LEESBURG - Ron and Mary England knew when their son Zachary was in junior high that he had a problem.

They caught him "huffing" - inhaling aerosols for a brief high - and discovered he was inhaling anything he could get his hands on.

"He was a good kid, but he was addicted to certain things," Ron England said, and he was easily influenced by the wrong crowd.

His parents forbade him certain friends. They watched him closely. They made sure he stayed clean. And it worked until he was out from under their watchful eyes.

"(People) think someone abusing drugs is a bum on the street, and it's middle-class kids," Mary England said. Good kids, too.

Zach England, 27, was the guy everyone loved, especially those who thought no one cared about them, his parents said.

"There were 1,200 people at his viewing, and a third of them were people we didn't know," Mary England said. "There were all these kids from the high school, the underachievers, who were saying things like ‘Zach would sit by me when no one else would.' He was just an all-around good guy."

But when he reached his 20s and moved out, he began hanging out with the wrong crowd again. He married, had a son, divorced, and became addicted to pain pills - OxyContin and Vicodin. Though those drugs are not as powerful as some, they are still strong, addictive opiates. Finally, Zach asked his parents for help.

"It was four days - it was 80 degrees out, and he was just shivering with the cold," Mary recalls.

After the drugs' hold was broken, Ron and Mary watched closely, making Zach take home drug tests and checking his pupil dilation. But he was an adult this time, didn't live with them, and once again, the euphoria of a painkiller high called him until he answered.

The call is so strong that Mike, a law enforcement officer who has worked drug cases for more than 20 years, said former methamphetamine addicts tell him meth is not nearly as bad as opiates like methadone and fentanyl. Mike can't give his full name because he often works undercover.

"I've had people say ‘I wish I would have stayed on meth before I ever touched this stuff,' " Mike said.

His parents said Zach kept going back to it because he couldn't help himself.

Zach reached bottom on Nov. 22. A fentanyl patch - broken open to release its contents faster - was found stuck to the roof of his mouth. His body temperature had dropped to 85 degrees.

"You get this terminal cascade" of medical problems during an overdose, said Kosciusko County Coroner John Sadler, who investigated Zach's death. Blood pressure problems, heart-rate problems, brain swelling, comas - "You get multiple system failure, and it's too late."

It's not too late to help others, Mary said. Though the wounds are still fresh - and get reopened when Zach's 3-year-old son tries to grasp that his daddy is not coming back - they're telling everyone they know about the dangers of using narcotics recreationally.

"Step in. So your kids hate you; they won't hate you forever," Mary said. The alternative might be forever, she said.

After an 11 p.m. knock on their door and the longest drive of their life, Ron and Mary found their son at Lutheran Hospital in Fort Wayne, brain dead, his body kept alive by a ventilator.

While they waited for tests to ensure there was no brain function so Zach's organs could be donated, Mary got to hold him; his hair smelled "the same as when he was born."

dstockman@jg.net