'Hope is out there'

BY LINDA SMITH HANCHARICK
WEST MILFORD — Life is good for Eric Koster. This happy, giving 28-year-old West Milford man is happy in his job, loves his family - especially his nephew Nicholas - and is preparing to become a dad soon.
Life wasn't always so happy and promising for Koster.
He is a recovering heroin addict.

For Koster, who was born and raised in West Milford, his issues began early, as early as fifth or sixth grade when he began suffering with depression. Many with depression go untreated. That wasn't the case for Koster. His family was supportive from the start, he said, and he received the help he needed.
But it wasn't enough. Koster said he was bullied in school. It changed his perspective, and he started to look to escape.
When he was in seventh grade, he began to drink and smoke pot on weekends. Soon, getting high on weekends wasn't enough.
"Very quickly, it became a necessity," said Koster. "I needed to do it. Emotionally, I had to do it."
By eighth grade, he was smoking every day and drinking every other.
"I thought it was fun," he said. "I was crazy and outspoken on the outside but inside, I had a lot of fears."
No one noticed this kid drunk and high each day?
"Addicts are very good at manipulating," he said. "I was able to keep everyone at bay."
Koster said he believes his brain was rewired by this point.
"It was all the depression. Even though I was being treated for it," Koster said.
He wasn't fully honest in his counseling, leaving much out.
And that's how life continued throughout high school for him. He used drugs as a "social lubricant."
But when high school was over, so was the fun for Koster.
At 19, he got into pills like percoset and vicodin, opioid pain medication.
"I was trying everything," he said. "Every time I tried a new drug, I felt I arrived. 'This is what I've been missing', I'd think."
Then he started using oxycodone. And soon, heroin.
"I was an empty shell," he said. "I was gone. I couldn't do anything but use."
Koster talked of the next almost five years of drug addiction, of trying to function, of damaging and sometimes losing relationships.
He went to school to become a mechanic, which he did, but he never worked as one.
"I couldn't do anything," he said. "I just stayed home and stayed stuck."
Koster said he and his brother had a good relationship, but when he was using, that suffered tremendously.
"When I was strung out, I couldn't even talk. We couldn't be in the same room," he remembered.
And his parents just didn't know what to do. They certainly didn't have any experience with this, he said. They didn't realize there was a recovery process.
"At the time, they just hoped I'd snap out of it."
That isn't the case with most who are addicted.
Koster went to rehab several times. He called himself "a broken soul" when referring to that time in his life.
"I woke up every single day and went to sleep every single night wanting to die," he said. "I was a broken soul."
He was arrested in Paterson, where many in this area go for their drugs, on a 90 degree day wearing sweatpants and no shoes. He crashed 10 cars throughout his addiction, totalling six of them.
He went to rehab in Florida and here in New Jersey. Detox, he said, feels like your skin is crawling. You're hot then cold, you sweat and can't sleep. When he rehabed in Florida, he said he didn't sleep for 21 days straight. He compared it to the worst flu you have ever had - times 1000.
"I believed I was on the verge of a permanent psychotic episode," he said."They would watch me all night. I was 115 pounds, hallucinating."
He was sent to the hospital with heart trauma and seizures. It was 2010 and Koster was just 22 years old. While in the hospital, he said he remembers seeing his mother's face.
"She thought I wasn't coming back," he said. "I was just depleted."
After all of that, spending 29 days there, he came home to New Jersey from the hospital.
"I got high with my hospital bracelet still one," he said. "That's how quick it was. I completely forgot what I went through the week before."
That is how strong the addiction is.
Koster stresses that he speaks only for himself about rehab.
"You have to be ready," he said. "As much abuse as I took, I still had to have more."
He went to Hamilton (New Jersey) for rehab next, mostly out of fear of going to court, disappointing his family and also himself.
He went through about five days of "pure hell" at this rehab coming off heroin. He spent 45 days there, attended classes and started to test the waters with a 12-step program to see what it had to offer.
But he did the bare minimum. He spent his days smoking and playing cards.
"I needed to work on myself," he said.
But he wasn't putting the time in. He spent two weeks at a sober living house and went to meetings here and there.
"I wasn't ready," he recalled. "I'd go to a meeting once, then not go for five days. Within a month, I was using every day."
And within four and a half months after getting out of the Hamilton rehab, Koster was right back to his old life.
But this time something was different.
"I looked in the mirror and didn't recognize myself," he said. "I was empty. I looked in my eyes and there was no soul."
Koster was only leaving his house to score drugs; he got his drug money by buying twice as much as he was using and selling the rest.
Koster felt shame that he was using again, especially after all he had been through in rehab and, more importantly to him, what his family had been through.
One day, Koster was watching TV in the family living room. His parents found his drug paraphernalia in his room and confronted him.
"I was like 'thank you.' I had to hit my emotional bottom," he said. "I knew what I was doing to them. They never gave up on me. I said 'I don't deserve your love.' It was the first time I realized unconditional love."
Within four hours, he was back at Leading Edge Recovery Center in Hamilton.
"I stole serenity from my family. I stole family time. I made everything about me. I was sick and didn't know how to ask for help."
Luckily for Koster, his family was able to give it to him without him having to ask.
While in rehab, he tried something different - he got on his knees and prayed.
"It was the first time I did that," Koster said. "I knew I was spiritually broken. I didn't know what I was praying to."
But life was getting better. He stayed there for 30 days.
"I really started applying myself," he said. "I worked above and beyond, started doing it all. I didn't know what was in store for me being clean but I knew what I had just gone through."
When he came back home, he went to New Life Recovery Center here in West Milford. He started going to 12-step programs.
"And I stopped making excuses."
New Life, he said, gave him the tools to deal with things when the hard times came.
"Drugs are just a symptom," he said. "I picked them up because something was going on with me."
Now, with the drugs gone, he began to work on himself, with his family, at New Life Recovery Center and at 12-step programs. It's all part of his daily life now.
"Recovery is a never-ending process," he said. "I believe everybody has to work on themselves. I find out new things about myself. I was so afraid to find out things about myself. But I don't run from it anymore. It can be tricky at times. An addict in recovery - you live normally but you have this disease."
Does the pull of the drugs ever go away?
“It gets easier. You gain your self worth back, get your friends and family back,” he said. “You get a sense of life again. You understand it is possible to stay clean.”
And to thrive. Koster lives every day, truly lives. He enjoys little things, like taking walks with his dad, playing cards with his mom, and spending time with "my beautiful nephew." And big things too, like being in love and getting ready to be a dad.
And his goal is to help others.
“My disease caused so much devastation. There is no right way to fix it. The only way I can show my apology is to continue on my recovery and help others,” he said. “The importance of helping people, even just one, shows that everything bad that's happened to me is not in vain. We pick each other up and help each other in the process.”
To those reading Koster's story, he has these words.
"The war on drugs is not being fought in another county, the cities," he said. "It's at our doorstep. It's our mothers, fathers, brothers."
And there's hope.
“It's possible, it's always possible,” he said. “If I can get clean, anybody can. I'm not unique. Hope is out there.”