"I've been arrested 18 times, incarcerated 496 days, and spent 2,556 days addicted to heroin," Nicole Walmsley says before about 70 people at an event center in Lodi, Ohio.
It's April of 2017, and Nicole has been sober for over four years. The better part of her recovery was spent in what she calls fight mode, driving all across Ohio to save addicts in the midst of the state's rising opioid epidemic. Since 2015, when the state's opioid epidemic hit record numbers, Nicole has been a major figure in a loosely connected coalition of treatment coordinators, police liaisons, and 12-Step program leaders convinced that the only way to remedy Ohio's public-health emergency is to take action on their own.
Gathered around Nicole at the Family Day Center is her aunt, Alice Eckley, along with Nicole's 20-something clients and partners-in-recovery. Next to Nicole stands her 12-year-old daughter Haley. "I got clean when she was seven," Nicole says. "One time we were watching The Walking Dead and Haley said: 'Mom! Do you remember when you looked like one of those?'" Haley smiles, embarrassed. "Here I am thinking I looked good in my addiction, and the whole time my daughter says I looked like a zombie."
[For more on this story by MARK OPREA, go to https://psmag.com/social-justice/heroin-heartland]
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