Bill Helton - One Man's Story

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.

For this episode, Bill Helton joins us to tell him his life story (so far). The Hazard, KY-raised man began his struggle with addiction to alcohol, as a self-prescribed cure for shyness in high school. The years that followed became tied up in substance abuse and selling, which caused plenty of interaction with the law enforcement.

After nearly three decades of substance abuse and a decade of living life on the run, Bill came around to wanting to recover.  He became willing to change and set himself up on a path to bring the change about. Today, as a fifty-year-old, he looks back at his path with us. 

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).