SOLACE speakers discuss addiction
By Danny Restivo
Canfield
Jo Anna Krohn had a simple message for those listening to her talk about opiate addiction:
“This is something that can happen to anybody.”
Krohn, of Portsmouth, Ohio, was one of four members of SOLACE, Surviving Our Loss and Continuing Everyday, who spoke to more than 100 people at the Avion Banquet Center in Canfield on Tuesday night.
Those in the group shared their personal stories and brought their message of prescription and opiate addiction awareness as part of the Neil Kennedy Recovery Clinic Hope Has a Home Celebration.
The event is in recognition of September as National Recovery month.
Krohn is no stranger to the effects of prescription-pill abuse. Her son, Wes Workman, was a promising high school football player before he died in 2008 of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Opiates were found in his system.
Her son had been battling addiction for three years before his death, Krohn said.
Barbara Howard, also of Portsmouth, lost her 34-year-old daughter, Leslie Cooper, also in 2008, after she overdosed on prescription pills bought at a pain clinic in Scioto County. In 2010, Krohn and Howard formed SOLACE as way to cope with their losses.
The group started as a support group but soon turned into an action group. The women and others started protesting outside local pain clinics that were fueling the opiate epidemic in Portsmouth.
In less than two years, they got nine pill mills in the city shut down, got an ordinance passed banning them from the city and helped get House Bill 93 passed, which helps regulate how prescription opiates are dispensed in Ohio.
According to its website, SOLACE Portsmouth also seeks to end the crisis of prescription-drug addiction in their community by providing support to individuals and families affected by addiction.
“It’s important to shine a light on the problem of addiction and to use that same light to illuminate the path to recovery,” said Jerry Carter, Neil Kennedy executive director.