A Place for Healing

As 2017 ends and 2018 begins, many of you will be creating New Year’s resolutions. Many of you have probably only resolved to eat better or get organized. While I’m not saying these goals are unimportant or trivial, there are some people out there struggling with something much more serious. Addiction. Living in Dayton, Ohio, I’m sure many of you know someone who is either using opioids or has died from opioids. In Dayton alone, there were 167 deaths due to overdoses in 2017. This is a number that continues to grow and break records every year and this isn’t the kind of record we want to be breaking. In response to this epidemic, several rehabilitation and referral services have come to fruition in the area.

Now, given the deaths and the amount of families affected by this, you would think that we, as a community, would accept any of these programs with open arms, happy to have people trying to change the lives of these people; however, this has not been the case for the Teen Challenge referral center. This is a place for victims to come and receive help and hope for recovery. It is at a church in the residential area a few blocks from our downtown. Many people have pushed back against its opening, especially in its current location. People are worried about this place of hope bringing down their property value or bringing unwanted visitors into our community. The joke, however, is on them. These people must be totally oblivious to think that this stuff isn’t already happening. We are living in the thick of it, and for anyone to believe that their neighborhood is safe, they are simply under an illusion. The drug already exists here. We already have it in our community. A place of hope and healing may be our only defense against this. We have got to try to keep families together amidst this terrible plague. Anyone is susceptible to addiction and we need a place for them to find help.

Image: https://www.beachway.com/5-key-components-of-effective-rehab-centers/

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