Jeremy and Edna Thompson - A Married Couple of Peer Support Specialists

The Local Lens is a public health podcast going inside one community's experience with the drug epidemic. Everyone in the town of Stanton, KY sees this drug issue differently from each other, either because of their personal lives or professional roles. This show aims to showcase those different perspectives through having honest, in-depth interviews with a new guest each episode.

Jeremy and Edna Thompson join our host, Nate Brooks, for this episode. The married couple, originally from Texas, moved to Stanton to work as Peer Support Specialists for Jenell Brewer at SPARK Ministries. Through the episode, Jeremy and Edna (Jedna for short) tell their individual stories of having addictions, their recoveries, and their experience working together today.

Their job as peer support specialists call for them to share their real-life experiences of going through recovery, and these two provide incredible insight to that process. Edna, who had already been through addiction and had recovered by the time their marriage started, played a crucial role in Jeremy's recovery process.  Now, they share their first-hand experience with wants to hear it at SPARK, through their work with individuals and the Syringe Exchange Program.  Jedna may just prove to be our town's most effective force for recovery to date. 

These are our people, using our voices, telling our stories, because no one sees it like we do.

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The Local Lens is sponsored by Kentucky Opioid Community Healing (from the Kentucky Rural Health information Organization) and Powell County CARES (from the Powell County Health Department).