Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

By Mike Barnhardt
Enterprise Record

They came from churches and government agencies, from non-profits and volunteer groups.
Some even came from darker places.
But they were there for one reason: to learn how to collaborate to make it easier for Davie residents struggling from addictions to find help.
It was the annual Davie Opiod Summit, organized by the Community Response Task Force – collaboration between Davie Health and Human Services, Davie EMS, the Davie Sheriff’s Office and others. There was plenty of time for those helping the addicted to learn about each other’s services, but the highlight was a film, “Behind the Journey: Recovery 2.0” produced by Summer Scardino, a health department who works with students in the school system.
The film outlined the stories of two Davie residents who became addicted, and their road to recovery.
“The stories are shared so stigma and isolation can retreat from the power of connection,” Scardino said. “I am blown away by these ladies and how much they have done to fully embody what it is to be on the journey to sobriety and pour that effort into others.”
Courtney Draughn said that as she transitioned from South Davie Middle to Davie High School, she started experimenting with pain pills. That led to missing class, and she was moved from her mother’s to her father’s custody.
“Mostly, we just didn’t get along at all,” she said. “There was quite a lot of drinking involved. I ended up going to school drunk … and I got kicked out.”
She was sent back to her mom’s.
“I continued to do whatever I wanted to, experimenting with more substances.”
She became ill, was in and out of the hospital, and was prescribed more pills. “I kind of went wild with that. It was easy for me to get more pain pills. I used them more than I was supposed to.”
It led to use of heroin and fentanyl.
“This led me into a lot of different things, in and out of the courthouse because I was constantly in trouble with the law,” she said. Courtney couldn’t keep a job, and did promiscuous things “to get what I needed.”
Than she got pregnant.
“This turned my world upside down. I really wanted to change my life, but I didn’t know how. I was pregnant but I was still using, still struggling.”
She was on house arrest. The doctor had ordered her to bed rest.
“I was still getting high and doing drugs. Why? Because the drugs were so strong and I didn’t know how to get away from what I was doing.”
When her daughter was born positive for fentanyl, Davie Social Services would not let her have custody. It broke her heart, but she understood. She was in no way capable of caring for a baby.
After the birth, she quit drugs, but that required taking Suboxon to help relieve the desire to use. She applied and was turned down at multiple rehab facilities.
Then came the Freedom House. The recovery center agreed to take her in if she could get the Suboxone out of her system. They even promised that her daughter could possibly join her there.
It worked.
“I have my own job, my own car, and I just got custody back of my beautiful little girl,” she said. “Life just keeps getting better and better. I used to be really scared of the future and of the unknown and not ready for what happens next. I learned that I have to be comfortable being uncomfortable, because nothing in life has ever been comfortable.”
•
Kayla Eddington was growing up with no worries, pouring her heart into her dancing and school work.
But at age 15, when her mother remarried, things started to go downhill.
“That turned my world upside down. Soon after, he kicked me out and I was homeless at age 16.”
She would stay in a vehicle in the Wal-Mart parking lot, until her father found out, and she went to live with him in Stokes County.
“That’s also where I started drinking and smoking pot,” she said. “It quickly escalated to harsher drugs.”
She skipped school. She went to places she shouldn’t have.
And then she was involved in an attempted murder, in a vehicle when a robbery occurred.
“I went into hiding. My mom found out and transferred me back to Davie High School.” She graduated, and moved in with her sister. But she was still partying.
She had a child with her boyfriends, who also happened to be her drug dealer. He went to prison. She got an apartment and a job.
When he got out of prison, they got back together and her addiction escalated, she said. “I was highly addicted to pain killers, but I thought I had it together.”
Then she got caught stealing from Dollar General. The father was back out of prison, and they fought in front of their kids. Her mother took her kids after they pleaded with her to get them out of Kayla’s home.
“I realized that I didn’t have it together. It doesn’t matter if you have a job, it doesn’t matter if you have an apartment, it doesn’t matter if you’re in school. I was trying to live a double life.”
She too, found her salvation at Freedom House, where she now works as a program manager.
“I’m just figuring out who I am and what I wanted to do with my life.”
She was happy on her return to Davie County, to see there are people willing to help those with addictions.
“My childhood wasn’t bad. A lot of things got tainted during addiction that were really precious. Davie County has done a great job of utilizing its resources and it has truly warmed my heart.”
•
Other speakers included Scardino, Greg Forbes, the community EMS paradmedic, and Wes Martin, representative from the sheriff’s office.
“Everybody is somebody to someone else,” Scardino said. “They’re very important to us. We try to meet them where they are. We want them all to be safe and have happiness. We collaborate with so many people. We work smarter, not harder, to use our resources to the fullest capacity.”
Forbes says that although overdose deaths have declined recently, users still don’t trust people in the “system” such as police officers and EMTs. He’s doing his part to try and change that.
“My mission is that, when they see the EMS rolling up, they see someone who wants to help.”
Martin said that often when emergency calls for law enforcement are made, substance abuse is involved.
“I tell folks, this is your recovery, we just want to be a part,” Forbes said, adding that detoxing is the first step.
Scardino works one on one with school students, and speaks to groups of them as well.
“I tell them, ‘don’t let anyone tell you you’re a bad kid’. Kids teach me every day as much as I teach them. I will tell them you will always be enough, trying to build their self esteem,” Scardino said.
She again thanked the two women who shared their stories on film, hopefully eliminating some of the stigma that follows those with addictions.
“The guest speakers have truly changed my life,” she said. “The one thing I love about a journey is getting to where I want to go. Too many times we try to make that journey alone.”