LEAWOOD, Kan. — A group of Johnson County teenagers and young adults shared their stories of addiction and recovery Thursday at the Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, hoping to show that drug addiction can affect any household.
“There was this illusion that I could always quit when I wanted to,” Sam, who asked 41 Action News not to use his last name, said. "That was the justification that kept me using. I’ll use one more time, but when I want to quit I will or I’ll be able to ween off."
Sam grew up in Johnson County. He graduated from Blue Valley North, where he played sports.
He went to college and joined a fraternity. He even became a teaching assistant in his university’s economics department.
All the while, however, Sam was battling drug addiction.
“When I was 14, I took hydrocodone from a medicine cabinet in my parent’s house,” he said. “I fell in love with beer, but I didn’t stop taking pills until they kind of quit working and then it was ‘Let’s find stronger pills.’”
Eventually, Sam was using heroin and IV fentanyl. Today, he’s almost three years sober.
“For me, I had to hit a certain rock bottom before I had to change,” he said.
In Kansas, Johnson and Sedgwick counties led the state in total drug overdose deaths from 2015 to 2017, according to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s county health rankings.
The Johnson County Mental Health Center at 111 S. Cherry St. in Olathe is one resource available in Kansas to assist with opioid use and drug addiction. If you or someone you know needs help, call 913-715-5000.
