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RUDY THOMAS

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RUDY THOMAS

Jamie’s sister, Arlyn, drew the symbol on this necklace
as a tribute to her brother and had it tattooed on her.
It is a half-moon of music notes, and each star has
one of his initials (JRD). “I think it was Arlyn’s way
of knowing Jamie is still watching over her.”

— LISA DANIELS

never fit in. Maybe he was depressed. I do
know that he suffered from depression for a
while before his death.”
She does know that at age16, Jamie gave a
self-diagnosis to a therapist as having ADD
and asked for Adderall. “He did not have
ADD,” Daniels says. “He eventually told me he
intentionally answered the questions wrong
on the ADD test. It was that easy. He was
struggling with something at 16, but Adderall
was not the answer; it may have been the
beginning of something terrible.”
Jamie continued to take Adderall through

college. His family doesn’t know when he
turned to opiates. “They were easily obtain-
able on campus and, by the time he gradu-
ated, he couldn’t stop,” she says.
She watched him try to detox himself sev-
eral times. On three occasions, he was taken
to the emergency room during an acute crisis,
only to be discharged hours later with no
long-term plan. They finally found a therapist
Jamie liked, who guided him toward getting
the medical help he needed.
During his most difficult crisis to date,
Jamie called his therapist who recommended

he go directly to the emergency room to be
admitted to a 12-day detox program.
The hospital let him out two days early.
“From there, they wanted Jamie to move
into a sober living facility here in Michigan,
but after speaking with Jamie’s therapist, we
agreed to send him to a private rehab center
in Florida.”
Jamie, still under his father’s health insurance,
went to Palm Beach County, Fla., for treatment.
He first spent a month at the Beachway Therapy
Center, then moved on to a sober living house
with a strong reputation in Delray.

jn

ABOVE: Lisa Daniels
is determined to get
young people the help
they need to battle
addiction in honor of
her late son, Jamie
Daniels.

March 1 • 2018

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