Community comes together for Overdose Awareness Day event

Candles were lit in remembrance as the names of 45 people lost to overdose were read. STAFF PHOTO/STACI WILSON

BY STACI WILSON

Parenting an addict is like a ride on a rollercoaster, said Geri DePaolo at the Stop the Stigma event on the Green in Montrose, Friday on International Overdose Awareness Day.

To the crowd of about 70 that came together despite the rain, DePaolo said, “Everyone is here for a reason – because your life is now, or has been, touched by addiction.”

The Bradford County mother spoke about the rollercoaster cycle of her son’s life being clean, relapse, detox, rehab and jail – and clenching a cell phone always anticipating a call with dread.

“That call came on Aug. 13, 2015,” DePaolo said, the day her son died from a heroin/fentanyl overdose. “We’re just losing our children at an astonishing rate.”

Ellen Ely shared that her niece had overdosed just days after getting out of rehab. Over 100 bottles of prescription drugs were found in the 27-year-old’s residence. She had first been introduced to opioids at the age of 17 after the drugs had been prescribed to her for a kidney infection.

Ely said of addiction, “The frustrating thing is that it is treatable.”

Karl Knapp moved to the Montrose area 12 years ago.

“The disease of addiction had brought me down a path of darkness,” Knapp said of his time spent in prison, an ICU and several rehab centers and in and out of recovery for 27 years. “We, as part of the recovery community need your help. It’s not about how we get there, the important thing is that we come together.”

Knapp lost his daughter to addiction and overdose on Dec. 29, 2016. “It led me to the help I needed,” he said, adding the turnout for the event Friday was “overwhelming.”

Deacon George Phillips lost his son, Michael, in 2010. Phillips has written two books about faith from Michael’s writings.

Joe LaBarbera grew up in the Montrose community. After he left for college, he struggled for seven years with addiction and substance abuse disorder.

“Treatment is where I gained hope,” LaBarbera said.

He described himself as lucky – lucky to be as healthy as he is, and lucky he had support as he struggled.

“I was led by my mother. She encouraged me to not hide my disease. I was amazed at how the community embraced me and gave me strength,” LaBarbera said.

Today, LaBarbera is a Certified Recovery Specialist – a person with direct experience in recovery and addiction that assists others in recovery from substance abuse disorders.

As a message to people at work within recovery, LaBarbera said, “We do recover; and can gain heights never thought possible, even before recovery.”

Jordon Katz traveled from Philadelphia to speak at the local event. He calls his sobriety date  – May 11, 2011 – the day when his “best day and worst day all fell on the same day.”

Katz began using synthetic heroin when he was 14 years old, and entered his first treatment center at age 16. “It anyone knows what it’s like to start young and live, I am it,” he said.

He went to college in North Carolina, thinking a move from New Jersey would fix his problem. “What I didn’t know then was no matter where I went, there I was,” he said.

He entered a treatment center in Florida where, Katz said, he did everything he was supposed to do. But he left the program and headed back to his family’s home and a stressful situation in New Jersey. “I took the first excuse to do the only thing I knew how to do,” he said about his relapse into addiction.

He spoke of his time in treatment, as well the times he was homeless in South Florida and New Jersey. “I come from a good, middle class family,” he said. “None of that matters where I go when I actively drink or do drugs.”

A half-way house for sober living took him in on his darkest day. “You never know you need God or a higher power until that’s all you have,” Katz said.

“I have lived to lives in one lifetime,” he said. “The choice was to die for myself or live for other people.”

He has now dedicated himself to helping others in their sobriety.

Katz said there has been progress since 2008-10 when he was struggling with addiction. “We have progressed a lot, but not enough. Somebody is being buried from this disease today. There’s only two ways this goes: death or sobriety.”

“I’m just one of the lucky ones,” he said.

There were several agencies and organizations on hand at the event: Endless Mountains Addiction Advocacy Committee; Susquehanna County Sheriff Lance Benedict; Trehab Drug and Alcohol; Young People in Recovery, Northeast Pennsylvania; Advocacy Alliance; Scranton Counseling Center; Celebrate Recovery; Integrative Counseling Services; Smart Recovery; Trehab Transportation; St. Paul’s Episcopal Church; Women’s Resource Center; PA Dept. of Health.

The Stop the Stigma group was formed by individuals wanted to reach out to the community to being addiction into the light, and recognize opioid addiction as a treatable disease.

Lynne Graham, of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, pulled together a group of volunteers to put the Overdose Awareness Day event together.

As the event closed, a bell tolled as the names of 45 people – lost to overdose and addiction – were read aloud.

RESOURCES

Narcotics Anonymous, Wednesdays, 7 p.m., St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Montrose.

*Alcoholic Anonymous, Mondays, Thursdays, 8 p.m., St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Montrose.

*American Addiction Centers 24/7 hotline: 877-650-0566.

*Celebrate Recovery: Meetings starting Sept. 26, 6:15-7:45 p.m., 107 Church St., Montrose; meetings also held Mondays, 6:30 p.m., South New Milford Baptist Church.

*Smart Recovery: Visit, www.smartrecovery.org/local to find a meeting in the area.

*Young People in Recovery – NEPA: Contact information can be found on Facebook.

 

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