Recovery and remembrance at Central Park event

Sep. 1—ASHLAND — Breanna stands in line at Central Park Wednesday in a sea of purple shirts.

Though 22 years old, she's seen her share of life — Breanna has been brought back from the dead more than five times, thanks to Narcan.

Breanna is one of the lucky ones — she's standing on this side of the dirt. In her sixth rehab — with a child on the way — Breanna said she's out at Central Park to remember her cousin who didn't make it.

"I've been brought back, but we lost my cousin," she said.

Breanna is one of about 90 people who turned out Wednesday to the park's pond to remember those lost to drug overdose, as a part of International Overdose Awareness Day.

In its 21st year, International Overdose Awareness Day started in Australia as a way to shed light on the death toll created by narcotics overdoses.

Perhaps nowhere is that pain seen more than in this corner of eastern Kentucky. At the event in Central Park, 75 names were read aloud of those lost to drug overdoses.

Last year, Boyd County saw an overdose rate of 104.36 per 100,000 (remember, the county only has about 47,000 people total), with 47 recorded overdoses of county residents, putting it in the top five for total overdoses in the state.

Kentucky along with neighboring Ohio and West Virginia have consistently led the nation in fatal overdoses, driven by the flood of fentanyl in the area.

According to Boyd County Coroner Mark Hammond, that 47 number is actually low — his office worked 70 cases last year involving drug overdose, with the difference being accounted for due to the victims being from out of state or out of county.

This year, this is shaping up to be no different, according to Hammond.

"Unless we hit a real rough patch later on, we're looking at about the same numbers," Hammond said. "We're still looking at five more months; that could change things drastically."

But Boyd County has been trying to fight back — at Wednesday's initiative, Brittany Herrington, of Pathways, said she handed out about 40 boxes of Narcan, the life-saving drug that temporarily reverses opioid overdose.

That's 320 milligrams of potentially life saving medicine on the street. and the lives that are saved could potentially go onto save someone else's.

Josh Burton is such a case.

"Narcan's saved my life," he said. "I've had six shots bring me back the last time."

Now 3 1/2 years clean, Burton is poised to start running the men's section of a peer support program at a local jail. Programs like that have gone towards getting addicts — freshly dried out from a stay in the clink — in touch with the resources they need to succeed on the outside.

To not end up as a name on a balloon.

The Boyd County Detention Center currently has a program like that, headed up by Zaria Pruitt, a young lady with 4 1/2 years of sobriety. Pruitt said she knows all too well the struggles people face when they are freshly released from jail onto the streets.

"For me, I got so overwhelmed struggling for transportation, to get to meetings, to get to court," she said. "That instability made it harder to stay clean."

Having stayed at the Boyd County Detention Center in 2017, Pruitt said it's a night and day difference in terms of the treatment of inmates. Under the program she's involved with, Pruitt helps get inmates government IDs so they can seek housing, jobs and other services once they are released.

She also leads SMART Recovery meetings — a secular recovery program rooted in cognitive behavioral health — and helps arrange Vivitrol shots for inmates.

Vivitrol is a drug that blocks opioids from hitting the brain — basically, somebody can shoot dope on it and not feel high. It also curbs cravings. Pruitt said she hopes in the future, programs and organizations throughout the recovery community can help inmates coming out of the jail.

"If you're able to get them in a stable environment, their recovery is that much easier," she said. "I've had several participants who've been discharged from their programs because they're staying clean, they're keeping up with drug court, they got jobs and they have transportation."

And Pruitt only started in February.

Another service coming out of the jail is Narcan — so far, 115 inmates have received training.

Which brings it back to a pleasant early evening in Central Park, with groups of recovering addicts and alcoholics writing names on a balloons.

Not everyone is lucky enough to recovery — some die before that day ever happens.

Take Cheryl Stambaugh, a recovering alcoholic who attended the event. She came out to release a balloon in honor of her cousin who died of a drug overdose.

"I came out to be on the winning side," she said.

Amy Reed, a program director over a women's program at Pathways, shared her story at the event.

While not a drug addict or alcoholic herself, Reed has seen it firsthand. In 2013, she lost her mother to a drug overdose, after losing two uncles less than two weeks apart.

After grieving for years, Reed said God led her to work at the Journey House, where she learned that while she didn't engage in substance abuse, she did have a lot of the traits of an addict.

So she worked through the 12 steps of recovery to heal from her trauma and to better help people seeking recovery.

At about 6:45 p.m., the balloons were released, marking a life lost in the drug overdose epidemic.

Perhaps next year, there's going to be less — but if the numbers show anything, it'll probably be just about the same, if not more.