Last modified: Sunday, February 13, 2005 1:40 AM EST Heroin moves in BY DAVID LINTON/SUN CHRONICLE STAFF Larry remembers `` shooting'' his first bag of heroin. It was seven years ago, shortly before his first son was born. `` It brought me to hell,'' Larry, a 37-year-old Cape Cod native now living in the Attleboro area, remembered about injecting a heroin-filled needle into himself. A former high school hockey player, Larry said he got hooked on the painkiller OxyContin after suffering numerous sports injuries and injuries from a serious car accident. `` My gateway drug was OxyContin,'' said Larry, who has been clean for three years. `` I took OxyContin when they first came out, but I didn't know anything about them.'' The recovering heroin addict comes from a middle class background. His father was a pharmacist and his mother was a homemaker. But he says his grew up with alcoholism in his family. Heroin was once a drug associated with inner-city drug addicts. The stereotypical junkie was someone shooting up in a back alley. But area law-enforcement officials and social service agencies say the drug is now on the upswing in suburbia, its users crossing all economic and social classes. Norfolk County District Attorney William R. Keating said the current face of the heroin user is not the `` myth of the person with the needle in the alley of a city.'' Chris Sullivan, a star athlete in North Attleboro who rose to become a professional football player with the New England Patriots until 2001, was arrested last month, allegedly possessing heroin. `` They come from all walks of life,'' said Lt. Kenneth Collins, the commander of the Attleboro detective squad with 31 years experience as a city police officer. `` We're seeing heroin more frequently than ever before,'' Collins said. Larry Schneider, executive director of the North Cottage substance abuse treatment center in Norton, agrees. `` It's not creeping into the suburbs,'' he said. `` It's galloping.'' In fiscal year 1994, 30 percent of the patients at the center had used heroin within the past year and 49 percent in their lifetime. Ten years later, 47 percent had used heroin in the last year and 62 percent in their lifetime. Availability, purity and a cheap price -- from $3 to $5 a bag -- are some of the reasons why the drug is so popular, law enforcement officials and social service workers say. `` It's cheaper than a pack of cigarettes,'' said Darlene Cooper, supervisor of the intensive treatment program at North Cottage. Police and social workers also say the heroin available now is purer than heroin was 20 years ago. The latest wave of heroin users -- who may shy away from injecting the drug with a needle -- can snort it and get the same feeling, they say. `` The stigma of the needle is taken away, and it has made it almost socially acceptable. They seem to think it isn't that bad of a problem,'' said Lenny, 46, a recovering heroin addict who is now a counselor at North Cottage. Heroin enters the brain quickly, affecting the pleasure sensors of the brain and giving users a `` rush.'' Heroin use slows down thinking, reaction time and memory. However, some heroin addicts are able to hold down full-time jobs and hide their addiction by using just enough so they won't suffer withdrawal symptoms. Keating said many people become addicted to OxyContin, which costs $60 to $80 a pill on the street, then switch to heroin because it is cheaper. Foxboro Police Chief Edward O'Leary said there have been more arrests for heroin possession in the last three years, and informants have told officers it is readily available and cheap. `` It's starting to make inroads in the community,'' O'Leary said. `` It used to be seen as an inner-city thing.'' Three weeks ago, two people were arrested in Foxboro after a traffic stop that yielded heroin and hypodermic needles. Two weeks ago, Wrentham police picking up takeout dinners at a local restaurant arrested a man for heroin possession. In Norfolk County, Keating has held several forums in towns in his district, including Wrentham, to combat the problem by combining the efforts of law enforcement, probation officers, schools and parents. Keating said his office is trying to educate people at a younger age because the average age of the heroin addict today is 17. Decades ago, the average age of a heroin user was 27, he said. Keating said his office is investigating about three fatal heroin overdoses a month. He says there is a need for more treatment facilities, but financial resources are scarce and treatment is expensive. `` If three or four people were dying of cancer every month because they could not get treatment, there would be a public outcry,'' Keating said. `` People don't realize it's a problem.'' Susan Dahl, executive director at the Caritas Norcap Lodge in Foxboro, said there are now more patients being treated for opiates, such as heroin and OxyContin, than for alcohol addiction. Although Norcap only treats patients 18 and older, Dahl said heroin users are turning younger. `` It's decent blue-collar, white-collar kids,'' she said. `` Kids from middle-class families who don't have any dysfunctional family background.'' Last year, 21.5 percent of the people seeking treatment for heroin or other opiate addiction in Massachusetts were younger than 20 -- up from 13.6 percent only a year earlier, according to the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Nationally, the proportion of new heroin users younger than 25 and seeking treatment rose from 30 to 41 percent between 1992 and 2000. While heroin users are getting younger, police and social service workers say most are still in their mid-20s to 40s and have experience with other drugs. Marijuana and alcohol remain the drugs of choice among area adolescents, according to area police and a national study. A 2004 study by the Center for Substance Abuse Research at the University of Maryland found that alcohol, cigarettes and marijuana are the leading drug of choice. Heroin ranked last with 0.05 percent of 12th graders saying they used heroin in the last month. Area police are more accustomed to seeing older heroin users. But Attleboro police prosecutor Sgt. John Otrando says he remembers a 15-year-old boy who overdosed on heroin when he was a detective. `` I couldn't believe it,'' Otrando said. Terrell Kiley, chief probation officer at Attleboro District Court, said his staff is seeing more heroin users in the past five years. Most are on probation for other crimes committed to feed their habit, he said. Fighting heroin addiction is not easy, said Larry and Lenny, the recovering addicts. Both men were in and out of detox facilities for several years before finally kicking the habit. Both said long term treatment and support groups are the key to success. `` The physical torture alone led me back to using,'' Lenny said. `` The withdrawal gets worse and worse each time you use the drug. You just have a sense of hopelessness and despair. I couldn't see a future for myself.'' Cooper, with the North Cottage treatment program, said getting clean is a long process. `` Kicking the drug is hard,'' she said. `` Staying sober is harder. The alternatives to kicking are jail, institutionalization or death.'' Schneider, the executive director at North Cottage, said the remedy to the problem is treatment. `` Treatment works,'' he said. `` Treatment is cheap and inexpensive and treatment saves lives.'' Larry, who spoke to high school students attending the court's Scared Sober program in November, agrees, and tells people to stay away from heroin in the first place. `` Don't bother,'' he said. `` Nobody has to go through that pain. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy.'' DAVID LINTON can be reached at 508-236-0338 or at dlinton@thesunchronicle.com.