James Simms died from a heroin overdose on 7/4/2015. The beginning of this addiction started in Logansport where he grew up. When his parents realized what was happening they acted with a sense of urgency to seek help for their son. After a long rehab stay and his ongoing help to mentor and coach others going through withdrawal James felt he had his life back with good health, a sense of cleansing, proud of his accomplishments and motivated to fulfill dreams. James moved to Fishers to get away from the bad influences and the common areas of where drugs lived.
The sad realization of this story is drugs live everywhere and will change lives forever. On 7/3/15 James made a choice to take a trip to Marion to visit “a friend” and from there they traveled to meet up with more friends and before he realized “they” picked up a drug substance in Kokomo. How could this happen? Clean for a year and didn’t go to Logansport, but found this terrible drug he had worked so hard to push out of his life in Kokomo. He found it and we lost him.
We woke up that morning thinking about our plans to celebrate the 4th of July, but within a few hours we received the worst news imaginable. We cried, felt angry and then our hearts began to ache knowing we will never hear James laugh, see his smiles and experience his kindness and passion for life. We lost James in Marion Indiana on 7/4/15.
I will never understand why this had to happen, but know it has opened my eyes to SEE, my mouth to Scream Out, and heart to GIVE.
I am not sure who I want to be mad at most, so is there a special order or list of anger when experiencing this kind of loss?
1. Heroin
2. Bad friends
3. Drug Dealers
4. Stigmas
5. Addicts
6. Lawmakers who make it easy on true dealers and hard on addicts.
This is a very confusing and emotional experience which changes lives FOREVER.
This message is from a person who just wants to shout out to say “Let’s work together and figure this out”. Too many lives lost and so many families changed.
We will keep the overdose awareness alive and fight this battle…………..as James would say “fear none and never back down”.
Robin Haak <3
Wishing James never made that trip to Marion Indiana. 🙁
by Robin Haak