Recovering addict shares his story

Ben Chartier always loved sports. In high school, he was a state championship football running back. He hoped to play football for UW-La Crosse.

Kirk Gunderson loved sports, too. At Onalaska High School, he played hockey, football, and baseball. He also helped to coach a youth summer baseball league.

But Chartier and Gunderson faced challenges beyond the playing field.

They both suffered from drug addiction.

Chartier survived to tell his story. He’s now a senior at UW-La Crosse and will graduate this December.

Gunderson was not so lucky. After a battle with drug addiction, which spiraled into the stabbing of his father and brother, he was locked up in the La Crosse County Jail as a teenager. At the age of 17, still in jail, Gunderson took his own life.

Now, his mother Vicky serves as a messenger for Kirk. 

Ben Chartier and Vicky Gunderson were guest speakers for the “Athlete to Heroin Addict” presentation on Feb. 16 in the Fine Arts Center Recital Hall. The speech was the second presentation in Viterbo’s Safe Lecture Series.

Approximately 210 audience members filled the over-capacity hall, as nearly 40 listeners sat in the aisles and on stage.  

Chartier, now a volunteer at Coulee Council on Addictions, said his problems began in seventh grade when he experimented with marijuana and alcohol. He was expelled from school twice in middle and high school for possession of marijuana. 

When Chartier came back to school his junior year of high school, he was ready for a change, he said. But he tore his ACL (a knee ligament) in the first scrimmage of the football season.

 “I started taking Vicodin after my knee surgery, and I liked the feeling it gave me,” Chartier said. He began abusing Vicodin (used to treat moderate to severe pain) and his mother’s prescription for OxyContin (also used to treat pain). This led to an abuse of morphine and eventually heroin.

Kirk Gunderson’s drug abuse also developed as a result of his love for sports, Vicky Gunderson said. Kirk suffered at least nine concussions while playing sports throughout middle and early high school. The concussions began to cause short-term memory loss and difficulties in school. 

When Kirk was checked during a hockey game his sophomore year, he didn’t get up right away. “That was it,” Vicky said. “Hockey was done.”

Because Kirk’s main passion of hockey was taken away, he began smoking cigarettes, which led to trying marijuana, Vicky said. He also began drinking alcohol.

“He started out with a 3.0 GPA his junior year,” Vicky said. “By the end of that year, he had a 1.0.”

Vicky said she and her husband tried many avenues to help their son, including counseling. But in December of his junior year, he began to feel more and more depressed. As a trombone player, Kirk went on a trip with the school band. During the trip he snorted Valium (which can be used to treat anxiety) and then struck some of the chaperones while being restrained, Vicky said. Kirk was arrested for the incident and taken to the juvenile detention center for one night.

After that incident, Kirk was showing improvement, Vicky said. During the summer before his senior year, he was playing American Legion baseball and had even pitched a few games. But during Father’s Day weekend in June, when Vicky was out of town for a wedding, she received a phone call from Kirk.

“He said, ‘Mom, my life’s over,” Vicky said. Kirk had stabbed his father and younger brother, Jay. Jay immediately called 911.Vicky’s husband flat-lined on the way to the hospital in the ambulance but survived.

After speaking with Kirk, Vicky rushed home to La Crosse, arrived at the hospital, and found her husband with “more tubes coming out of him than you can imagine,” she said.  

Jay recovered within a few weeks. “The first night, he asked when he could play baseball again,” Vicky said. “He also said, ‘Mom, don’t be mad at Kirk. That was not my brother tonight.”

To this day, Vicky said she still isn’t sure what drove Kirk to stab his father and brother. She found out that he had been abusing OxyContin, sometimes taking 13 pills a day.

Because Kirk had just turned 17, he was considered an adult in Wisconsin. Kirk was charged with two counts of attempted murder and sent to the La Crosse County jail.

His family visited Kirk as often as possible, but he was still restless, Vicky said.

On Dec. 27, 2005, Kirk took his own life in jail. 

 “I look at Ben [Chartier], and think, this could be Kirk,” Vicky said. “If he had held on for one more night, he could have made it. I think it just became too much, trying to survive and fit in. It was the holiday season, he was 17 and sitting in a jail cell…it was wearing on him, and he lost hope.”

Chartier did make it through his battle with drugs and is alive to tell his story. He has been clean for two years but traveled a long road to recover from his addiction, he said. 

 “I always wanted to try to get higher and higher,” Chartier said. “I was spending $200 a day on drugs. But as a standout athlete in high school, I never felt like I could have an addiction. After a successful high school football career, he was accepted at UW-La Crosse and tried out for the football team.”

Chartier was gray-shirted his freshman year and did not play football in order to preserve a year of eligibility. The following summer, he was still addicted to heroin. 

“I went to practice that fall of my sophomore year, and I was having such bad withdrawals that I had to quit the team,” Chartier said. He finally accepted his addiction, learned more about it, and began treatment.

“Now, I want to make a difference in young people’s lives, especially athletes, Chartier said. “This could happen to anyone.”

Vicky echoed Chartier’s words. “Not a person in here was born thinking they would be addicted to drugs someday,” she said.               

To educate people about drug addiction, depression, and suicide, Vicky said she has spoken at several engagements in the community, including Holmen High School Diversity Day. This March, she will speak at a juvenile justice conference in Madison.

“Passion is great, but it can also get you in trouble,” Vicky said. “Whatever you love – have something else as a backup, so if it gets taken away from you, it doesn’t take your identity.”

Chris Millner, a junior English major from Mundelein, Ill., attended the speech with his teammates on Viterbo’s men’s basketball team. Millner told Lumen that hearing stories showed him how quickly life can go downhill.

“A good athlete can make one bad decision and lose control,” Millner said. “As an athlete myself, it hits close to home.”