How a suburban teen lost his life to heroin

Editor's note: This story originally ran on March 3, 2002 as part of the Daily Herald's "Hidden Scourge: Heroin in the Suburbs" series.

Editor's note: This is part of an occasional series of reports about area teens and young adults whose deaths this year are attributed to suspected drug and alcohol abuse.

Five weeks after Gregory James Hopkinson's 19th birthday, his family and friends gathered to celebrate his life.

His mom plastered the room with photographs. Friends read his intimate poetry. His father played a CD he had compiled songs that reminded him and his wife of G.J.

It was a party G.J. -as everyone called him - might have enjoyed.

Instead, his body lay in a closed casket. His half-cocked smile no longer shined. The journals in which he chronicled his every move would not tell of another day.

He died Jan. 19 after he and a close friend shot heroin into their veins. The friend survived.

G.J. was not the privileged suburban kid who made the honor roll, played sports and dabbled in drugs out of curiosity. Nor was he the hardcore user who lacked parental support, whose addiction destroyed his relationships and forced him to lie, cheat and steal. G.J. was somewhere in the middle.

He had been using heroin for eight months, starting shortly after he began living on his own in Glendale Heights. His parents and many friends were shocked.

He wasn't into alcohol. He was less immune to the drug scene. He smoked pot. He often had been on LSD. But he shunned those who used heroin because of how weak the drug made its users - as if it were their sole reason for living.

Those who loved him have their theories on why G.J. began using heroin. He may have been influenced by his own depression, a friend's drug relapse or having too much freedom too quickly.

"When I look back, it's like, 'What could I have done differently?' " his mother Elizabeth Hopkinson said through tears. "I still don't know."

Unique from the start

G.J. was never easy, not even as a newborn.

He cried incessantly and vomited for the first six months of his life. His mother later learned he was allergic to his formula.

He was 6 the first time police brought him home. They accused him of tossing eggs at a nearby home.

G.J. was in fourth grade when his family moved into the home they still own today in Hanover Park. He was the oldest of three boys. His father, Doug, worked in paper sales; Elizabeth was a stay-at-home mom until her oldest turned 15.

By then, he already hated school. A series of social workers and school psychologists had little impact on the fiercely independent child with an above-average IQ.

At 16, he told his parents he wanted to get a lawyer and become emancipated from their control. He fashioned his appearance and hair like his idol, the late grunge icon Kurt Cobain. Then he dyed it green. Then purple. He pierced his eyebrows.

In junior high, he began hanging around with the alternative crowd, the kids whose black trench coats were the staple of their wardrobes. His circle would grow to include many groups in the coming years.

"They weren't bad kids," his mother said. "They were like him. Kids on the fringe. Kids no one else could hang around with. But those friends he made, they stayed with him for years."

G.J. fit in well there. He was artistic, an introvert, a realistic dreamer filled with deep, somber thoughts. Music was truly his salvation. Cobain's words of anguish and own troubled past struck a chord with G.J.

Police knew his group well. When trouble erupted, it was in their direction local authorities first looked. Despite the stereotype, G.J. had no criminal history. He never ran away from home. He was never violent. But he had a sharp tongue, strong will and resisted authority. He even harbored a runaway for three days in his family's garage - unbeknownst to them.

"Greg matured at an early age," his father Doug Hopkinson said. "He knew everything and all the angles."

Looking back, his parents said they were not hung up on their son's appearance. They accepted his friends. In fact, their home was the group's hangout.

But they would not accept their son's disdain for school. It was a constant battle to get him to go. At first, their threats to take away his stereo or computer prevailed.

He was placed in an alternative school after briefly attending Hoffman Estates High School. His parents even considered military school, but could not afford it.

He had researched at what age they no longer could legally require him to attend classes. At 16, he was a high-school dropout.

"I just wanted him to conform to society's standards, not so much in his appearance, but in his performance," his father said. "I wanted him to do well for himself so he could have a decent life."

Unlike G.J., his younger brothers, Andrew, 15, and 10-year-old Matthew, didn't cause problems. Both are ambitious honor-roll students.

A family pediatrician once told Elizabeth that God usually grants each family one wild Indian. G.J. was hers.

"We never could figure out where all that pain was coming from," she said. "He was just a troubled soul."

G.J.' s emancipation

By 18, he was more than ready to live on his own. He had been hit by a car in kindergarten, and the settlement money was now available to him. To his parents' delight, he invested almost all of it in a condominium in Glendale Heights. He bought a used car with the rest.

Elizabeth and Doug Hopkinson didn't fight G.J.' s plans to move. In fact, they encouraged it. The years of fighting had taken a toll on the family.

His parents separated a year before G.J.' s death after 23 years of marriage. They won't blame their problems on him, though disagreements regarding how best to discipline him were common.

After the separation, Doug Hopkinson took a self-imposed vacation from his oldest son. Elizabeth's relationship with G.J. wasn't any better. Her contact with him also was minimal.

"He had been unhappy with us for a long time because we were trying to make him more acceptable," she said. "I was worried about his influence on my other children. He could be very belligerent.

"He needed to be out on his own. He needed a taste of the world because he thought he had all the answers. So we said, 'Fine. Go out and prove yourself.' "

Before G.J. moved out, Elizabeth feared the arguments with her oldest son would escalate now that she and her husband had separated. G.J., instead, tried to support his mother through her pain.

"He turned out to be such a young gentleman," she said. "He was such a hard guy to know. He would let such small pieces of himself go. He was so guarded."

His youngest brother, Matthew, was one person from whom G.J. never hid. The two had a special bond. They spent hours together watching wrestling or videos of the old BBC science fiction show Dr. Who.

His friends, too, often were shown his gentler side.

"G.J. was just a cool guy," said James Rowe of Schaumburg. "If he gave you his word on something, there wasn't anything that could make him break it. If you had a problem, he's the guy with the solutions."

Close friend Zeke Mitchell said G.J. had a multifaceted personality.

"He carried many ambitions as well as many struggles within him," said Mitchell. "He wasn't interested in the standard white-picket fence or typical American dream. He often struggled with what was out there for him."

G.J.' s parents saw signs their son was flourishing on his own. He got a roommate who helped pay the bills. He loved his new job working as a host at Mars 2112, a theme restaurant in Schaumburg.

Things seemed to be going well for him, his parents thought, until the restaurant closed, the roommate moved out and the bills began to pile up. Life on his own wasn't as easy as the independent youth had imagined.

Slowly, G.J. and his parents began repairing their relationships. After a year of living apart, G.J. and his mother were becoming friends again. They hugged at Thanksgiving, a moment that must have meant something to him because he later mentioned it to his father. Elizabeth even agreed to let G.J. move back home until he could get on his feet again.

Doug Hopkinson took his son to dinner weeks before his death to celebrate his birthday on Dec. 14. They had an extraordinary exchange. Doug prodded G.J. to get his GED, apply his natural computer skills and get a job in which he could earn some money.

He warned his son one day he could wake up at age 40 and realize all that he hadn't accomplished. G.J. said he wouldn't live that long.

"That conversation just comes back to haunt me," Doug said. "He could have been anything he wanted to be. He was so smart. He was off the scale, but he never applied himself. He just wasn't interested in it. He wanted to grow up, and grow up fast."

G.J.' s parents, and many close friends, didn't know about his heroin use. It was uncharacteristic of him. He once detested those who used it, refusing to let them come over.

Elizabeth noticed G.J.' s weight loss, a common side effect of heroin use. He had dropped more than 50 pounds. But she attributed it to a 2-inch growth spurt and improper eating habits. Like most mothers, she loaded her son up with groceries when she saw him.

Even after her son's overdose death, she does not think of G.J. as a drug addict.

"It was for a short time," she said. "I think it was probably an escape for him. It was a way to get out of his own head because he was never too happy in there."

G.J. moved out in December 2000. By some accounts, he began using heroin about four months later. After eight months of use, he died, just one day before he was supposed to move back home.

His final journey

Things had been looking up in G.J.' s life. After months of financial struggle, he was coming home.

He sold his condo in four days. His parents began helping him move his things. G.J. had plans. The aspiring songwriter had been learning to play guitar. His friends had a band. After putting some money together, they planned to head west and tour the Portland area. His parents now plan to scatter his ashes there.

For the first time his parents could recall, G.J. seemed happy. In fact, he told his mother shortly before his death he was "overjoyed."

Zeke Mitchell, who lived with G.J. at the time, agreed his roommate had found some joy during this time. But he also still saw his friend's pain. G.J. had been searching for a reason to live, something to justify his existence. His insecurities never allowed him to accept how much he was loved.

"I feel underneath all of that there still remained some pain within him that he hadn't reached," Mitchell said. "He wasn't mending himself in the way he needed to."

Doug Hopkinson, who had seen his son about a week earlier, had planned to be at G.J.' s condo early Jan. 20 to help with the move. He never got the chance.

Police knocked on his door in Arlington Heights at 1:30 a.m. that Sunday. G.J. had died, they said. It was an apparent drug overdose. The father had grown used to police showing up on his doorstep. An image of a 6-year-old G.J. being escorted home by the police for the egging incident flashed in his head.

But he wasn't ready for this.

In the days that followed, G.J.' s parents pieced together what they could from friends' accounts.

On the night he died, he had taken the drug with a good friend who himself had relapsed. It was Zeke Mitchell who found the two.

Mitchell was well aware of his friend's heroin use. G.J. never hid it, though he knew Mitchell was opposed to drugs.

Mitchell never confronted G.J., nor did he try to shake some sense in him. He had gone down that path so many times with other friends and repeatedly had gotten hurt when they relapsed. He couldn't set himself up for the emotional roller coaster again.

Looking back, Mitchell said he had a feeling something bad would happen that night. He suspected G.J. had made a run into Chicago to get more heroin. His fears proved prophetic.

After coming home from work, Mitchell saw their friend stagger out of G.J.' s room. Mitchell stood outside the door for a few moments. After gathering enough strength, he went inside.

G.J. was lying on his bed. Mitchell took one look at his friend and fell into a sitting position. He paused, trying to gather more strength, then put out his hand.

"I reached out to touch him, and he was cold," Mitchell said. "I realized he was long gone."

G.J. was white and foaming at the mouth. Paramedics could not resuscitate him.

His parents believe the overdose was accidental. G.J. had plans. He wasn't thinking about dying. His journals and voice were filled with optimism. His relationships with his family were the strongest they'd been in years.

"My feeling is that he was probably just partying a little extra because he was coming home and he knew he would not have the freedom," Elizabeth Hopkinson said.

His parents don't blame anyone else for his death. G.J., they argue, was his own person. He wasn't easily influenced by peer pressure.

Many of those who loved him theorize G.J. couldn't handle the freedom he had sought for so long.

"The lifestyle of an adult surrounded by the ignorance of adolescence created that hole that he fell in to," said Rowe, his friend.

And G.J.' s parents suspect his somber personality was more than just teenage angst. They wonder if their son suffered from depression.

G.J. had lost two friends in recent years, both to suicide.

Elizabeth Hopkinson struggles with what she could have done differently. Doug isn't haunted by such demons. They tried everything, he says, but to no avail.

"I had no idea," Elizabeth said. "I never suspected anything was seriously wrong, especially in the end, because he was pulling himself up.

"My feeling was Greg was never going to cure cancer or change the world. I just wanted him to find some happiness in his life."

- Do you know of an area teen or young adult who died this year because of drug or alcohol abuse? Please let us know their names, towns and other details by calling Projects Editor Madeleine Doubek at (847) 427-4555 or e-mail mdoubek@@dailyherald.com.