Photo by Jon Anderson
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Mike Vest, executive director of the Addiction Prevention Coalition, speaks at the Hoover Area Chamber of Commerce luncheon at the Hoover Country Club in Hoover, Alabama, on Thursday, Oct. 17, 2019.
Sometimes people ask Mike Vest, the executive director of the Addiction Prevention Coalition, what makes him knowledgeable enough to lead the Birmingham area nonprofit.
Vest, who is in his second term as a Shelby County commissioner, told the Hoover Area Chamber of Commerce today that he doesn’t just have a head knowledge of the issues related to substance abuse and addiction. He lived with it personally.
“My grandfather was an alcoholic. My father was an alcoholic. My brother was a drug addict, and I found my nephew under a bridge in Nashville, Tennessee, 2½ years ago,” Vest told a crowd gathered at the chamber luncheon at the Hoover Country Club.
He found his father, who left his family in 1975, living in a car behind the Southern Museum of Flight in Birmingham in 2003 or 2004, he said. His father had been living in his car for 13 years, he said.
He found his brother walking the streets in the Uptown district of Birmingham after he had been hooked on crystal methamphetamine for 35 years, he said.
Vest’s father had tried to rent an apartment in Springville for a couple hundred dollars a month, but the complex manager wouldn’t let him stay there because the manager was afraid he wouldn’t pay. After Vest offered to pay his father’s rent if he failed to pay, the manager at first said no but later relented.
Vest’s father ended up paying his rent at the first of the month every month for seven years, he said. “All he needed was a chance.”
However, his father, who had been drinking alcoholic beverages since he was 9 years old, still struggled with his alcoholism. He died of leukemia in 2012. “He wouldn’t get off his whiskey to take his leukemia medication pills,” Vest said. “He died in a recliner in the apartment complex with a bottle of whiskey beside his recliner.”
After Vest found his brother, he took him to The Foundry Rescue and Recovery Center in Bessemer. His brother stayed there 1½ years, graduated from the recovery program, got a job, a place to live and a new car. He stayed clean two to three years until he died of a heart attack three years ago, Vest said.
“God gave him one last chance,” Vest said. “That took a lot of guts to say, ‘I need some help.’ It took him 35 years, but he did it.”
Vest said his nephew won’t go to treatment. He’s in jail, but at least he is alive and safe, Vest said.
Substance abuse can lead to a host of struggles in life, but recovery is possible, Vest said.
“We’re hope dealers. We’re not dope dealers,” he said of the Addiction Prevention Coalition. “We try to find people help.”
The coalition, which has been around about 12 years, works to make people aware of addiction issues, to prevent them and to connect people who need help with treatment facilities, Vest said.
For the past three years, the nonprofit has held an End Heroin Walk at Railroad Park in Birmingham. Each year, about 4,000 people show up, Vest said. Each of the last two years, the group trained about 350 people how to administer Narcan to reverse the effects of an opioid overdose, he said.
In February, the fourth walk will be held at Veterans Park on Valleydale Road in Hoover, and the coalition will hand out 350 Narcan kits provided by the Jefferson County Department of Health, Vest said.
“It’s like a nasal spray — just spray it up their nose, and they come back to life,” he said.
Opioid addiction is a serious problem, he said. The majority of middle school students who are dealing with opioid addiction got introduced to the drugs when they got their wisdom teeth out and the doctor prescribed 20 to 30 days worth of painkillers, he said. Others get hooked after being given painkillers for sports injuries, he said.
“There are other options besides opioids,” Vest said. “All you’ve got to do is ask your doctor.”
The Addiction Prevention Coalition also works to address and prevent other kinds of addiction, including alcohol, nicotine, marijuana and crack cocaine, Vest said. The group sends speakers to schools, community groups and businesses.
For more information, visit apcbham.org.