MANSFIELD, Ohio – Kassie Kent and Derek Pidgeon were sober when they fell in love.
Despite both growing up in Richland County, it took attending a faith-based rehabilitation program in Chicago, Illinois for the two of them to meet.
“We met sober, we fell in love sober…and then we’ve had our struggles,” said Derek.
The couple had chemistry between them they couldn’t ignore, but ultimately the pull of addiction was stronger. Now Derek and Kassie support each other in recovery, determined not to revisit such a dark place.
“It became like a triangular relationship: me, him and heroin,” said Kassie. “And when the drugs are in control, it’s scary. Anybody is capable of anything.”
Addiction begins
Both Kassie and Derek were introduced to substances at a young age. In both cases, it was alcohol – Derek at the age of 12 raiding his father’s liquor cabinet with a friend, and Kassie at the age of 14 at a party with her friends from school.
“It was after a basketball game, my crowd of friends was getting together,” said Kassie, now 23. “I remember there being a bunch of alcohol there. When I took the first drink, it was weird because I lost movement in my legs and I felt goofy. I loved it, I just knew that was it – I found my crowd and I knew what I wanted to do, and the party was on.”
After a childhood of social awkwardness, Kassie found herself in the popular crowd at Ontario High School. She described the alcohol as filling a void somewhere inside her.
“I think there was something missing, and when I drank that night I felt it was filled,” she said. “From that point forward I always felt that in order to keep my name I had to drink like the boys and experiment like the boys. Before you knew it new things kept coming, it was easier to get more stuff and there wasn’t anything that I wasn’t going to try.”
Marijuana was a weekend activity for Kassie, but her biggest struggle was with ecstasy. On her 18th birthday her mother tried to force her into rehab for her ecstasy problem.
“I was pretty deep into that throughout high school, it got to the point where I was doing it on school nights and every single weekend night,” said Kassie. “Cocaine was a binge I went on in high school as well, my excuse for that was to not eat as much and for energy because I seemed so lazy all the time. If there were any pills presented at parties I always liked combining things. I was 19 when I first tried heroin.”
Though his first taste of alcohol came in junior high, Derek didn’t start drinking regularly until his junior year at Lexington High School. Smoking weed and drinking alcohol became a daily habit throughout his senior year of high school and into college at Kent State University.
“It’s a wonder I got through college,” said Derek, now 27. “I went through a phase where I was doing a lot of LSD, ecstasy, molly, occasionally cocaine, pills. Me and my best friend got into oxycontins the beginning of our senior year of college. By the second semester we were physically dependent on oxycontin where we had to have some every day.”
After graduating college and coming back to Mansfield at age 22, Derek first started using heroin. His habit grew progressively worse until March 25, 2011.
“We were using, and my best friend died next to me in a car out at Kroger parking lot,” said Derek. “That was probably my rock bottom.”
Two weeks later, Derek checked himself into rehab. Kassie joined him eight months later.
A chance meeting
Adjusting to life at Restoration Ministries, a Christian-based organization for recovering drug addicts, proved difficult for both Kassie and Derek at first. For Kassie it was particularly difficult because her parents had forced her into rehab.
“My parents had an intervention with me, so in the beginning I agreed but it wasn’t my idea,” she said. “The first two weeks I was calling my parents, crying that I needed to come home, and the only thing that kept me there was they told me if I came home I would be homeless. I’m very thankful for that today because it took me until about four months in to get settled, and accept that if this God thing is working for everybody else maybe I should try it.”
Derek said it took him about six months to adjust to life at Restoration, especially after losing all faith.
“I hated Restoration at first, I did not believe in God or anything at all,” he said. “But somewhere in that process I regained my faith in God, and things were good. About a year in I felt back to normal, back to how I always felt without drugs and alcohol. It was tough at first but it got a lot better, and I grew to love the place.”
Still, despite Derek’s appreciation for Restoration he now admits there was something missing in his treatment plan.
“It was very one-sided, it was all about God, which I think is about 50 percent of your recovery,” he explained. “But you also need to talk about the addiction in one way or another, and understanding it. It can’t just be that Jesus is my Lord and Savior and he’s going to take the cravings away, because unfortunately that’s not how that works.”
Though Kassie and Derek had crossed paths once during her arrival the two didn’t start communicating until the spring of 2012, four months into Kassie’s stay and almost a year into Derek’s.
“He came into the picture somehow,” said Kassie with a smile.
“It was obvious when we talked that there was something between us, but we never really talked about it,” said Derek. “You could just tell there was chemistry.”
After seven months at Restoration Kassie left the organization of her own will and returned to Mansfield. Derek stayed to complete his 18-month program, but never forgot about Kassie.
“It was difficult when she left because I didn’t talk to her or anything, and we hadn’t talked about being a couple,” he said. “We had been talking before I came home, and as soon as I got home we were together and have been ever since.”
Downward spiral
Before Derek returned to Mansfield, Kassie had already begun using substances again. Once again the cycle started with alcohol, with Kassie rationing that since she celebrated her 21st birthday in rehab it would be OK to have one legal drink.
“I was hitting bars after I got off work, and it opened the door for me to make everything else OK,” said Kassie. “Unfortunately he came down with me; since I had done that it just unleashed the beast. It started with Percocet and within days we were searching for heroin. It spiraled down real quick.”
“Honestly, it was great at first,” said Derek. “It wouldn’t be such a big epidemic if people hated getting high. At first it felt wrong, like using any drug feels wrong, but it wasn’t until we got deep in our addiction.”
The spiral continued as Derek and Kassie both eventually lost their jobs and returned to rehabilitation programs, Derek back to Restoration and Kassie to a sober living facility in Columbus. Eventually Derek came down to Columbus to be with Kassie, but it wasn’t long before their heroin use started again and they were evicted from the sober living facility.
“I tried so hard to keep the finances going; I thought I was functioning, I thought I could figure it out to where I could do this for the rest of my life – I thought I had to accept it because it had such a hold on me,” said Kassie.
Crack also came into the picture while living in Columbus, which ended up putting a strain on Derek and Kassie’s relationship.
“Heroin can bring you closer in a way, like an illusion, but crack…for me that’s one of the reasons I wanted to stop because of how weird it was making us feel together,” said Kassie. “He was a completely different person. Sometimes I felt like he turned into a monster.”
Enough is enough
Eventually Kassie and Derek grew tired of the burden their drug use had on their lives and their relationship. In May 2014, they decided it was time to make a change.
“Our relationship was very unhealthy,” said Kassie. “It was our fault we kept separating and that’s what I couldn’t get, why do we keep doing this because we know we’ll have to separate and get better again and this is getting old. Three years of that gets very old.”
“I think it was a long time coming,” said Derek.
After starting a suboxone treatment program last May, Derek and Kassie have been without heroin and opiates for a year now. Letting go of other substances proved to be more challenging.
“We didn’t want to let go of our old thinking,” said Derek. “All of last summer was pretty bad, any time we had money we’d spend it on crack. I think it slowly lessened; we weren’t doing it as much even towards the end. I don’t think it was an epiphany, we just kind of slowed down and it really wasn’t fun anymore.”
“I’d had an overdose a couple weeks before that and like he said, things weren’t fun anymore,” added Kassie. “And once we slowed down, it’s like if we can do it not this much why do we need to do it at all?”
Both Kassie and Derek stopped their drug use on Nov. 20, 2014. Since then, they have become completely different people – in the best way.
“Now that she’s sober she’s a lot more driven, a lot more aware of what’s going on,” said Derek. “I think that’s what initially attracted us to each other; we were both very driven when we met at Restoration. It’s like night and day.”
“Deep in our addiction compared to now, he actually has a heart when he’s sober,” said Kassie. “It’s a struggle getting clean together, and we took some time apart because you have to learn not to take each other for granted. But when you have a connection and chemistry and love for someone you’re going to do whatever you can.”
Recovery and the future
Both Kassie and Derek are continuing their recovery with the Mansfield Urban Minority Alcoholism and Drug Abuse Outreach Program (UMADAOP). They noted it’s been very helpful to have each other throughout the process.
“Somebody always has to be strong, especially when you’re dealing with two addicts, and when I was still trying to figure out how I was going to lay this foundation to be in recovery it’s because of him we didn’t pick back up, and I’m very thankful for that,” said Kassie. “I really have no idea how we came to the same place at the same time, that was a blessing you don’t find in relationships much, especially me wanting it for me and him wanting it for him.”
In the future, both Kassie and Derek plan on getting back to their careers and pursuing their passions. But they’re in no rush.
“Each day we’re doing the next right thing, and I believe our time will come when we have it together,” said Kassie. “I’ve got to have plans and little goals to meet, otherwise what’s my purpose here?”
“One day at a time, I’ve heard that saying for so long and until these past six months I never really understood what it meant,” said Derek. “Literally live one day at a time and don’t worry about the future, because if I start thinking I can’t use drugs for the rest of my life that seems too big. But I can do just today.”
“Now that she’s sober she’s a lot more driven, a lot more aware of what’s going on,” said Derek. “I think that’s what initially attracted us to each other; we were both very driven when we met at Restoration.
Mental health and substance abuse treatment combined with healthcare reform is helping some local residents along the Road to Recovery from addiction. In the series, Road to Recovery, Richland Source shares their stories in cooperation with the Richland County Alcohol, Drug Addiction and Mental Health Board.
