Barbara Ferry's series on the damage inflicted on these communities and their families begins this way:

To call them heroin addicts doesn't take into account that they're also moms, dads, uncles, cousins, friends and neighbors.

Those addicted to drugs in Northern New Mexico, those dealing drugs and those trying to make the arrests all might live in the same village, might have gone to school together and might worship together at the same church.

Addicts, for the most part, don't die on the street corners but in the homes of friends or family. In the past three weeks, two men who died of apparent drug overdoses in Cordova were friends—one overdosing the day he attended the other's rosary.

One narcotics officer assigned to Rio Arriba County went to a baby christening and saw two men he arrested for drug trafficking out on bond. The two were also there for a baptism. This same officer knows what it's like to live among drug dealers: He once draped a bullet-proof vest over his baby's crib after someone fired bullets at his home.

Unlike in larger cities, one addict who lives near Espanola says he doesn't care if he goes to jail but does not want his kids to ever see him injecting heroin.

In some big cities or suburbs, addicts might cash in electronics gear, fancy cars or second mortgages for drugs. In Northern New Mexico, Debbie Borrego and her husband Floyd—at one time spending $200 a day on their drug habit—sold off their land and their cattle in Los Luceros to pay for heroin.

Unlike wealthier communities, many worry that the rural areas of Northern New Mexico, with the highest rate of drug-related deaths in the United States, lack the resources to solve the epidemic: Some who need treatment have no phone or car.

'We were five brothers; now we are only four'

Mark Lujan liked beer and he liked heroin. He loved to mix the two.

On Nov. 30, 1998, the combination proved deadly.

"We were five brothers; now we're only four," says his brother Martin Lujan. "I think he just didn't want to live anymore."

Mark Lujan was found dead at age 37 in his small trailer behind his mother's home in Espanola. He had been playing cards with his mother, who is elderly and confined to a wheelchair.

"He was teaching her to play poker, but she noticed he was trembling and shaking," Martin Lujan says. "So she told him to go home and get some sleep."

Mark had a long history of alcoholism. "A six-pack for Mark was six 40-ounce bottles," Martin says. Shortly before his death, he had seemed more depressed than usual. He had become estranged from the mother of his son, Adam, 10, and hadn't been able to see the boy.

His older brother Manuel remembers Mark as easygoing and funny, as someone who loved hiking and wood-carving. As an alcoholic who nevertheless would bring home homeless people to share his small living quarters.

"We used to call him the two-dollar man. He'd always ask to borrow two dollars. We'd say, 'Mark, why not $5 or $10.' But his answer was, 'Someone might say no to $5 or $10, but anyone can give you two dollars.'"

"I'm not going to put his death down as an (overdose)," Martin says. "I'm going to say the Lord took him.

"The funny thing is, I think he'd be happy he made the news."

Lori Carr: Dead at 29, She Left Three Children Behind

Lori Carr died March 29, 1997, at age 29. Her son Matthew Carr, 10, told his Aunt Cindy that his mother was smoking something in a pipe the night she died. An autopsy determined there were opiates and cocaine in her system.

"The landlord next door heard this whimpering sound, and when he went to investigate, he found Matthew kneeling next to his mother," says Cindy Sandoval. Lori Carr was in a coma for three days before she died.

"Matthew says one of the last things she told him was, 'You don't love me. I'm going to kill myself.' Then she asked him for a glass of water, and he brought it to her. He feels guilty," Sandoval says.

Matthew never knew his father, who was murdered in Espanola. Sandoval has been caring for the boy since 1997 and is saving money to legally adopt him. Two other children, Andrew, 5, and Alicia,12, are being cared for by other relatives. "Both my parents were alcoholics," says Sandoval, who has three daughters of her own. "When I got married, I told my husband, 'My kids are not going to see the inside of a bar.'

"And that's true for Matthew, too. He's not going to see any more violence. He's not going to see any more drugs."

Donny Trujillo: Overdose Cuts Short a Life of Faith

Floraida Trujillo has "Donny" painted on her fingernails. He was her only child, and she found her son dead in the early morning of March 6, 1998, in his bedroom in Cordova.

Donny Trujillo was 22. He died from a mixture of alcohol, morphine, cocaine and various prescription drugs. When he was young, he drank and probably smoked marijuana, but he never did hard drugs, his mother says. She used to search his room for drugs but never found any.

Now she remembers him for his good qualities. He used to pray every night before bed, says Floraida Trujillo. The night before he was found dead, his mother remembers she came in and heard him pray. He was a member of the local morada. His mother and grandmother have converted his room into a shrine decorated with rosaries, images of Christ and the many photos they have of him.