Brandon V.

By Brandon's mom, Lisa

Brandon Vaughan

Brandon was a gifted athlete. He began playing hockey at age 4 and started playing travel hockey at age 6. Any sport that he wanted to play he excelled at. He was always "that kid" everyone wanted on their team for hockey, football, soccer, or golf. He had an infectious smile and a sense of humor that would always come out with witty one-liners. He was the guy all the girls wanted to date and took such pride in his appearance.

We started to notice a change in him around 8th grade. His interest went to skateboarding and his group of friends changed. His clothing went from American Eagle to camo shorts and hoodies. It was around this time that we believe he started experimenting with drugs. We caught him with a bag of Marijuana at a hockey tournament. He started losing interest in sports and wanted to hang out with friends playing video games.

We noticed him wanting to spend more and more time away from us. The more we tried the further away he went. Skipping school and bad grades. He barely graduated. Three DUIs and he lost his license. He was found with prescription Xanax, Klonopin, and Adderall that wasn't his. Numerous rehabilitations and we find out by accident he was using heroin; he was shooting up before he went in and as soon as he got out.

Looking back now we should have seen the signs of heroin use, but thought, “no...he's terrified of needles.” Two overdoses at home and we couldn't allow him back into our home. After his last rehab, there were the empty promises. Through everything, we never stopped believing in him. We could see that the addiction had overtaken our boy.

On April 16. 2020, there was a knock on our door at 10:18 am with three police officers at the door. All I could say is..."he's gone isn't he?” Our hearts are broken forever. We are on a mission to help parents not suffer the way we are and working with an amazing community addiction network. Our Brandon mattered...he is not just a statistic.