Our Stories
Share the power of long-term recovery. If you are in recovery, a family member, friend or ally of someone in recovery, we want to hear your recovery story!
Learn more...
Faces & Voices of Recovery's book page
has information on many of the growing number of recovery-related publications. It’s a work in progress, so please let us know of other books that you think we should include. Check it out!
|
Recovery in the News
Recovery not possible without awareness
Jessica Cuffman
The Marion Star
December 15, 2009
MARION - One mother is cheering her son through his recovery from heroin addiction.
"It isn't a drug that just hits bad people," Mary Jean Hensley of Bucyrus said. "It affects good people."
She wants parents of addicts to know there's hope.
Hensley started a group in Bucyrus called "Together We Hurt, Together We Heal."
It's open to anyone affected by drug addiction. The sons of two other mothers she works with also were addicted to heroin. Three clergymen from Crawford County work with the women to raise awareness about the problem.
The board meets weekly, and about once a month it hosts an open meeting for people seeking support. This month, an open session is scheduled for 7 p.m. Dec. 20 at Woodlawn United Methodist Church, 1675 Hopley Ave., in Bucyrus. A memorial service will be held.
After learning about her son's addiction and the challenge he faces for the rest of his life, Hensley said she realized doing nothing would not be an option.
'Good people'
"These are good people who have gotten caught up in a very evil drug," she said. "That's just not acceptable."
The goal of the group is education, awareness and intervention.
Lori Kraviec, mother of a girl who died at 19 from a methadone overdose in 2005, says now she wishes the awareness had been out there then. She never thought her daughter, Kimberly Hamm, was using drugs.
"The signs to look for, those were all the signs that I saw with her, that I didn't know," she said. "I find myself talking to whoever will listen."
She tries to raise awareness, tell people what to look for with their kids.
"I want to make people aware that this is really going on," she said.
Kraviec said she thinks of a lot of "could haves."
"I just thought that she was having it rough. She was always grumpy, lost her job," she said. "She just didn't care."
"She was a very loving person and a very outgoing person. Everybody liked her. I just hope that people today take a look at what their kids are doing," she said.
It doesn't matter if it makes them mad or they say you're interfering. It's what she does with her 18-year-old son now, and she knows he'll thank her later.
"I always think that there's a lot of things I could have done to help her," she said. "Things are never going to be the same. It makes it hard, it makes it rough trying to get by."
"I never have a good day, but I always have good moments."
Hamm died about two weeks before her 20th birthday.
Tragedy
That's how old New Bloomington resident Stephanie Rowland was when she died recently from a suspected heroin overdose.
Her father, Tim Rowland, said he doesn't want other families to have to go through what he's going through now.
"If it happens to other families in Marion, I'll probably know them," he said. "This all hits home."
Two men have been charged with involuntary manslaughter in connection with her death, along with other drug-related charges.
After his daughter's death, Rowland is just beginning to understand the problems drugs cause in the community, and the challenge police officers have in getting drugs off the streets.
"We know that the problem isn't going away," Hensley said.
Three recovering heroin addicts - including Hensley's son, Ben - who are participating a program at Foundations Recovery Center in Marion say they've gone through detox, never want to be back on the drug and know they'll end up either dead or in prison if they do.
But they need continuing support.
Logan Newell, 26, Marion, said he knows his disease will affect him for the rest of his life, but he will be forever grateful for receiving treatment in lieu instead of prison time after he was charged with felony possession of heroin.
"It's like a second chance at life," he said. "It's the greatest thing I think they could ever come up with.
"In my mind, I'm not a criminal," he said. He was a slave to his addiction and toward the end of his drug use kept using to keep from experiencing withdrawal symptoms.
"I want to change my life. I don't want to do it again," he said.
Kevin Davis, 23, Bucyrus, said he knows it won't be easy to find a job when he completes the two months he has left in the six-month program. He has a felony record for burglary, a crime he committed to feed his addiction.
But he's hopeful.
"I know ... if I keep doing the next right thing, good things are going to happen," he said. "I have to keep making the effort."
He's lost friends to drug addiction and seen how he's hurt his family and what will happen if he doesn't stay drug-free.
"It took me forever to get sober," he said. "I can't keep myself sober, but a group can do it."
Davis knows his dad will try to help him get on his feet when he goes home. He was the one who took the biggest step in getting his son sober - he kicked him out of the house.
"He almost loved me to death," Davis said. "Then he read about enabling."
Becoming homeless was a turning point for him.
"That helped me to get to my bottom a little faster," he said.
He also served a few months in prison before getting into the treatment program. It's a place he doesn't want to go back to.
"I didn't feel like I belonged there. I never spent that much time away from my family," he said.
All three addicts said their parents' worst fears were getting calls that they were dead.
Mary Jean Hensley said her first reaction to finding out her son was using drugs was to tell him to stop.
"Just stop," she said.
Through the recovery process, she and her son have found that it's not that easy.
"It can happen to anybody. Rich, poor, black, white, old, young," Ben Hensley, 23, said.
What about what they learned in school about just saying no?
"I wish it was as simple as that," Davis said.
Getting back
Part of their recovery has been putting weight back on. All three appear to be healthy, of average weight if not thin. Davidson said he put on 60 pounds in a year, Hensley put on 30 in five months and Newell put on 50 in five months.
"You just don't eat," Davidson said about being high. He would crave sugar and all he would eat was Gummy Lifesavers.
"I don't know how may times I woke up with my face in a bowl of cereal," he said, startled by the coldness of the milk. Sometimes it would go up his nose. The cereal would stick to his face because he'd cover it with honey for his sugar cravings.
Newell and Davidson said they've tried at least half a dozen times each to get clean.
For Hensley, this is his first time in treatment, but he tried once to quit using Suboxen.
"I hope I can get it right the first time," he said.
Reporter Jessica Cuffman: 740-375-5155 or jcuffman@marionstar.com