MARCH 2018 • LONGISLANDPRESS.COM 59
No place safe from heroin’s wrath
By EDEN LAIKIN
Editor’s note: This is the first in a new monthly
column exploring the local impact of the national
heroin and opioid crisis. Contact the author via
elaikin@longislandpress.com
As a child growing up in Plainview, Garrett
Kassler loved the Power Rangers and Teenage
Mutant Ninja Turtles. Once a teenager, it was
water and the outdoors. He wanted to open a
scuba diving shop, live on the beach, and enjoy a
simple life.
His parents, Lee and Lisa, had moved to the
upper middle-class suburb when Garrett was
a baby, as it promised great schools, little to no
crime, a good neighborhood and the perfect
place to raise a family.
“We watched our children including daughter
Erica, now 24 flourish from pre-K through high
school,” Lee says. “We were active in the PTA,
we both coached soccer and Little League, we
watched our children closely and made sure they
stayed out of trouble.”
Garrett first had trouble dealing with stress
while away as a college freshman. A campus
doctor prescribed Xanax. His parents were
comforted that it was a physician.
But Garrett’s mood and behavior began
changing. He eventually told his parents
he couldn’t stop taking the anti-anxiety
medication. They brought him home, sent him
to therapy and the “Xanax problem” appeared to
be resolved.
Then, oxycodone and, ultimately, heroin, replaced
Xanax. For the next eight years, Garrett was in
and out of rehabilitation facilities.
“This was our life now,” Lisa says. “We needed
to accept the fact that our son was an addict and
find help... . We were always proud of him, never
ashamed. We learned he had a disease, and it
not only affects the user but everyone in the
household.”
Garrett seemed to improve and enlisted in the
U.S. Marine Corps. But a call came a few weeks
into boot camp. Garrett, unable to meet the
From left to right: Garrett Kassler, his mother, Lisa, his sister, Erica, and his dad, Lee.
vigorous demands, was discharged. Home again,
he continued to use drugs.
In 2014, Garrett’s doctor prescribed Vivitrol®,
an opioid-receptor blocker that stopped his
cravings and blocked him from getting high. It
worked well.
Clean for 14 months, Garrett volunteered with
Nassau County’s drug education and awareness
programs, speaking at events and sitting on the
Heroin Prevention Task Force. He helped launch
the county’s “Shot at Life” (Vivitrol®) program
and became a recovery coach. He planned to
become a credentialed alcohol and substance
abuse counselor.
But he wasn’t in drug treatment. Months after
stopping Vivitrol®, he relapsed, and the cycle of
using and stopping began again.
“Never once did he deny being an addict,” Lee
says. “He’d say, ‘I am wired just a little different
then many of you. No rhyme or reason. I just
have to deal with it.’”
On Feb. 4, 2017, excited after he passed a drug
test and landed a new job, Garrett would use
once more and overdose in his Plainview home
at the age of 26. It was Fentanyl, and powerful
painkiller often added to heroin, that killed him.
Garrett was one of 195 people to die from
opioids in Nassau that year, including another
Plainview man his age. The other 194 came from
Massapequa, Long Beach, Manhasset, Floral
Park and Oceanside. No area is exempt. Suffolk
County’s fatal overdose numbers are even higher
than those in Nassau.
“Remember, if it could happen to us, it could
happen to anyone,” Lee says. “The drug crisis is
real. Addiction is real.”
Weeks later, the Kasslers started a nonprofit in
his name: The Garrett L Kassler Memorial Fund.
Their goal: “to make recovery possible – one
person, one family, one life at a time.”
Garrett’s high school principal wrote on the
foundation’s and school’s website about the
student he knew well at Plainview-Old Bethpage
John F. Kennedy High School.
“His tremendous smile and great laugh were
infectious, and his wonderful sense of humor
could brighten the darkest day,” Principal James
Murray wrote. “He was friends with everyone;
no peer group was excluded from his kind and
welcoming heart.”
On Feb . 3, 2018, Lee posted on the memorial
fund’s Facebook page.
“Tomorrow- One year. Our lives were changed
forever. Every day is a rollercoaster of emotion.
The sadness, loneliness and heartache, I wish on
no one… We miss our boy terribly. Hurt beyond
imagine… Life and health are precious. Do not
take one moment of it for granted.”
Long Island Crisis Center
24/7 Crisis Hotline
(Call or Text)
(516) 679-1111
NAFAS
Nassau Alliance for Addiction
Services
Helpline: (516) 481-4000
www.nassaualliance.org (community
treatment providers)
Information & Resources
www.heroinprevention.com
L.I.C.A.D.D. 24/7 Hotline
for Info & Referrals
1-(631) 979-1700
For those affected by a loved
one’s Substance Use Disorder.
• Nar-Anon (516) 318-6134
www.nar-anon.org
• Al-Anon/ Alateen (516) 433-
8003 www.alanon-nassau-ny.
org
• Families Anonymous
(516) 204-3202 www.
familiesanonymous.org
For Free Naloxone (Narcan)
Training
Community Calendar of Opioid
Overdose Trainings
www.health.ny.gov
PRESS HEALTH
WHERE TO FIND HELP
