Zach was compassionate rooting for the underdog, reaching out to help others especially those that needed a friend. He loved music especially Lil’ Peep, hanging out with friends, video games, chicken nuggets, horror movies, chip dip and couches. Zach was industrious and dependable holding a part-time job from the age of 15. He graduated from Clovis North and CART schools in June, 2019. A couple of months before he died, Zach adopted Rosco, a spunky, cute French Bulldog puppy which brought him a lot of joy.

Zach was the center of our lives. We were both very involved parents. He was a Cub Scout, tried every sport, mostly liked school, enjoyed his friends. As a family, we traveled and vacationed. We exposed Zach to lots of places and experiences. We nurtured and loved him with all our heart.

We became aware of Zach’s addiction in March of 2019 toward the end of his senior year. As a child, he was diagnosed with ADD and later with depression. Depression often goes along with ADD. Lynn’s family has a history of addiction. ADD, depression and a family history of addiction created a trifecta propensity for the disease. While Zach made the choice to experiment with drugs, soon after, the drugs were no longer a choice for him. We started seeing changes in Zach during his teen years such as a change in friends, isolating when at home, moodiness and experimenting with weed. We sought help for Zach – counseling, medication for depression, etc. Looking back on it, we believe that Zach’s addiction to opioids began to take hold in the summer before his senior year.

In March 2019, Zach passed out at school. We contacted a local treatment center to get him assessed that night. The next day, we were told Zach had a serious problem and was addicted to Opana. Opana is an opioid much stronger than Oxycontin or up to 20x stronger when injected. In addition, Zach had experimented with other drugs such as Xanax, Oxy, Percocet, etc.

From the spring of 2019 until his death, Zach worked on his recovery. He sought treatment, struggled through relapses and was making real progress facing, by far, the biggest challenge of his life. Zach relapsed in early January and passed away on January 7, 2020. Zach had been warned about the danger of using when relapsing due to a decrease in his drug tolerance.

We know he believed that death by overdose would not happen to him, but it did on that Tuesday in the very early morning. The worry and concern we faced watching Zach struggle with his addiction was heart wrenching and painful for our family. It has now been replaced by an indescribable sense of loss knowing we will never see him again.