Out of the darkness: Windsor family overcomes mom's addiction, death

WINDSOR — Julianna Piz remembers her mother asking her for drugs — though she couldn't understand what her mom meant at the time.

She remembers stopping at a fast-food restaurant in what her dad describes as "not the best part" of Greeley. It was there where her mom passed out at the table after downing a handful of pain pills when Julianna was 4 or 5 years old. 

She remembers the time when her mom fell asleep at the wheel. Julianna's older sister had to grab the wheel to keep the family's car on the road.

"That's why I always asked my friends (for rides)," she said. "I didn't want to drive with her. You never knew — Is she going to fall asleep? Is she going to swerve off the road?"

When asked about good memories of her mom, Jane, Julianna briefly smiles as she talks about her mom staying up late, cleaning the house with all the lights on. 

"I thought that was so cool," she said. "I loved that." 

Her dad, Dale, provides the context that Julianna was too young to understand at the time.

"(Jane) would get tired of being asleep, so she'd go out searching for meth," he said. "She'd do some meth, which would keep her up for a couple days, then her back would be really bad, so she'd be pounding the pain pills." 

That cycle went on until it stopped.

Five years ago, Jane Piz's battle with addiction ended. It was her family that was left to find a way to move out of the darkness.

FIRST CLASS: Meet the 12 students named 2017 First Class Scholars

Today, Julianna, 17, is a senior at Windsor High School. On Oct. 14, she will be among the 12 future first-generation college students recognized as 2017 First Class Scholars by the Coloradoan, the University of Northern Colorado and their community partners.

Piz doesn't yet know where she'll go to college, or what she'll study. But she does know that continuing her education represents another step forward for her family.

"I don't want (drug addiction) for my life or for my future family's life," she said. "... What I went through is not what other people should have to go through."

A tightening grasp

Jane's opioid addiction started with a bottle of prescription pills meant to help with her back pain.  

"I blame the doctors as much as anybody," Dale said. "Yes, she's very manipulative, but all they've got to do is say no." 

A few years into her addiction, Jane was diagnosed with bipolar disorder after she faked her own suicide and later made a similar threat. 

The first time, she called Dale, telling him she had found his gun and bullets. He heard a shot, which in reality went into the couple's waterbed. 

Then he heard his oldest daughter screaming.

Dale feared the worst, but Jane was alive and wondering what the commotion was about when Windsor police arrived at the home.

Jane was arrested, and the family began to realize something more than addiction was at play. 

More:A hidden horror: Heroin deaths rise in Colorado

To keep his three children safe, Dale followed advice of social services and kicked his wife out of the house for months. During that time, she called and threatened suicide. 

Medication was prescribed to help manage Jane's bipolar diagnosis. Though it cut the bottom off Jane's lows, it also took away the "super happy, super wonderful" highs. 

"Although you've lost the person (in the lows), you're with a robot," Dale said. "It's a really horrific disease." 

Jane soon started taking opioids again "to feel right, to feel normal," going back on what Dale calls "the death spiral." 

A self-proclaimed "Mommy's girl," Julianna said she was "so blinded by it." She paused to laugh as she remembered "another good memory" — watching TV in her mom's bed while Jane tickled her back.

But on April 2, 2012, Julianna could no longer be oblivious. 

The day it ended

Dale fell asleep on the couch watching TV. He woke up at 3 a.m., did the dishes and ambled upstairs. Jane was slumped down next to the bed — a position familiar to Dale after 15 years of dealing with his wife's addiction. 

He picked her up and put her in bed, like he had so many nights before, and went to sleep. 

The next morning, he realized Jane was in "the exact same spot that I put her." Her body was cold. She was gone.

Julianna, who was 12 at the time, had a friend over that day. The pair woke up to police in her room. 

"It was terrible," Julianna said. "She shouldn't have had to be there." 

Julianna was still in her room when someone asked if she wanted to see her mom. 

"No," she told them. "I don't want to see her like that." 

Members of the coroner's office started looking at all the prescriptions Jane had and "just shook their head," Dale remembers. 

More:Fort Collins police to carry Narcan amid increasing overdoses

They later ruled that Jane died from a seizure disorder complicated by opiate intoxication. 

"I don't know if you know how seizures work, but it's like a computer that locks up," Dale said. "You've gotta reboot it. When it reboots, everything starts back up again — like your breathing and your heart. Everything.

"Because she was messed up on pain pills, when (her body) went to reboot, it didn't reboot. Pain pills didn't kill her — the seizure did — but it didn't allow her body to come back." 

Moving forward

Dale remembers the preacher at Jane's funeral talking about bipolar disorder. At first, he was shocked. 

For years, he had protected the family's secret to avoid embarrassment and to keep his daughters' friends and sports teammates from knowing. 

In that moment, Dale realized he had been "swimming with a backpack full of rocks." 

"All of a sudden (at the funeral) it was like someone took this backpack of rocks off my back," he said. "Everybody in the world now knows what I've gone through. Everybody sees what I've been through, and I don't have to deal with it anymore." 

He doesn't want to disrespect his wife's memory. Even after all of the struggle and all the pain, "I still loved her," he said. 

"She was really deep down a wonderful person — loving and caring. She had so much good and joy in her to have the drugs and the mental (health disorder) take her life away."

His one focus during years of darkness was the couple's children.

The girls were in sports, which kept them away from the worst of it all and helped them "focus on something besides the negative." 

"My life was dedicated to one purpose — to get these kids through," he said. "That was it. Whatever it took." 

That hasn't changed since Jane's death. Dale said he's never missed "a single gymnastic meet, a single track meet. Nothing." 

"Not one," Julianna added.

Julianna previously participated in competitive cheerleading, gymnastics and track — even concurrently overlapping the three sports while still working to keep her grades high.

"My good grades are the result of sleepless nights, time spent after school and during lunch with my teachers, and the extra effort that I give into everything I do," she wrote in her application for the First Class program. 

Before tearing her ACL and meniscus during a floor routine during a league championship event last fall, Julianna was a varsity gymnast and state vault champion. She also competed at state and regional competitions for USA Gymnastics.

Though her personal gymnastics career was halted by her injury, she's still involved in the sport as a children's gymnastics coach.

Once she recovers, Julianna hopes to stay involved with track her senior year — a sport in which she's been a varsity and letter athlete. 

Dale is the epitome of a proud dad. He's quick to show cellphone pictures of newspaper clippings of Julianna running track and a video of her doing a gymnastics vault prior to an injury that took her out of the sport. 

He's more than happy to talk about another vault that helped her team go to state — the one she "pulled out of her you-know-what."

All the while, Julianna shakes her head and puts her face in her heads. 

"Dad, stop," she pleads. 

This story continues after the photo.

Get help

If you or a loved one struggling with mental health, substance abuse or emotional issues, Colorado Crisis Services offers immediate, confidential support through: a toll-free hotline, 1-844-493-TALK (8255); texting TALK to 38255; and 24/7 walk-in services. Local walk-in crisis centers are available at 1217 Riverside Ave., in Fort Collins and 982 12th St., in Greeley. Visit coloradocrisisservices.org to learn more.