A family's struggle against addiction

After she left her parents home on that August afternoon during the blackout, Carrick returned to her apartment in lower Manhattan… and the lifestyle of a junkie.

Her parents knew her life was in danger — she could overdose at any time. She had already contracted Hepatitis C, most likely from sharing needles with other junkies. What they didn’t know was that her boyfriend was dealing drugs, which put both of them at risk in the violent drug subculture. This also made them a target for law enforcement.

Back in Hastings, Carrick’s mother could only imagine her daughter’s lifestyle but she was determined to find out more. In September, one month after we met the family, Deirdre enrolled in classes to study substance abuse.

"This was my one last effort — learning as much as I could to save my kid," says Dierdre.

Deidre’s coursework demanded that she find an internship as a substance abuse counselor.

Her daughter was also looking for a job but for entirely different reasons: Money was tight, she was tired of stealing, and heroin was expensive. But her efforts to get a job were constantly interrupted by her  heroin habit which kept luring her back to her apartment for another fix.

Carrick told "Dateline" she was shooting two bags a day — that’s $ 20 worth of heroin. Her boyfriend’s habit was $150 a day. His minimum wage job as superintendent of an apartment building couldn’t support both their habits, but dealing drugs brought in extra money.

One day, as Carrick searched his discarded wax papers for traces of heroin, she tried to convince him to change their lifestyle and stop using heroin. It was a desire she would voice again and again over the year.

“Nothing is going to get better if neither of us do anything to try to get them to get better,” she told her boyfriend. But as much as she talked about stopping, the reality was that her addiction would only grow worse over the coming months.

After her boyfriend left the apartment that day to go back to work, and the heroin took effect, Carrick found it difficult to concentrate on the job application she had picked up.

The possibility of renewal
While Carrick was looking for a job, her father took "Dateline" to a place where he does volunteer work clearing garbage from a path along the Hudson river. He compared the garbage to Carrick's drug habit; the renewal of nature, to the possibility of renewal for her.

"Hope is always there. There is this intelligent, poetic, lovely young woman just waiting to emerge," says Thom.

But when Carrick finally got a job working in a clothing store, she still wasn’t willing to give up drugs. And if they couldn’t persuade Carrick to stop, the Forbes were going to make sure their teenage son didn’t start. They would watch Duncan like a hawk. But there was a major difference between Duncan and Carrick, and experts say that difference might decide Duncan’s future.

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