The parents of a young woman addicted to heroin were not sure their daughter was alive until they saw a segment on CNN about homeless addicts in Boston.
Meghan DiGiacomo was profiled by the cable news network during Anderson Cooper’s program earlier this week.
The report by CNN correspondent Gary Tuchman was about Boston’s infamous ‘Methadone Mile’ – a stretch of downtown that has become a haven for homeless heroin addicts.
DiGiacomo and another addict interviewed by CNN told their stories of how they were unable to wean themselves off of heroin despite many attempts at rehabilitation.
When Paul DiGiacomo and his wife, Julie Chandler, saw Meghan DiGiacomo on television, they knew for certain that she was alive.
A CNN report about heroin addiction in America was watched by two parents who saw their daughter being interviewed. Paul DiGiacomo (left) and his wife were unsure if their daughter, Meghan DiGiacomo (right), was alive before they watched the segment
Paul DiGiacomo even took the extreme step of joining his daughter on the streets of Boston
He said he would also live as a homeless person alongside his daughter until she agreed to get help for her addiction. Paul DiGiacomo (left), Meghan DiGiacomo (center), and CNN’s Gary Tuchman (right) are seen in the image above
‘I’m never giving up on Meghan,’ her mother, Julie Chandler (above), said. ‘She won’t die. She can’t’
‘I’m never giving up on Meghan,’ Chandler said. ‘She won’t die. She can’t.’
Paul DiGiacomo even took the extreme step of joining his daughter on the streets of Boston.
He said he would also live as a homeless person alongside his daughter until she agreed to get help for her addiction.
Meghan DiGiacomo told CNN she lost a boyfriend who like her had overdosed on heroin.
Meghan DiGiacomo was profiled by the cable news network during Anderson Cooper’s program earlier this week
She was living on the streets of Boston’s notorious ‘Methadone Mile’ – an area of downtown that has become a haven for heroin addicts
DiGiacomo and another addict interviewed by CNN told their stories of how they were unable to wean themselves off of heroin despite many attempts at rehabilitation
Meghan DiGiacomo told CNN she lost a boyfriend who like her had overdosed on heroin
‘I lost the love of my life,’ she said. ‘We both overdosed and when I woke up, he was dead’
‘I lost the love of my life,’ she said.
‘We both overdosed and when I woke up, he was dead.’
When asked if she was afraid to die, Meghan DiGiacomo said: ‘Not really afraid. Honestly, sometimes, it just seems easier.’
She was surprised one morning to see a visitor had arrived in the Boston neighborhood where she was sleeping on the street.
‘I was literally sleeping here and I woke up to my dog licking my face and I looked, and my dad’s like, “Alright, we’re all moved in”,’ she said.
‘What are you doing here?’ she asked her father.
‘I’m not leaving until you get help or go to the hospital,’ he told her.
‘My kids are everything to me, they really are,’ Paul DiGiacomo told CNN.
When asked if his daughter was breaking his heart, he said: ‘Of course she is.’
Ironically, even though Paul moved out to the street to help his daughter, it is Meghan that is worried.
‘I feel alright for myself sleeping on the street, but I check on him 100 times during the night,’ she said.
‘That’s who I am. I always take care of other people before I take care of myself.’
‘She wants to help others before she’ll help herself,’ Paul DiGiacomo said of his daughter.
Though Meghan DiGiacomo said she wants to recover, she keeps putting it off.
‘One moment I really want to [go to rehab], and the next moment I say to myself, “I’ll go later”.
‘I’m a procrastinator.’
In the meantime, she and her father have taken up ‘residence’ in a neighborhood where a dozen other heroin addicts live.
‘Methadone Mile’ is a stretch of Massachusetts Avenue south of downtown where methadone clinics, sober homes and other drug treatment services have grown in the shadow of Boston Medical Center, New England’s busiest trauma hospital.
Billy Donovan is another addict who has been sleeping on the streets in that area. He, too, was interviewed by CNN in the same segment.
Before the story aired, his mother also did not know if he was alive.
It’s an area meant for healing that has instead become the city’s most visible symbol of the national opioid crisis.
Mayor Marty Walsh promised to clean up the notorious drug haven last year, launching initiatives to break up the dealing and connect people to treatment.
But the slow pace of change has frustrated residents and business owners, who credit the city for its efforts but believe more dramatic steps need to be taken.