Stoughton Native Represents Hope in HBO Documentary on Heroin

All the stories had a similar start. None of the seven people interviewed during the HBO documentary “Heroin: Cape Cod, USA,” including a Stoughton native, intended to become a heroin addict. Many of them started drinking alcohol and smoking marijuana as teens, others picked up an injury and became addicted to opioids. None of them liked where they were, but the challenge for all of them is fighting a deadly addiction and feeling that one person in the 77-minute documentary described as “Christmas morning.”

Nicole, who went by Colie, wrote for the Today Show that she grew up in Stoughton. In the documentary, she didn’t get the most screen time, but she represented a symbol of hope that addiction could be defeated.

At first, she is at first seen in a Cape Cod home explaining why she drugs, describing her addiction not as a way get high, but to escape life.

“I got sick of everything and didn’t give a s**t about anything and my solution to not giving a s**t about anything was to get high,” she said.

The next time Colie was seen, she was preparing to get high one last time before checking into detox, explaining that everybody gets high before detox because, “it’s a freebie.”

By the end of the documentary two subjects died from overdoses, one disappeared, and others continued their struggle. Colie, however, appeared to be a different person when she was seen on her 90th day sober.

“When I went to detox, I knew what I wanted, I wanted to be clean, I wanted to get back to work, I wanted to get back to meetings and seeing my friends that genuinely care about me and are not going to get mad because I’m not giving them their drugs as soon as they want them,” she said. “I knew what to expect and I knew it’s worth it, it’s worth every minute, 100 percent of it. I have no complaints which speaks volumes to how good my life is right now. If you talked to me three years ago, I would complain about anything. Now, I don’t complain about anything.”

As of the airing, Colie has been clean for a year. On the Today Show’s website, she writes that she is now a manager at a recovery house and has two jobs working at Friendly’s and CVS.

Most noticeably, the person seen at the beginning of the documentary is gone.

“It’s hard to complain about something when you’re too busy being happy because you went so long without it,” she said as the screen faded to black.

“Heroin: Cape Cod, USA” can be viewed on HBO, HBOGO, HBONOW, and through On Demand cable services.

Photo Credit: HBO