ALFRED — They were a typical American family, living in a suburb of Boston – a dad, a mom and their two sons. The boys played sports; baseball was a favorite. Life was good.

And then it wasn’t.

Opiates – heroin – took the life of one son earlier this year and until recently, was a constant presence in the life of the other.

Kathy and Mike Cerullo moved to Alfred with their sons a few years ago. Derek, 28, died of an overdose March 29. Their younger son is in jail, charged with burglary in his need to feed his drug addiction.

And so the couple copes, as best they can.

What has helped, said Kathy Cerullo, is Nar-Anon, a 12-step program for families and friends of people addicted to narcotics.

She began attending a program in Old Orchard Beach in February, before Derek succumbed to an overdose. Just as she had often urged her son to get involved with Narcotics Anonymous, he urged her to get involved with Nar- Anon, and so she did.

It helped before his death, she said, and it has certainly helped in its aftermath.

“If is was not for this group, I don’t know where we’d be,” she said. “With the support I’ve received, it gave me something to hold on to – hope, strength – which I didn’t have before. I was lost.”

Now, because of that help, she’s passing it on, starting a group in Alfred to offer support in this area of York County. The group will hold its initial meeting at 7 p.m. Nov. 15 in the Community Room at York County Jail, 1 Layman Way (off Route 4) in Alfred, and will continue to meet at that time each Sunday night.

Folks attend anonymously; Cerullo agreed to speak to the Journal Tribune to help get the word out about the new group.

The family had been coping with Derek’s addiction for 10 years or longer. Derek had undergone a series of surgeries at 15, and was given a narcotic medication to ease his pain. As the years passed, he moved on to heroin. And he tried to conquer it many times, his mother said. At one point, he was clean for a year. There were several stints at rehab facilities and previous overdoses. There was jail and bail. Heroin claimed him, and eventually, it killed him.

Derek wrote his mother a letter in early March, just weeks before he died, outlining his addiction. The trigger for him, he wrote, was the first time he took the pain medication to help cope with his surgery so many years before.

“That day I fell in love with opiates,” his mother read from the letter.

Derek was clean when the family moved to Maine, and then she noticed a change in attitude and other clues, like money missing from the home. The spiral continued. He went to Massachusetts in late March, and was found on a rooftop, dead from an overdose.

Cerullo said she felt compelled to start the group here; that something, a higher power, was calling to her, telling her to move ahead with the plan. She spoke to York County Sheriff Bill King following a recent heroin forum in Sanford and the idea of forming a Nar-Anon group began to take shape.

“We support the idea,” said King.

Cerullo said Sanford Police and others have been supportive as well.

She urged family members and friends of addicts to attend and spoke of the love and support she’s received at meetings.

“(Nar-Anon) has given me hope for my younger son, and hope for myself,” she said from her Alfred home Thursday. “I’ve learned how to cope, and not be an enabler.”

— Senior Staff Writer Tammy Wells can be contacted at 324-4444 (local call in Sanford) or 282-1535, ext. 327 or [email protected].

Nar-Anon:

• A new chapter of Nar-Anon, a 12-step program designed for families and friends of drug addicts, will begin meeting at 7 p.m., Sunday, Nov. 15 in the community room at York County Jail, 1 Layman Way (off Route 4) in Alfred. • A Nar-Anon chapter meets at 6 p.m. Wedesdays at the United Methodist Church, 6 Fountain St., Old Orchard Beach. Narcotics Anomymous meetings, designed for addicts, meet at these times and lcoations: • 7 p.m. Mondays, St.David’s Episcopal Church, 138 York St., Kennebunk. • 7 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays, Notre Dame Spiritual Center at the Brothers of Christian Instruction, 147 Shaker Hill Road, Alfred. • 7 p.m. Tuesdays, Fridays and Saturdays, Second Congregational Church, 19 Crescent St., Biddeford. • 7:30 p.m. Wednesdays, United Methodist Church, 6 Fountain Ave., Old Orchard Beach. • 7:30 p.m. Wednesdays, United Universalist Church, 5 Lebanon St., Sanford.