Opioid addiction recovery a slow and painful journey

Journalist Randy Rieland highlights just how challenging overcoming an addiction can be.

Brian and Caroline Folker had always thought Fauquier County was a safe place to raise their two daughters. After much research, they had picked it as the place to live after his transfer from London to a job in Vienna.

But, it seemed like unnecessary cruelty to have Kathrine die not long after a stint in an addiction recovery center, after being buoyed by so much relief and hope. Through their terrible ordeal, the couple learned one of the awful realities of addiction. Most addicts relapse. Multiple times. Even after they receive treatment.

Kathrine had been in the Edgehill Recovery Retreat in Winchester for only two weeks when she left. She told her parents she was afraid she would lose her job if she stayed any longer. She also told them she would be fine.

“It turned out to be a perfect storm,” Ms. Folker said. “My anxiety-ridden, naïve, follower of a daughter, very easily influenced and living in a time and place when this epidemic hit. She might as well have had a bull’s-eye on her back.”

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