Speaker Shares Pain To Help Others

On Tuesday, June 20, at 9 am, Ginger Katz, founder of Courage To Speak, will address students at Reed Intermediate School. Ginger lost her son, Ian, to drugs. At the age of 20, Ian died of a heroin overdose. She hopes her story will help others avoid this tragedy.

Ginger has spoken to many groups, including the Parent Connection, about her family’s ordeal. This will be the first time she makes her presentation to fifth and sixth graders.

When Ian was in eighth grade, he began using tobacco and marijuana. Like many young people, he denied he had a problem. During high school, he tried counseling to get to the root of his problems. Ian was a good athlete, excelling at baseball and lacrosse. But the drugs kept worming their way into his life.

Nine months before Ian died, he and two friends snorted heroin. One friend got scared, the other, sick. Ian liked it. Finally, he got into rehab. He told his mother, “Mom, there is a smorgasbord of drugs at college. If you don’t have the money, they give it to you for free and then you’re hooked.”

His last summer, Ian seemed to be doing well, going to counseling and apparently in recovery. He reconnected with his family. Things seemed to be getting better.

Then, came the fateful morning when Ginger, before going out to run, checked on her son. She found him dead in his bed from a heroin overdose. Afterward, doctors suggested she tell people Ian died of an aneurism.

But Ginger could not lie. She knew the truth. On the DEA’s website are excerpts from an interview with Ginger. She said, “I decided to broadcast the truth — that my son died from a drug overdose. That’s what The Courage To Speak is all about — telling the truth so parents and kids can talk and save kids from the kind of death Ian suffered. Ian’s doctors then, just like so many parents and children today, chose to lie. They chose silence. We chose to speak out. Thus we founded The Courage To Speak Foundation, Inc. Our mission became to help empower youth to be drug free and encourage parents to communicate effectively with their children about the dangers of drugs.”

More information is available at the website couragetospeak.org.