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Johnston man who's lost 2 brothers, dad to overdoses provides insight
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
You won’t meet many people who’ve experienced drug addiction and overdose death more personally than Aaron Repko of Johnston Township.
Repko, 28, has lived through his own drug addictions and the overdose deaths of two of his three brothers, as well as his father.
He was interviewed on the front steps of the Trumbull County Jail recently after being released from a six-month jail stay for a probation violation.
It’s not a coincidence that Trumbull County’s first spike in overdose deaths was about a decade ago when oxycontin hit the area, killing a record number of people.
Repko, who attended Maplewood schools, was using drugs at about that time, following in the footsteps of his older brothers and parents.
His brother, Kevin M. Repko, 21, overdosed on methadone and Xanax and died in November 2006, after the death of his father, Kevin A. Repko, in May 2004.
“It all started with the pill epidemic [oxycontin] Roxicet, Percocet, Valium, Xanax, whatever, you know. Kids started off on smoking marijuana and they upgrade. You want to feel what the next high buzz is, you know, so you moved on,” he explained.
“In 2010, they took the Oxy 80s, they took all these pills off the street, so they basically set people up to get smack [heroin]. What are you going to do? Are you going to be dope sick all day or are you going to get a bag of heroin and feel good so you can go to work and do what you gotta do that day? It’s sad to say, but that’s what people did.
“And it’s not like it was 10 years ago. You used to shoot a bag of heroin, pass out and wake up a couple hours later feeling like an idiot. Nowdays they are taking that stuff for elephants [carfentanil] and stuff. I haven’t touched heroin in over a year. It’s not my thing anymore.”
Another of his brothers, Jesse, 33, died of a heroin overdose in September 2014, when the heroin problem exploded.
“I’m not going to touch anything because I know what it is right now. I had a friend who got out [of jail] a few days ago. I guess he snorted some dope and he OD’d in his mom’s front yard. Thank God they found him. He’s got a newborn son, too, that’s the sad part. If he would have died, that kid wouldn’t have had a father.
“Me, I was the youngest of four boys and always wanted to be like my other brothers. What they did, I did.”
Aaron said he’s been surprised at some of the people he knows from school who “didn’t even really even drink, and they are on heroin now. It blew my mind that they were even doing anything. I’m talking about track stars and everything, they’re shooting heroin now.”
As for how people got the pills they took, Repko said, “Mostly from adults. Mostly from parents that were behind on their bills or something. ... I remember being 14 and my brother’s girlfriend’s mom gave him pills to sell. You’re handing a kid over 120 [Oxycontin and Percocet pills] three scripts to sell, and curiosity always gets the cat. And the thing is once you start, there’s no stopping.”
Repko says the biggest decision is whether to start using.
“You can have a good life or a bad life. It’s up to you if you want to pick up and use. You already know the consequences of the game before you start playing it.”