Lori Dodge, of Oceanside, told an inspirational story, of her two children who were addicts but who have both recovered. One of the most difficult things for her was reconciling how she could have not one, but two children who became addicted to heroin, she said. Like Priest, Dodge said she missed the signs — until she realized that she had no more forks in the house. Her children, it turned out, had sold her silverware to get money to feed their addiction.

“You don’t believe it at first,” Dodge said. “Then you get angry.” She described trying to hide the addictions from friends and neighbors as they began to affect all aspects of her life. She told of shopping far from home, fearing that she would run into a friend who might ask about her family. And she described leaving her house unlocked when she left, because it would take time to open it with a key when she returned — time when she might be seen by a neighbor, who might come over to visit.

Another mother called her one day, she said, to offer her a spray antidote for acute heroin overdoses. She said she didn’t want the kit because she was too angry about her situation. Later, she said, she learned the drug was Narcan.

“The end of my story is that my children have come back to me,” Dodge said. “They are happy and healthy.” One of them, her son, Steven, also appeared at the conference. He now runs an anti-drug program for young people called the SLATE project, which stands for Saving Lives from Addiction through Treatment & Education.

Mangano and Bellone both spoke of how their respective counties would staff a new joint task force on heroin. Each county Police Department will provide four detectives and a supervisor to the team, and staffing will increase as needed, they said. In addition, the counties will work with the federal government in an effort to eradicate the sale of heroin.

Heroin, Mangano said, “is poison, and we have to root out the cause of this. In this case, it’s the dealers.”

A high point of the event was a candlelight ceremony, in which attendees lit candles and stood in silence for a moment in remembrance of those lost to heroin.