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Stephanie Bongiovi's drug incident deeply upsetting, says addiction expert

By April MacIntyre Nov 15, 2012, 19:43 GMT

Jon Bon Jovi and Dorothea Hurley - Chicago, IL, USA © Daniel Locke / PR Photos

Stephanie Rose Bongiovi, the 19-year-old daughter of Jon Bon Jovi, allegedly overdosed on heroin this week and was subsequently arrested at her college in Upstate New York.

Police found Stephanie unresponsive after it was reported she had taken the drug. When medical personnel arrived on the scene, they found Bongiovi was still alive. A search of her room uncovered a “small quantity” of heroin as well as marijuana and drug paraphernalia.

Stephanie is the eldest child of four, and Bon Jovi's only daughter.

Frequent guest commentator to Monsters and Critics, Richard Taite, founder and CEO of Cliffside Malibu Treatment Center, took the Bon Jovi family story to heart.

Taite, a father himself, doesn't want to see this happen in any family.  Cliffside Malibu is a residential rehabilitation facility that is a gentle, quiet place where those in recovery from addiction find a profound connection with the human spirit and nature serving as a healing backdrop. Richard Taite's own beginning was not as idyllic. A recovered addict himself, his life lessons accrued and his team of the best in medicine make the spot in Malibu unlike any other recovery center.

"As a father of a daughter myself, I can honestly say that it is an absolute blessing that this nineteen year old girl was arrested.  What most laypeople and, unfortunately, professionals in the treatment industry don't know is that heroin, specifically, has its own set of complications.  What feels the best for a heroin addict who is doing it intravenously is to get as close to death as humanly possible without actually dying.  That's the goal.  That's where the euphoric state is, right there on that edge, which is why there are typically no old heroin addicts.  They either get well or they die.  If that was my daughter, my only daughter at that, and the oldest of my four children, setting an example for the other three, I would seek immediate help for her.  And by immediate, I mean yesterday."

Bongiovi was arrested under charges of possession of a controlled substance, possession of marijuana and criminally using drug paraphernalia. A 21-year-old male was also charged with possession.

She was released from custody and is reportedly recovering. She has been ordered to appear in court at a later date.