Area lawmaker plays role in addiction recovery rally in Cape

The west side of Capaha Park smelled like barbecue Saturday as residents gathered to support Living In Recovery’s addiction and recovery-awareness rally.

With live music and children on the playground, a raffle and face-painting booths, the event felt more like a family reunion than an AA meeting, and that was the whole point, said Living In Recovery president Kristi Booth.

“This is a grassroots effort,” Booth said. “There’s a huge community of people in recovery.”

The group’s intent is to alleviate the stigma she said surrounds substance abuse.

The event’s keynote speaker was state Rep. Holly Rehder (R-Sikeston), who for years has made prescription drug regulation a legislative priority.

State Rep. Holly Rehder addresses the crowd at the Living in Recovery addiction awareness rally Saturday in Capaha Park.Tyler Graef

Rehder told the crowd she agreed the stigma surrounding substance abuse continues to hurt communities that should be focusing on treatment and rehabilitation. Rehder shared stories about her mother and sister, who struggled with substance abuse and married drug dealers.

“I grew up around this,” she said.

Rehder’s daughter Rachel, who attended the rally, struggled with substance abuse for more than a decade before entering recovery over two years ago.

“We’re not bad people,” Rehder said, prompting applause from the audience of about 150. “We just have struggles we’re getting through.”

The failure of the Missouri Legislature to establish a prescription-drug monitoring program is a glaring disservice to communities, she said. She pointed out every state in the nation and even Puerto Rico and Guam provide doctors with resources to ensure individuals aren’t obtaining opiates from multiple physicians, but Missouri does not.

Rehder, whose most recent attempt to establish a statewide monitoring program failed narrowly, said she now intends to enact a monitoring network county by county so legislators won’t have any excuse to reject the idea again next year.

Rehder’s remarks came days after U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) reiterated her support for measures such as a monitoring program to deal with Missouri’s drug-overdose rate, the seventh-highest in the nation.

“People are dying,” Booth said. “A friend of mine died in July of an opioid overdose.”

Booth has been in recovery for 13 years. She said one of the things that helped her realize she could get sober was seeing others who had entered recovery before her.

“I didn’t think that it was possible,” she said. “But at 24, seeing people who could stand up and say, ‘I’ve been sober 28 years,’ that helped. If they’ve been sober for longer than I’ve been alive, I knew I could do it.”

To help with Rehder’s efforts to enact a drug-monitoring program, the event also featured a voter-registration booth.

“People need to understand the impact that would have,” Booth said.

At the community level, Booth said Living In Recovery is committed to moving the conversation past ostracizing those with substance-abuse disorders and helping those people get help.

Paul Bell, who got sober and began college in his mid-50s, now works with Mission Missouri in Sikeston. He said effective treatment requires community bonds and honest, accepting dialogue.

“If you hide it,” he said, “you can’t treat it.”

Living In Recovery secretary Kailee Burgin reminded Bell of a recovery mantra:

“Suffering is necessary,” she said. “Misery is optional.”

Organizers said they hoped next year’s event would be larger, but even this year’s festivities served as an invitation to those who are too burdened by fear to seek treatment or think they can’t survive sobriety.

tgraef@semissourian.com

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