By JESSICA FARRISH
The Register-Herald
BECKLEY, W.Va. — They all knew the killer by the same name.
Each had once been a slave to it. An iron-fisted god that pillaged the sacred, it had enslaved each man, mercilessly ravaging his family, his job, his educational aspirations and his reputation.
(Register-Herald photo by Rick Barbero)
Each of the men gathered at Brian’s Safe House Monday called the murderer “addiction.” Yet, each man — white, black, college-educated or working on a GED — knew the bully, intimately and painfully, in a personal way.
Each man had a personal breaking point that led him to seek treatment for addiction at Brian’s Safe House, a year-long, Christian-based residence program to treat substance abuse disorder.
Nelson Foster started drinking when he was about 14. He dropped out of school and lost a series of jobs. The first time he tried pills, he loved them, he said. When he checked into the program, family members had given up on him.
“I lost everything,” Foster said. “It came to my mind a couple times to take myself out of there, but I didn’t have that .. to take myself out of there, because I knowed, if I took myself out, you don’t make it to heaven that way.”
He had a dream about Brian’s Safe House, and his mother called the program.
“I knew God was telling me to come here,” Foster said. “God sent me here, man. This is all God-driven.”
The congressman toured both Brian’s Safe House and Sparrow’s Nest, a facility that offers residential treatment to women who are battling substance abuse disorder, and asked those fighting the disease to share their own accounts to help form public policies on addiction treatment.
Leon and Donita Brush founded Sparrow’s Nest in 2016, after opening Brian’s House in 2009 in honor of their 23-year-old son, Brian, who was lost to substance abuse disorder in 2006.
“We’ve all got a Brian in our lives,” Evans told the men. “I’ve got Adam.
“Adam was my wife’s nephew, 28 years old. Adam, I loved. Great kid.”
Evans said that Adam fought substance abuse disorder throughout his adult life in multiple treatment programs.
“It got him,” Evans said. “Just like it’s got so many. We’ve been ravaged in West Virginia.”
It stole Adam Dempsey’s kids, almost. Recently, Child Protective Services removed his children from his home. That’s when Dempsey came to the treatment program, becoming sober for the first time in 32 years, he said. His wife is at Sparrow’s Point, engaged in her own battle.
“I get to see my kids on weekends,” he reported.
Joseph Thomas’ daughter was his breaking point. After graduating high school, she came to visit with her dad as she decided between joining the military or going straight to college. Soon, Thomas said, she discovered drug paraphernalia and confronted her father.
“My daughter calling me out let me know the wake-up call,” he said. “None of my children, thank God, have been victims of this substance abuse, but they have been victims of my absence to them because of the abuse.
“That was the point to let me know I needed to make a big change.”
For James Wood of Beckley, turning 45 was his zero hour. A functional addict, he had isolated himself from family and friends to hide his alcoholism. He’d tried other rehabilation programs but said Brian’s Safe House is different.
“It teaches you about Christ and what He can do for you,” said Wood. “I’ve hit rock bottom a few times, but this place is definitely the one that’s going to give me a solid foundation to build back up where I’m going to be.”
The men shared with Jenkins their insights.
“Addicts can recover,” said Dempsey. “We’re looked down upon in society as an addict, but there are good addicts out there, good people that recover from that.”
Safe House resident James Gwinn said there is change in how West Virginians view those who battle addiction, but it’s slow.
“There’s a way to go,” he said. “You’re seeing it more now in the newspaper with opioid abuse, but there’s still a stigma.
“People want to sweep it under the rug like it’s not in their family … It’s in every family, but there’s still a stigma.”
Thomas said that substance abuse disorder patients must have better access to long-term treatment in order to recover.
“It seems that policy tends to lend itself to putting a Band-Aid on the problem instead of a long-term situation or helping people who seek a long-term situation to fix a lifestyle and change behaviors,” Thomas said.
Jenkins, who has secured funding for drug abuse treatment programs in the state, including Lilly’s Place, a neonatal abstinence syndrome care unit in Huntington for addicted newborns, offered encouragement to West Virginians who are fighting substance abuse disorder.
“You’ve got purpose, you’ve got worth,” Jenkins told those at Brian’s Safe House. “You’ve got community. You’ve got people counting on you.”
The representative said that he has seen West Virginians’ attitudes towards substance abuse disorder shifting recently.
“People are starting to realize it’s their family, it’s their neighbor, it’s the people they go to church with or they see at the grocery store,” said Evans. “We are realizing this disease of addiction impacts all walks of life, all socioeconomic levels, all genders.”
See more from The Register-Herald
