Houston woman hosts recovery event at home
Andrew Vernau and his mother, Beth, are shown at the 2012 senior night for wrestlers at Chartiers-Houston High School.
Andrew Vernau’s hand is raised after a wrestling victory.
Beth Vernau has been in recovery from opioid pill addiction for more than seven years.
The 53-year-old Houston resident is opening her home at 425 Forrest Ave. from 1 to 7 p.m. Saturday to talk to families and addicts dealing with the struggles of overcoming drug addiction, and to remember her son, who died from an overdose in 2013.
Vernau said she’ll be accepting donations of items to help children cope with family members who are in recovery, as well as gifts for addicts themselves, like sandals, socks and shoes. She’ll also talk about how to get and use the fast-acting antidotes Narcan and Vivitrol.
“I spent three years in addiction. The spiral toward addiction happened after I lost my husband – my high school sweetheart. He was 43 when he had a heart attack on Nov. 30, 2004,” she said.
Responsible for three children who were 11, 13 and 15 at the time, she felt life’s pressures build, and while working for an insurance company, she said she found a way to cope.
“I was able to manipulate doctors because I worked with them, and I got pills. I regret it, but not as much as the regret I feel when I saw what happened to my son, Andrew,” she said.
Andrew Vernau died at age 19 on Oct. 17, 2013. The wrestler who graduated from Chartiers-Houston High School was attending his first classes at Indiana University of Pennsylvania when a group of friends shot up with him at Vernau’s home. He then overdosed.
“He actually attended a Narcotics Anonymous meeting the night he died. … He was on pills for a time at first, then clean for seven months, then relapsed. And the insurance wouldn’t pay for treatment beyond nine days, so he went to outpatient-type treatments and therapy, and he relapsed,” she said.
The most heartbreaking fact for Vernau is that the group of friends drove around for at least an hour with Andrew in the back seat unconscious before they sought help at a hospital.
“I don’t want those kids to get in trouble, but there was no accountability. Nothing would have happened to them if they would have done the right thing the first time,” she said, referring to Good Samaritan laws that protect those who help overdose victims. Real friendship matters, and is often the difference between life and death, Vernau said. Because of friends like Amye McCarthy, a nurse practitioner who works at Greenbriar Treatment Center, Vernau has been able to avoid the pitfalls that led to her son’s death.
“She called me the morning that Andrew overdosed. I could hear the fear in her voice, and I knew I had to be there to reassure her of all the good she’s done for her family and for people she’s cared for,” McCarthy said.
“If you don’t have a support group, family or friends in your life, your risk of relapse is so much greater. For some people, they just need to talk to a sponsor or friend on the phone and get recent struggles off their chest; others need to call to get that physical intervention to rescue them from a relapse. But you need these connections for that to happen,” she said.
The only consolation for Vernau is that she was able to donate a majority of Andrew’s organs through the Center for Organ Recovery and Education, something she said she’ll talk about Saturday. For her own recovery and sobriety, Vernau said it was both getting in trouble at work and being around her kids that pushed her to get clean.
“The worst was driving my kids around knowing I was under the influence. That was a moment that made me start to realize my situation, just all of the guilt. My kids are all I have. And if I didn’t take care of them, make sure they’re functioning people in society, then I have failed.”
By that metric, she’s succeeded. Her two daughters, Stephanie and Kellie, are a teacher and mechanical engineer, respectively, with families of their own.
“I’m a registered nurse now. And if I want to keep helping people, as well as keep helping my family, I’ve got to stay the course. People need to know there’s help and it’s possible. But you need to reach out and get help,” she said.