Clean, Sober and Wonderful with Kaitlyn Anne

165,148. That’s how many deaths from COVID-19 to date in the United States. Everything in life has changed as we live in fear and shock from this once in a lifetime pandemic.  67,367 that’s how many people died from drug overdoses in 2018. 70,237 was the number the year earlier. Wait. I’m talking annual numbers here. Not a one-time pandemic. It doesn’t take many years of these numbers to far exceed the deaths from COVID-19. It is simply breathtaking.

“THE OPIOID EPIDEMIC is devastating America. Overdoses have passed car crashes and gun violence to become the leading cause of death for Americans under 55. The epidemic has killed more people than H.I.V. at the peak of that disease, and its death toll exceeds those of the wars in Vietnam and Iraq combined. Funerals for young people have become common. Every 11 minutes, another life is lost.

So why do so many people start using these drugs? Why don’t they stop?”

That was the beginning of an article in the New York Times in December 2018 entitled “A Visual Journey Through Addiction”. It quoted one young woman describing her drug use with the words “It like being hugged by Jesus.”

The reality is that until one's life is personally touched by drug abuse, it really is just another sad statistic. It’s like hearing about a war on the other side of the world compared to feeling a bomb go off in your back yard. Why pay attention? Why care?

So today we are going to bring it closer to home than I would prefer. We are going to talk to a young Orange County woman who has worked in almost every aspect of the recovery industry in the past ten years, and yes, it is an industry. 

Her credentials? Really? Her credentials are mainly found in the story behind the resume. Growing up she excelled on the soccer field, her blonde ponytail bouncing behind her as she sped by the opposing team juggling the ball as if she was born with it. Her laughter and joy-filled the field. She was a preacher's kid too, going to church every Sunday for four hours and a few times during the week. I bet you feel it coming, don’t you? Kaitlyn Anne, Welcome to Church Hurts And.