach’s journey, in his own words, in order to help other kids who might be addicted to drugs, or those who have not dabbled yet, but are in danger of addiction.
“It’s important for us to get the story out there,” Suzanne Crotty explained. “It’s important for people to know that it can happen to anyone, anywhere. If you saw where we live, out in Colden, you’d think, ‘People do drugs there?’ But they do.”
Crotty said she also wants to help combat the stigma attached to drug addiction. “It can happen to anyone,” she said. “Zach was a good kid. He was smart. He was happy-go-lucky. Addiction is a disease. It doesn’t matter who you are. But what he took controlled who he became.”
To figure out who that Zach became, the Crottys and Schulman have worked to string together a timeline of his life using the writing he left behind.
“He was always writing in a journal, ever since he had his composition notebooks at Colden Elementary,” Crotty said. “He had some sayings, said he wanted to help people.”
And now, with Zach’s Story, he can.
“The journal articles and other documents describe the drugs he got from friends as well as the ones prescribed by doctors,” Schulman said, of the writing she and Suzanne Crotty have been compiling. “They detail his experiences in out-patient counseling as well as in-patient rehab. And the papers include his personal feelings about his drug use, and day-to-day life experiences.”
Those day-to-day life experiences were no different than any other teen, Crotty said. He tried golf, karate and t-ball as a kid, but realized he was more interested in music and the arts as he approached high school. He worked at Kissing Bridge in Colden, first in the board shop and later as a chairlift operator, to use his love of snowboarding to make some extra money. Crotty said that she never suspected he was using that money to buy drugs.
“During the time I’ve been working on the book, I feel like I’ve gotten to know Zach,” Schulman noted. “I really like him. He was a really cool kid. He had a great sense of humor. He tried drugs to overcome his teenage anxiety, then got sucked into an addiction he couldn’t get out of - even when he wanted to get out of it.”
As Zach said himself, in his journal, “I didn’t feel like I fit in.” At first, he tried marijuana to reduce the anxiety that would leave his heart racing, his palms sweating for minutes at a time, but after awhile, he switched to painkillers. “They made me feel like a better person,” Zach said. When he took them, he didn’t have to work hard to fit in. So he took them a lot. And other drugs too.
“All it takes is one sports injury, having your wisdom teeth out,” Suzanne Crotty said. “Zach got it from kids at school, from someone else’s medicine cabinet. The latest case I heard was of a girl who’s 12 and addicted. I have a granddaughter who’s 8-and-a-half and I look at her and think, “This isn’t going to happen to you.”
The Crottys and Schulman are releasing Zach’s Story one chapter per month, in an effort to educate the public about the dangers of drug addiction and how it can affect people’s lives. Schulman meets with the Crotty’s about once per month, although it varies depending on where they are in the project, and they email back and forth in between.
“It’s very emotional. Very hard,” Crotty said, about going through her son’s old writings. “I can keep living, day to day. Sometimes, I just have to cry. And then I say, ‘OK. I’m going to cry today.’ Unless you’ve been here, you have no clue. There’s nothing else like it.”
“I developed so much admiration for the Crottys that when Suzanne said she wanted to turn Zach’s journals into a book,” said Schulman, who met the couple when she was working on a series for The Buffalo News on drug addiction, called “Rx for Danger,” “I [offered to work on the book] because I believe what she is doing will help save lives.”
Crotty hopes so, too.
“My son didn’t want to die. He took chances with drugs,” she said. “I hope to tell the story not only to kids, but to upcoming medical doctors, so they see who they’re working with. They don’t get enough education on these drugs. I hope this will have so much more impact than a textbook.”
“I’m not a role model,” Zach Crotty wrote in his journal. “I’m more of an example to learn from.”
His parents and Schulman hope others do learn from his story, one chapter, one month at a time.
“I’m not trying to change the world. I’m just trying to help our community,” Suzanne Crotty said. “And maybe save someone else’s child, some other parents, from what we’ve gone through.”
Zach’s Story can be found at www.zacharycrottystory.blogspot.com
“I’ve worked as a newspaper reporter for over 30 years, and have met thousands of people and written thousands of stories. But few, if any, stories touched me the way the Zach Crotty story did,” Schulman explained. “I think it’s because I’m a parent. At the time, all three of my kids were teenagers. The Crottys had experienced what has to be the worst pain imaginable – losing a child. Yet they were willing to open up their house and their hearts, to share Zach’s story, to share their grief, in hopes of preventing others from dying and preventing more parents from experiencing the pain that has remained with them since Zach died.”
Suzanne and Mark Crotty decided to start Zach’s Story, a serialized book about Zach’s journey, in his own words, in order to help other kids who might be addicted to drugs, or those who have not dabbled yet, but are in danger of addiction.
“It’s important for us to get the story out there,” Suzanne Crotty explained. “It’s important for people to know that it can happen to anyone, anywhere. If you saw where we live, out in Colden, you’d think, ‘People do drugs there?’ But they do.”
Crotty said she also wants to help combat the stigma attached to drug addiction. “It can happen to anyone,” she said. “Zach was a good kid. He was smart. He was happy-go-lucky. Addiction is a disease. It doesn’t matter who you are. But what he took controlled who he became.”
To figure out who that Zach became, the Crottys and Schulman have worked to string together a timeline of his life using the writing he left behind.
“He was always writing in a journal, ever since he had his composition notebooks at Colden Elementary,” Crotty said. “He had some sayings, said he wanted to help people.”
And now, with Zach’s Story, he can.
“The journal articles and other documents describe the drugs he got from friends as well as the ones prescribed by doctors,” Schulman said, of the writing she and Suzanne Crotty have been compiling. “They detail his experiences in out-patient counseling as well as in-patient rehab. And the papers include his personal feelings about his drug use, and day-to-day life experiences.”
Those day-to-day life experiences were no different than any other teen, Crotty said. He tried golf, karate and t-ball as a kid, but realized he was more interested in music and the arts as he approached high school. He worked at Kissing Bridge in Colden, first in the board shop and later as a chairlift operator, to use his love of snowboarding to make some extra money. Crotty said that she never suspected he was using that money to buy drugs.
“During the time I’ve been working on the book, I feel like I’ve gotten to know Zach,” Schulman noted. “I really like him. He was a really cool kid. He had a great sense of humor. He tried drugs to overcome his teenage anxiety, then got sucked into an addiction he couldn’t get out of - even when he wanted to get out of it.”
As Zach said himself, in his journal, “I didn’t feel like I fit in.” At first, he tried marijuana to reduce the anxiety that would leave his heart racing, his palms sweating for minutes at a time, but after awhile, he switched to painkillers. “They made me feel like a better person,” Zach said. When he took them, he didn’t have to work hard to fit in. So he took them a lot. And other drugs too.
“All it takes is one sports injury, having your wisdom teeth out,” Suzanne Crotty said. “Zach got it from kids at school, from someone else’s medicine cabinet. The latest case I heard was of a girl who’s 12 and addicted. I have a granddaughter who’s 8-and-a-half and I look at her and think, “This isn’t going to happen to you.”
The Crottys and Schulman are releasing Zach’s Story one chapter per month, in an effort to educate the public about the dangers of drug addiction and how it can affect people’s lives. Schulman meets with the Crotty’s about once per month, although it varies depending on where they are in the project, and they email back and forth in between.
“It’s very emotional. Very hard,” Crotty said, about going through her son’s old writings. “I can keep living, day to day. Sometimes, I just have to cry. And then I say, ‘OK. I’m going to cry today.’ Unless you’ve been here, you have no clue. There’s nothing else like it.”
“I developed so much admiration for the Crottys that when Suzanne said she wanted to turn Zach’s journals into a book,” said Schulman, who met the couple when she was working on a series for The Buffalo News on drug addiction, called “Rx for Danger,” “I [offered to work on the book] because I believe what she is doing will help save lives.”
Crotty hopes so, too.
“My son didn’t want to die. He took chances with drugs,” she said. “I hope to tell the story not only to kids, but to upcoming medical doctors, so they see who they’re working with. They don’t get enough education on these drugs. I hope this will have so much more impact than a textbook.”
“I’m not a role model,” Zach Crotty wrote in his journal. “I’m more of an example to learn from.”
His parents and Schulman hope others do learn from his story, one chapter, one month at a time.
“I’m not trying to change the world. I’m just trying to help our community,” Suzanne Crotty said. “And maybe save someone else’s child, some other parents, from what we’ve gone through.”
Zach’s Story can be found at www.zacharycrottystory.blogspot.com
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The Buffalo News in 2011 published an awarded-winning series, "Rx for Danger" that detailed the exploding problem of prescription opiod addiction in Western New York.
Read the series here: Part I: Rx for Danger
Please watch this video as The Crotty and Kopacz parents tell their stories
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February 2010
Parents turn grief to action in son's death
Colden couple works to fight dangers posed by prescription, illegal drugs
News Staff Reporter
Updated: February 23, 2010, 12:19 am / 0
comments
Published: February 23, 2010, 11:42 am
Published: February 23, 2010, 11:42 am
Zachary T. Crotty's bedroom in his family's Colden home remains
virtually intact four months after he died from a drug overdose in a local
hospital.
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