LAKE COUNTY, Ohio — Lake County is still waiting to get its hands on the hundreds of millions of dollars three major pharmacies were ordered to pay the county for their role in the opioid crisis.
As appeals play out, leaders within the Lake County Opioid Alliance aren't waiting to figure out how to bring the epidemic to an end.
On Wednesday, they heard from a woman who's opening up about her addiction battle in hopes of saving others.
“I was completely lost. My life was totally ruined,” said Kara Goergen.
Goergen says the woman you see now is a complete 180 from just three and a half years ago.
“I was around people who didn’t care about me. People who were using me and I was using them,” said Goergen.
For 17 years, Goergen says she used opioids to cope with her pain after being assaulted, only to realize its damaging impact later on.
“I was prescribed so much medication that it shouldn’t have ever been that way,” she said.
Through Goergen’s addiction, she tells News 5 she lost relationships, isolated herself from others, and destroyed her health and her finances, until one day she started living again.
“I’m just so blessed that I’m out of that situation,” said Goergen.
Now in Lake County, Kara Goergen brings her testimony inside the administration building before activists, pastors and even organizations all trying to understand the problem in their community and find a solution.
“Sadly, this opioid epidemic has been ongoing now for long enough that virtually everyone has been touched in some fashion,” said Lake County Narcotics Agency Director, Pat Hengst.
“It’s raw, it’s real, it’s painful and there’s no answer often times,” said Pastor Larry Bogenrief at Willow Praise Church in Willowick.
But what Bogenrief finds helps is meeting people where they are.
“We have a homeless outreach, we do distributions, we have community meals both here and offsite. All of those to us are about connecting with people in the community,” he said.
Within Lake County in the last year, the narcotics agency says they’re finding most shipments of opioids and fentanyl aren’t in a powder form anymore, but instead round-blue pressed pills.
“We’ve had a couple of very notable seizures recently. We’ve seized 5,000 tablets in one house during a search warrant. For us, here in Lake County that’s a significant seizure,” said Hengst.
This is why Hengst, and others believe community discussions like Wednesday are important.
“People aren’t going to get help until they’re ready but know that you’re worth it. That this life is worth it. That there’s so much more to life than substances,” said Goergen.
The next meeting for the Lake County Opioid Alliance is December 7, 2022 at 2 p.m.
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