WAUKESHA - A group of fresh-faced young people ages 16 to 21 is gathered in an industrial park office building. They are sitting in a waiting room laughing, catching up and sharing the things they have in common.

One of the things they have in common is an insidious addiction. For some it is powerful painkillers, so-called synthetic heroin. For others it is the heroin itself.
 
A cheerful, bright-eyed 21-year-old named Melissa says she is clean now, but allows that she once lived for her frequent injections of heroin. She says it wasn't hard to get hooked because the nasty stuff is available everywhere.
 
"You can't stop," she says grimly. "It is so hard to stop."
 
Once she made the decision to get clean, cold-turkey was the most nauseating, gut-wrenching awfulness she's ever endured.
 
"It's like ten times worse than the worst flu anybody could ever imagine having by far," she says emphatically. "You hurt."
 
Melissa and the other young people here all participate in the "Your Choice" program. Started by the family of a young addict, Your Choice sends recovering addicts out to talk to young people about the risks posed by drugs.
 
Sixteen-year-old Ricky wants to tell everyone he meets to avoid drug use. He got hooked on synthetic heroin when he was 15. He says heroin and the pain killers that lead to heroin are available from friends everywhere. His best friend talked him into using.
 
"I was like, 'my best friend did it and he's still alive, I'll be all right," Ricky says.
 
But, he wasn't all right. He was hooked. The hardest part about getting clean has been avoiding the circle of people he used with. They are still out there and still using.
 
"They come up to me still," he says. 
 
Drug counselor Jim Pearson says the use of heroin boils down to economics. The stuff is affordable.
 
"It's the cheaper high in the long run," Pearson says solemnly.