Lehigh, Northampton and Carbon County students attending the 2016 Lehigh Valley DUI Highway Safety Task Force Youth conference last week learned how important it is to make the right choices in life.

The students heard how drugs and alcohol cost Elliot Lipsky, 23, of South Whitehall, and Donald Yesik II, 26, of Slatington, their freedom.They also learned from Cindy and Lonnie Kester of Palmerton, how making a bad decision cost their son, Lee, his life.Lipsky shared his story on how drugs and alcohol became a problem in his life when he was 16 as an 11th-grader at Parkland High School.Lipsky told the students drug addiction does not discriminate.“If you take anything from me today, don’t do drugs,” he said. “If you see someone going down the same path, tell them what you see, talk to them, get them to rehab or drug counseling.”Yesik said drugs and alcohol became a problem for him after he graduated from Northern Lehigh High School.Both Lipsky and Yesik told students how important it is for them to be around positive people who don’t drink or do drugs.They each discussed how alcohol and drugs numbed their emotions and stress in their lives.Cindy Kester discussed how her son became addicted to drugs after a car crash a few days after his 21st birthday.He had “bummed” a ride home from a friend’s house.The driver had been drinking and lost control of his speeding car.“When you have a child, you want a better life for them than you’ve had. … No one wants their child to be an alcoholic or a drug addict,” she said. “However, that doesn’t always happen.”After the car crash, Lee was left with broken vertebrae in his upper back, lacerations, broken teeth and a bad concussion.“The doctors said he was young. He would heal and be fine,” she said. “They sent him home with oxycodone, prescribed for the pain, along with anxiety medications.”Over the years, Lee went to pain management doctors, physical therapists, psychiatrists, surgeons and chiropractors.None, however, could help him find relief from the pain.Lee then found a doctor who would prescribe Roxicodone and methadone, but one day he retired and Lee had to find another doctor.“This new doctor started reducing the pain medication and told him he would just have to learn to live with the pain,” Kester said. “So, at the reduction of the Roxicodone, Lee found friends he could borrow pills from to help supplement what he couldn’t get from the doctor.”Lee finally decided on rehab after he was charged with possession, but he had to wait three months to be admitted.Her son knew he needed more help after his 28 days of treatment, 21 of those spent in detox because of all the drugs in his system, she said.After a four-month wait Lee entered a methadone clinic where he received liquid methadone for a year and a half before serving a 72-hour jail sentence.“After jail, he was sentenced to the ARD program and a year probation, which he faulted halfway through by testing positive for drugs,” Kester said.He was then sentenced to three months in jail.Lee died Sept. 3, 2015, one week after being released from jail.Lonnie Kester told students, “Think twice before using drugs or alcohol. Sometimes there is no second chance.”