Our Inspiration

Isaac Goldberg Volkmar desperately wanted to be part of a community.

Isaac grew up on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The family had no history of addiction. Isaac had been at the University of Rhode Island for less than a semester in 2009 when he called his mother, Eve, desperate to escape. He had joined a fraternity and wound up taking pain medications Percocet and Oxycontin. In only a few months, Isaac knew he was addicted and that he needed help. He went in and out of rehabs in Pennsylvania and New York and overdosed the summer after freshman year. Fortunately, he was rushed to the hospital and survived. Isaac battled addiction for years.

In 2013, he successfully completed a treatment program. While trying to acclimate back to “life as normal” the pressures and expectations led to debilitating anxiety and fear.

Isaac desperately wanted to be part of a community with people his own age and be able to do things where drugs and alcohol were not a part of everyday life—but unfortunately, he had no idea where or how to find them. In recovery, he was working as a basketball coach at the United Nations International School in Manhattan and was even set to move into his own apartment. But he began acting oddly that Thanksgiving and in December Eve walked into his room and found him unresponsive, overdosed on opioids. After six weeks in a coma, Isaac died on January 14, 2014. He was 23 years old.