Walk Against Heroin draws 200 in Warren

Staff report

WARREN

Stephanie Battison stood in the sunshine at the Warren Amphitheatre Sunday looking confident and happy—a far cry from her former life as a heroin addict and frequent prisoner in the Trumbull County jail.

“I had been in and out of the system for years and had a number of arrests, all of them drug related,” she recalled. “There was nothing I wouldn’t do.”

Battison, 37, was among more than 200 who turned out for the 4th Annual Warren Walk Against Heroin, hosted by New Day Recovery, an operator of withdrawal management and residential treatment centers.  Like Battison, many are recovering addicts willing to tell their stories, each ending with a positive message of hope and recovery.

“I’m an open book,” Battison said as she detailed her spiral into addiction, which began with alcohol and marijuana at age 12, heroin by age 20 and what she saw as a life of hopelessness. 

“Addicts don’t know any way out,” she said, but then she found one even though she didn’t know it at the time.

Read the full story Monday in The Vindicator and on Vindy.com.