“I was not a kid you would pick to become a heroin addict,” Anthony Sideri, 43, told students gathered in the Center for the Arts theater at Brooks on October 10.

As the room fell silent — taking in his frank talk about how experimenting with alcohol and marijuana in high school quickly spiraled into opioid and heroin addiction that culminated in him robbing a bank at age 25 to support his addiction — the North Andover, Mass., native put a face on the story of addiction.

“When I was in high school, I had this image of people who did stuff like that, and it was not kids like me,” he said, before detailing how that bank robbery landed him in prison and ultimately prompted him to turn his life around.

“My life changed in jail,” he said. “I felt more free being locked in a cell than I did in addiction when I had to wake up every day and shoot heroin. That’s what it’s like to be an addict.”

After a year in rehab, he’d learned to focus on himself, not care what others thought of him, and “woke up every day trying to be the best version of myself” while he served his sentence: three years. While incarcerated, Sideri earned his barber’s license and found solace in bible study, which he maintains helps him live clean in recovery to this day.  

Sober for 18 years now, and working at the Restoration Barbershop he owns in North Andover, Sideri speaks at schools sharing his personal story to inspire middle- and high-school students to make positive choices when faced with challenges as well as recognize the warning signs of addiction in themselves and others.

Asked what he hopes Brooks students take away from his talk and small-group Q&A session, Sideri is direct. “I want them to know that it can happen to anyone; that drug addiction, addiction of any kind, doesn't discriminate. It can reach into the highest and the lowest places and it can really happen to anyone,” he said. “And, when something bad happens… Tell everyone.”

“Everyone's first reaction when something bad happens is to not tell anyone,” he explained. “Parents' reaction is to not tell anyone, but when you tell everyone around you, you'd be surprised by how much the community holds you accountable and people want help. Then, you find out you're not alone.”

See photos from Sideri’s visit on brooksschoolphotos.com