Joplin-- You Are Failing Us

Excuse my language, but I am PISSED.

There have been countless people trying to get help this holiday season, only to be turned away by the hospitals, or sent home with their families or friends to "wait until a detox opens." What the heck??? Do our healthcare facilities not recognize that the holidays are the HARDEST time for addicts? Do they not recognize that during the holidays, they may get inundated with people needing help, therefore they need to be ready for it? Why am I referring people to Freeman and Ozark Center if they are just going to be turned away? I mean, seriously? Come on, Ozark Center!! You have the "market" wrapped up around here---so do something about it!!! Open your darn doors! Open your darn detox facilities. Quit sending these people home when they need you the most. You are the trained experts--WE AREN'T. You are the healthcare facility---we aren't. You expect people to just sit on their loved ones for 2 days while they wait, wait, wait for help?

I cannot even count on my hands and toes, the amount of people who got turned away this week. TURNED AWAY. Do these people have to smoke meth or shoot heroin in your parking lot to constitute a "need?" What kind of healthcare are we running around here?

Is this part of the "game" so that people will RUN to the Methadone Clinic and get more drugs rather than real help?

COME ON, JOPLIN!! Get your act together. Learn to care for addicts when they need you. We have a serious problem in Southwest Missouri and you aren't helping the situation.

If you are an addict that tried to get help this week---MESSAGE ME. We will find alternatives to Joplin, Missouri if we need to---or better yet---be a squeaky wheel and SCREAM FOR IMMEDIATE HELP.  Your life does matter, whether some anonymous ER doctor believes it or not. Go to Mercy. Drive to Tulsa. Go to Springfield---BUT DO NOT TURN BACK TO DRUGS. There ARE people who are willing to help.

If you are a healthcare provider that has some suggestions--please post them. People need answers.

Give Your Family the Best Gift...YOU

Sadly, my email is overflowing with people hurting right now. The holidays are difficult, especially for those dealing with addiction, depression and grief. I find myself running out of good advice, because no matter what my advice may be--I know it is hard to put that advice into action, when dealing with a loved one. For that reason, I'm blogging this message to the one who needs help, the one who hasn't reached out to me, but their family members have. Yes, I'm talking to YOU.

Listen, I know that it is hard to take that first step to get help. I understand that the fear of sickness can be so crippling, that often times, people are not willing to go through it. I realize that the first step is the very hardest. Truthfully, I have no idea what it feels like to get "dope sick" but I have watched my daughter live it. I know it is hell.

Let me tell you what else is hell. Going to bed at night wondering if your child is alive or dead is hell. Trying to function during the Christmas season, knowing your loved one may be sitting somewhere in a room full of people who could care less about their life...is hell. Knowing that their next "hit" can kill them and you are completely powerless to stop them---that is hell. Trying to decide whether or not you should buy them Christmas gifts because they will pawn them, is also hard on a family member. The guilt when you decide not to buy them gifts, and offer a meal and time instead is awful. You wonder if they realize you love them at all. You wonder if you are doing the right thing. You worry that they aren't getting a holiday dinner. You worry, worry, worry and the holidays become so depressing that you begin to ruin it for your entire family. I found myself praying that the holidays would "hurry up and go away" and completely losing sight of all joy of the season. That was unfair to my family and unfair to me.

Your life is priceless. Your family needs you. There are many parents, siblings, friends, loved ones who won't get the chance to tell their family member that they want them home for Christmas this year. Drugs have already taken them from this earth. Don't let that happen to you. Do not become another statistic in this war. People care. People love you. People will help. If you feel lost and need help, please seek it. If you need detox, walk into a hospital and tell them. I promise you, if you will fight for your life---others will step up and fight with you. Take that step. Listen to the voice in your head telling you that you need help.

Give your family the best gift you can give---and that is a healthy, clean, sober YOU. Do it for your family and do it for yourself.

9 Months Later...and Christmas Prayers

Wow!!!

Here we are, NINE months later. Nine months ago, I thought we would lose her. I didn't have any faith she would find her way...now, we find ourselves excited for Christmas for the first time in YEARS.

In 9 months, Addi's life is nothing short of a miracle.

In 9 months, she got clean; got happy; started college again; became the most excellent mommy; learned to love herself again; became a good sister again; loves to read again; GOT BAPTIZED; helped me with my addiction work; spoke to Celebrate Recovery; and today, got accepted back into the university she started in 2008. She has been so blessed! God has shown her grace like only he can do. To say that I am amazed, would be an understatement. I'm blown away. I'm in awe. I'm grateful. I am humbled. We are blessed beyond belief. Thank you all for your love, support, encouragement and prayers.

Last week, we had the Addiction Crisis Town Hall Meeting. It was a great success. It was aired live on KSN TV and the panel of experts were fantastic. Other than the people writing into KSN's Facebook page, about their irritation of cutting into the airing of the Rockefeller Christmas Tree, we had nothing but positive feedback. During the Town Hall, we had a speaker by the name of Stacy Krokroskia, who spoke about the loss of her son Jordan. Her emotions are still raw, 4 years later. Her pain cut through my heart like a knife. She was so brave to stand up there and speak about her loss. She said something that I have thought about many times since she spoke. She said "If I saw myself on TV, I would think "Oh, that poor family"--- not realizing that poor family could be mine and would be mine. Addiction CAN touch any family."  She is so right. It can and it does. I think at the town hall, that we effectively showed that it can strike any family of any dynamics. I hope that viewers listened with an open mind and have taken to heart that they too, could be Stacy Krokroskia standing there. They too could lose their child. I hope some young people listening, realized that they could be Jordan Krokroskia--an athletic, smart, beautiful, normal boy---he had goals and dreams and family and friends...and because of drugs...he is gone. Ugh, it breaks my heart.

 I often times feel so guilty that my daughter is still alive. I would not trade her for anything in the world--but find myself asking, "Why us, God? Why did you spare her life, rather than their son's or daughters?" I talk quite often, to the parents of the young people on our posters and billboards. I feel I have a special bond with them in some way, just from getting to know them through creating these posters and learning about their son's and daughter's. The holidays are a very difficult time for them. Some of them, this will be there very first Christmas without their son or daughter. Heart wrenching. For some it has been longer--but the hole in their hearts is still there. Even through their pain or grief, EVERY single one of them roots for Addi and sends me notes of encouragement. None of them wish their pain on anyone. They are grateful because our family hasn't suffered the immeasurable loss that they have. THAT is why this drug campaign is so important to all of us. I don't want anyone else to go through what our family has, so I am candid, honest and sometimes too blunt. These families who have lost their son's and daughter's don't want to see anyone else lose their child to this horrible addiction...so they speak, they share pictures, they suffer through the pain of seeing their kids on a billboard---to help you! Isn't that the most amazing gift? Please think of them when you are driving down the road and see those beautiful faces on billboards, or posters in schools. Say a prayer for them this holiday season as there is an empty chair in their home.

Thank you to everyone who has worked so hard with me on drug awareness this year. Thank you to the Alliance of Southwest Missouri; KSN; the local schools; and all the parents who stepped up to help.

Thank you to Ms. Addison, who found light in the darkest of dark and is making our Christmas one of the most special for our family.