First off, let me say that Im not an addict. Ive never touched a hard drug in my life. Ive never felt the high of heroin or suffered the withdrawal symptoms. With that being said....those who are fighting for your lives....your my hero! I am a co-founder of a independent record company called Alliance Records. Were just outside of Dayton, Ohio (Troy to be exact). We had a friend of the group die from a heroin overdose last February and it shook some of us up quite a bit. So we thought what the heck, lets do a heroin awareness show in the summer and call it Stand Against Addiction. We passed some ideas around, picked a venue and went to work. No one knew what it was going to turn into...a life altering experience. When we started the concept for the show, we had the same concept of users that most people had; theyre criminals in large cities who are going nowhere in life. Im ashamed now that I ever thought those thoughts. Heroin has no class structure. In fact, your twice as likely to use in small towns than in big cities. None of us knew how bad the problem was or how many lives had been effected by it. We all had the stigma that users were losers. But as time went on I got the privilege to meet with our local police chief and our recovery center (Miami County Recovery Council) and learn that these users arent criminals. Most of them want to stop and in fact need help, but dont know where to get it. Thats when a fire light under us and we pushed even harder to make the show a success for all those who are begging to be saved....and to break the stigma that most of our population has about addicts. We teamed up with as many outreach groups as we could and got as much information as possible on how to help those struggling. And myself personally, the more I dug into the problem the more I became emotionally involved to help at least one person turn their life around. We received much criticism for our efforts. We are a rap organization which automatically turns people away due to our content. Which is fine, but what hurt the most was church groups talking down about our efforts because we had bad language in our songs is what really got to me. I just kept thinking whats more important, saving lives or swearing? Unfortunately some people have high horses they ride on a daily basis and cannot see the world for what it is. In danger and in need of help. I wont bore you with the details of how things went. But I will say our efforts will continue with the 2015 Stand Against Addiction show. And to those fighting, we have your backs. You can do this!!!
Posted on: Tue, 02 Dec 2014 02:59:32 +0000
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