Harford and Eberle share their personal stories on overcoming drug addiction at town hall meeting
By Shiloh Appel
On the evening of April 11, 2017, Our Savior's Lutheran Church in Redfield was bustling with activity as 140 Spink County residents gathered together for the much-anticipated annual Town Hall Meeting sponsored by the Spink County Coalition. The meeting focused on Methamphetamine, opioid and underage alcohol trends in Spink County, updates and statistics on drug arrests, and tips on what the public can do about the current drug epidemic.
However, the feature of the evening was the personal testimonies of two former drug addicts from Spink County, Sandra Harford and Stephanie Eberle.
Harford's story
Harford was the first to tell her story, of which a brief description follows.
Her journey began when she married and gave birth to her first daughter at the age of 16. She was first introduced to prescription pills after suffering abuse from her husband. The pills quickly became an addiction for her.
"I became supermom," said Harford, who held a full-time job while also juggling motherhood and classes.
Later, Harford's husband died of an overdose. Harford herself relapsed several times after quitting pills. She was in and out of prison. She remarried and relapsed again.
"I was a skeleton walking around on pills," said Harford.
One morning, Harford said she finally hit her rock-bottom.
"I woke up and I couldn't breathe," said Harford. "I prayed, God, please take this away."
Since then, Harford said she has had no desire for it.
"I used to substitute pot, drinking, et cetra for the pills. Now, I don't drink or do anything. I have no desire to. I can't really explain it…I used to think that as long as my kids wore nice clothes and my house was clean I was doing okay. But I was a mess inside," she said. "Now, my house is a mess and my kids might have clothes with holes in them, but their mom is clean."
Eberle's story
When Stephanie Eberle took to the podium she shared that she had been an addict for more than 20 years.
"Jail and prison didn't scare me," said Eberle. "It was facing reality with nothing — that scared me."
Eberle said that her daughters could tell nightmarish stories of living with an addict.
However, she said her turning point was when she began to go through Detox.
"I am now five years into being clean," said Eberle. Today, her children are 20, 15 and 13.
"My kids know what it is like," she said. "You can't change an addict, but you can reach out and care."
SADD members and sheriff deputies give reports
After a free meal was served by Leo's Good Food to all in attendance, Redfield SADD members (Students Against Destructive Decisions) gave reports on the popularity of alcohol, tobacco, binge drinking, prescription drug use, Marijuana and Meth use in Redfield, Spink County, South Dakota and the US. SADD members Lexi Dykstra, Luann Minor, Hannah Komraus, Kara DeYoung, Jacob Clark and Cassie Metzinger read statistics to those gathered at the meeting. According to statistics, alcohol and binge drinking among high schoolers has significantly decreased in Redfield in the past few years while Marijuana and prescription drug use has slightly increased from about two percent to five percent of high schoolers abusing these intoxicants.
Dodi Haug, Director of the NE Prevention Resource Center, also presented the short video "Meth Changes Everything" to those in attendance. The video features the personal stories of several former Meth addicts living in South Dakota. It can be viewed at "methchangeseverything.com."
Following the video, Spink County deputies Kathy Adams and Shane Croeni updated county residents on recent drug arrests in Spink County. In one local Methamphetamine bust, Adams confiscated 36 grams of Methamphetamine. To give a visual to the public, Adams set a large black box on the table in front of those in attendance. After donning surgical gloves, she opened the box and retrieved a small plastic sandwich bag that contained 18 grams of pure Crystal Meth.
"This is half of what was found on the case," said Adams. "[According to the amount] I figured that approximately 72 people in our community were going to buy a gram of Meth that week. One gram of Meth is 200 dollars."
According to Adams, two of the local Methamphetamine arrests were called in by the users themselves.
"They called 911 themselves because they thought someone was chasing them," said Adams. "They were very paranoid."
Croeni reaffirmed the paranoid tendencies of Methamphetamine users as he recalled his experience with one of them.
"I sat with him at the hospital overnight. It was like sitting with a new puppy," said Croeni. "He kept getting up to 'talk to his wife and kids.' But I had to keep telling him to sit down because there was nobody there."
Adams said that there were 18 felony Methamphetamine arrests in Spink County in 2015 and 22 felony arrests in 2016. Meanwhile, there have already been 20 felony arrests in the first third of the year of 2017. (check on validity.)
The public was again encouraged to keep their eyes and ears open for strange activity in order to help law enforcement crack down on the Methamphetamine dealers in the area. The meeting then came to an end at about 8 p.m.
