In The Enquirer's special report, "Seven Days of Heroin," we followed Lizzie Hamblin whose son, Scotty, went missing. Scotty agreed to talk to us from the Campbell County Detention Center, where he is serving the remainder of his sentence. The Enquirer/Carrie Cochran
What we reported: In The Enquirer's special report, "Seven Days of Heroin," we followed Kim Hill and Lizzie Hamblin, two mothers whose sons both battled heroin addiction. Hill's son, Tommy, died that week. And Hamblin's son, Scotty, went missing.
He wakes up. He goes to chow. He plays cards. He reads Robert Green's "The Art of Seduction." He goes to sleep.
He wakes up.
These are Scotty Hamblin's days today. And his tomorrows, too, until his release from the Campbell County Detention Center in early 2018.
This summer, his mother, Lizzie Hamblin, didn't know what Scotty was doing with his days. She didn't know where he was. Her 24-year-old son wasn't returning her calls, her texts, her Facebook messages.
She feared he was using heroin again.
For one week this July, she didn't know if Scotty was alive.
Lizzie shared her worry with the world as part of our "Seven Days of Heroin" report. Her and Scotty's story was also Kim and Tommy's story. Kim Hill's son, Tommy, died in Newport on a Monday, the first day of our project. He was 34.
The two women were longtime friends. The boys had been friends since childhood.
Tommy, who was in recovery for a year, was Scotty's sponsor. Scotty disappeared after he learned of Tommy's overdose.
"I don’t really know where I was mentally," Scotty said from Campbell County jail in December. "I think part of it was I was on parole, I was dealing with the things they were wanting me to do, stuff with my family going on. I had a lot going on – and I won’t lie – I guess I just wanted to shut this off."
Seven Days of Heroin: Missing son found, two mothers continue to heal
In 2014, Scotty was arrested for heroin possession in the first degree.
"In a weird way, I wasn't arrested, I was rescued," he says now.
He was sentenced to three years and later paroled. After violating the terms of his release, Scotty went to the Campbell County jail and is expected to serve through March.
"I want to move on in life," he said.
He knows what he doesn't want his life to look like. But what he wants it to look like is not as clear.
He's just taking it day by day, he says.
He knows he wants to be able to listen to music in the morning. He wants to go camping in Red River Gorge on the weekend. And he wants to stay sober during it all.
He now thinks about being his true self again. Someone who is funny and kind. Someone who loves and loves deeply. Not who he was that week in July.
"I want to get on my feet," he said. "I am 24. I am in my prime. I kind of just want to live life. There is a lot out there that I haven't gotten to do yet."
After his mother shared his story, Scotty said he wanted to be able to defend himself, explain his actions. He is uncomfortable with his struggle, his pain being so public.
At first, he was mad at his mother. But he soon realized that "she just wants what is best for me."
And if being so visible benefits the community, if it makes it better for just one person battling addiction, that will make his part of it worth it, he said.
"I got friends out there that are dying every day," he said.
In the next seven days of the heroin epidemic, at least 180 people in Greater Cincinnati will overdose and 18 will die. Babies will be born to addicted mothers. Parents will go to jail. Children will end up in foster care. This is normal now.
Lizzie's story
In late July, Lizzie Hamblin found a note from Scott. He had placed it, almost hidden, on top of her refrigerator in their Crescent Springs apartment.
"Momma, I'm sorry for bein so mean lately ... I love you," it reads. "Thank you for bein the best mom ever and bein here for me I love you so much. I love you. I'm sorry. I promise to get (a) job and help you. Sorry Momma."
She kept reaching out to him. The unanswered calls. The unanswered texts. The unanswered messages. Every night, every day. That note was often the only message she had from him.
Lizzie told us in July that she prayed his parole officer would find Scotty and send him to jail so he would at least be safe. So Lizzie would at least know where he was.
A couple weeks later, a neighbor spotted Scotty near his sister's apartment, Lizzie said. The authorities found him there. And took him to jail.
Scotty was released at the end of October, she said, and he came home with his mother.
Lizzie went to work the next day. When she returned from her shift serving at a restaurant, Scotty was passed out on the living room floor, she said.
He wasn't responding to Lizzie, but he was gritting his teeth. He was breathing.
Scotty isn't dead, she thought. The worst didn't happen. Not today.
She got him upright, on the bed. And then she waited and watched him through the night.
Lizzie called the parole and probation office Monday morning. "He's using again," she said.
Scotty hadn't been out for 48 hours. He's been back in jail since.
Today, Lizzie doesn't call him there. She doesn't write letters. She's visited, just once.
"I love him, but I'm not going to love him to death," she said in December.
"I don't love him less. This time, I am mad. I'm not going to let him hurt me like that anymore. ... My kids always come first, but I also have to have my life again. Whatever strength I gave him, I am taking it back."
She is sleeping, eating a whole hamburger in one sitting – things she didn't do when Scotty was missing this summer.
She's having fun at work again, too.
One day this fall, a woman and her family came into the Newport restaurant where Lizzie serves. They came from Dayton. And this woman came to see her.
After they finished the meal, the woman stayed behind to speak with Lizzie. She read Lizzie's story and she needed help.
Her son struggled with addiction. She asked Lizzie, "What should I do?"
"Get a hold of it now because you don't want it to be too late," Lizzie told her. She gave this woman some resources, numbers to call. They connected on Facebook.
"For some reason, I can't reach Scotty like that, but I want to," Lizzie said. "So if I can reach out and help one more person to help their child then I feel like I am helping Scotty in some way."
Kim's story
Kim Hill prays for her friends Lizzie and Scotty. She says their names as she spins the rosary she now wears on her wrist, a recent gift from a friend.
Hill's friends, like Lizzie and the woman who made her the bracelet, support her, she said.
They call. They visit. They contributed some $2,300, $20 or so at a time, to help her pay for her son Tommy's funeral July 17.
She's found still more support from women she's never met. Every morning, she checks a Facebook page for a group called "Moms of Angels Gone Too Soon" for women who have lost children.
One woman recently posted about how she couldn't bring herself to put up a Christmas tree, how she couldn't attend her family's Thanksgiving meal.
"It makes me feel less alone," Hill said.
And since her story went public in September, even a mundane shopping trip can turn into a moment.
Recently a woman approached Hill in the aisles at the dollar store.
Tommy helped her daughter get into sober living a while back, she said to Hill. And her daughter is still doing well. “If it wasn’t for your son, my daughter might not be here," she said. "And I want to say thank you."
Tommy died in his Newport apartment. The coroner's report revealed he died because of fentanyl – a powerful synthetic opiate that either is mixed into heroin or sold as is on the streets. He also had an enlarged heart.
In September, Hill moved into the apartment where her son she called Tom Tom spent his last hours. She sleeps in his bed.
"I feel closer to him there," she said. "I can't explain it. I feel his presence there."
There are the good days and bad days. There are the days when she can laugh about him dressing up as an elf on Christmas last year.
There are the days when she can't stop thinking about what she should have done differently.
Then there are the days she can't even talk about her son.
His ashes are in a cabinet in the living room. His hat, his shoes, his knife share the shelves. A wooden cross his older brother crafted hangs above.
"He's with me now and I feel it," she said. Tom Tom will always be with her, she said.
When she dies, he will be buried with her.