WASHINGTON – David Stoecker thought he would die of his addiction to opioids and methamphetamine, which consumed nearly 25 years of his life and landed him in jail more than a dozen times.
Today, the Springfield 43-year-old is clean and helping others battling drug and alcohol dependency. And he's about to lend his voice to an increasingly forceful addiction advocacy movement that hopes to take Washington by storm next month.
Stoecker is one of about 100 Missourians -- and tens of thousands of Americans -- who are expected to flock to the National Mall on Oct. 4 for a rally aimed at highlighting the scourge of addiction and pushing Congress for a more aggressive response.
Stoecker is one of about 100 Missourians -- and tens of thousands of Americans -- who are expected to flock to the National Mall on Oct. 4 for a rally aimed at highlighting the scourge of addiction and pushing Congress for a more aggressive response.
For Stoecker, it's a chance to "put a voice and a face on recovery" and help reduce the stigma surrounding addiction. For organizers, it's a chance to transform what they call "the most ignored health crisis in America."
They hope the event -- the UNITE to Face Addiction rally -- will draw 50,000 to 100,000 people to Washington, where musicians like Sheryl Crow and other celebrities will help broadcast their message that addiction is a disease, not a crime or a moral failing.
"This is the first-ever rally on the National Mall for addiction and recovery, so this is sort of our 'AIDS quilt' moment," said Greg Williams, co-founder of Facing Addiction Inc., the nonprofit group organizing the event.
When it was first displayed on the National Mall in 1987, the AIDS Memorial Quilt was larger than a football field. That compelling visual stitchwork helped illustrate the scale of the HIV/AIDS epidemic and grab public attention. Policymakers eventually responded by increasing money for prevention, treatment, and medical research, and the stigma associated with HIV/AIDS began to lift.
"When you think about how that issue was stigmatized and discriminated against and how 20 years later, people live with HIV/AIDS in a very comprehensive health care (setting) and are treated with a chronic disease model -- it's our best parallel," Williams said.
The Oct. 4 rally will be followed by a "lobby day" on Capitol Hill, with advocates pressing key lawmakers for action on pending legislation to expand treatment and reduce barriers for recovered addicts to rebuild their lives.
"This illness is shrouded in secrecy and shame, so symbolically (the rally) is really important," said Carol McDaid, a lobbyist who specializes in addiction-related policy issues and is coordinating the lobby day. "But it's also important for policymakers to see that we are a constituency of consequence."
The new level of activism and advocacy around addiction, Williams and others say, has been fueled by a heroin epidemic that is much worse than previous drug scourges.
"This is one of the most life-threatening illnesses I've ever treated," said Shawn Ryan, an emergency room physician at the University of Cincinnati who also specializes in addiction treatment.
In a recent blog post, Ryan said the mortality rate from opioid overdose is "four to five times higher than rates during the 'black tar' heroin epidemic in the mid-1970s and more than three times what they were during the peak years of the crack cocaine epidemic of the 1990s."
With the death toll climbing in every state and the epidemic hitting rural and suburban America, Williams said, "families who have lost loved ones to this crisis are starting to get very loud and assertive with our government... And they have very powerful stories."
Take Kimberly Wright, of Cold Spring, Ky., who lost her stepsister -- and almost her daughter -- to heroin. Wright now runs Kentucky Parents Against Heroin, a support group that has her fielding constant calls from panicked parents trying to get help for their kids.
"We have kids coming out of the woodwork wanting us to help them... (and saying) 'I don't want to do this anymore,'" Wright said. But with detox and treatment slots in short supply, she said, "we just don't have what we need to help these kids."
Wright said she hopes the rally will help "send a message to Washington that they need to step it up and do something."
Stoecker, the former addict from Springfield, says the message he'll bring to the Oct. 4 National Mall rally will be partly personal, partly political. Raised by an abusive grandfather in Walnut Shade, Stoecker started using drugs when he was 12 because it helped block out his home life.
By his senior year in high school, meth was consuming his life. He dropped out of school, started stealing -- and then dealing -- to support his addiction, which eventually expanded to include opioids.
"I turned 21 in Booneville Correctional Center," he recalled. "I did not see a way out."
During his 25 years in the grips of addiction, Stoecker said, he was in and out of jail 15 to 20 times -- long enough to earn a GED in prison. That became his ticket to sobriety, because he scored high enough to get a college scholarship. He moved to Springfield in 2001 and eventually earned his bachelor's and master's degrees from Missouri State University.
Clean since 2009, Stoecker now works for Preferred Family Healthcare, where he serves as a counselor for Greene County's Drug Court program. He also runs an organization called Better Life in Recovery, devoted to reducing the stigma of addiction through education and community involvement.
He started the organization after reading an article about the actor Phillip Seymour Hoffman, who died of an accidental drug overdose in February 2014. In the comments, another reader had written, "Who cares, just another dead junkie," a remark that Stoecker says epitomizes what he and others face.
"So many people are afraid or ashamed to come forward," he says. "It makes it hard for us to join in with anything and to feel like we're part of our community."
He says he hopes the rally helps change public perceptions -- and prompts congressional reaction as well.
"We need to find a solution to the substance use crisis that's s going on right now," he said. "We need (lawmakers) to know that prevention is effective, early education is effective, treatment is effective, and those things need to be better funded."
Organizers of an Oct. 4 rally on the National Mall to push for congressional action on drug addiction have two main legislative goals: getting drug addiction treated as a public health crisis, not a law enforcement problem, and strengthening civil liberties protections for recovering addicts.
They say two bills pending in Congress would go a long way toward achieving those outcomes.
The Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act, sponsored by Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., Rob Portman, R-Ohio, and Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., would:
-- Provide grants to states, local governments, and nonprofit groups for education and prevention efforts to combat opioid and heroin abuse.
-- Provide federal funding for alternatives to incarceration for those with substance abuse problems.
-- Expand first-responders' access to naloxone, a medication that can reverse the effects of an opioid overdose.
-- Launch a demonstration program using medication-assisted treatment, a highly effective regimen for opioid addicts.
The Record Expungement Designed to Enhance Employment, or REDEEM Act, sponsored by Sens. Rand Paul, R-Ky., Cory Booker, D-N.J., and Rep. Chaka Fattah, D-Pa., would:
-- Allow people convicted of nonviolent crimes to petition the courts to seal their criminal records.
-- Automatically expunge nonviolent juvenile offenses committed by those under 15 and automatically seal nonviolent juvenile offenses committed by those 15 and older.
-- Relax a federal law that bars people convicted of drug-related felonies from receiving assistance under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families programs.
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