One LI man's journey from OxyContin to heroin

By the time he turned 16, Thomas Burke knew he liked drugs: pot, hallucinogenic mushrooms, alcohol, cocaine.

Then he got his first pain pills - the narcotic Percocet - from an ill family member's supply of prescribed medications. The pills numbed his body and quieted what he called "the little voice" of worry.

"I didn't think about my mom, I didn't think about my dad, I didn't think about school," said Burke, 24, sitting in the residential rehabilitation community where he now lives. "It was just me in the moment and to me that was the best escape."

Growing up in Kings Park, the youngest of seven, Burke said he was exposed early to prescription drugs. When Burke was in the eighth grade in 1999, his mother died. His father died in 2005.

Burke was already taking large numbers of "Roxies" - a short-acting opioid - daily when a friend suggested he buy OxyContin to save money.

"One pill, you can get pretty mangled," Burke said. "You can snort it, you can do whatever you want with it, you just scrape the time-release off."

The next years were chaotic. Stealing from other drug users and sometimes friends, living on couches, Burke said he quickly burned through money and the trust of people who offered him places to live.

As the price of his addiction climbed, Burke said he switched to heroin, easily available on Long Island and in the city, and far cheaper.

"I was doing enough every night hoping I wouldn't wake up in the morning," he said.

After two failed trips to rehab, Burke says he hit a turning point when a friend's mother asked him for help to get her son, also a heroin user, into a rehab.

"For once, I listened to the little voice," he said, tapping his chest. Later that day, he called the same center and asked for a spot.

After completing a 28-day program in April 2009, he moved into Hope House Ministries in Port Jefferson, a crisis intervention and residential community.

He attends several 12-step meetings a week and has started classes toward a college degree in education. His brother recently asked him to be best man at his wedding.

"Four years ago, my family wouldn't have even been able to find me," Burke said.