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00000176-e6f7-dce8-adff-f6f770410000PublicSource is an independent, nonprofit news group that focuses on original investigative reporting about critical issues facing Pittsburgh and the Western Pennsylvania region. It was launched to undertake in-depth reporting in the public interest.PublicSource is a content partner of 90.5 WESA.More about PublicSource here.

Holly: One Face of the National Heroin Crisis

Connor Mulvaney
/
PublicSource

For Holly Wright, heroin was bliss.

It was cheap, and it was everywhere. She craved the rush of energy that came with the high, but soon she needed the drug just to get out of bed and feed her children without feeling dopesick.

But last year, she was confronted with a choice. She could keep her addiction and lose Dani, then 2, and her older brother Brayden, then 6. Or she could get treatment and start clean with her family.

By then, heroin had already taken her job and her money. And she didn’t realize the damage it had done to her children.

“When you’re getting high, it don’t matter,” said Holly, 34, now living in Pittsburgh in housing provided by Sojourner House MOMS. “I thought as long as they had a clean diaper on and food in their belly, they were fine.”

Holly is one face in a state and national crisis.

Read more of this report at the website of our partner PublicSource.