Emily’s Hope founder speaks at White House panel on addiction

WASHINGTON, D.C. (KELO) — Former KELOLAND News anchor Angela Kennecke shared her late daughter Emily’s struggle with addiction during a gathering at the White House Wednesday.

Kennecke spoke during a roundtable as part of National Overdose Awareness Week.

Much of the talk focused on overcoming the stigma attached to addiction.

Sharing the pain of losing her 21-year-old daughter Emily from a fentanyl overdose brought Angela Kennecke from South Dakota to the White House.

“We were three days away from holding an intervention for my daughter because we knew something was terribly wrong. We had struggled with her behavior for a few years,” Kennecke said.

Kennecke’s non-profit, Emily’s Hope, caught the White House’s attention with her advocacy in helping families dealing with addiction and overcoming stigma.

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“I spoke out about it because I have spent three decades as a broadcast journalist and I had asked so many parents and other people to talk to me over the years after horrible things had happened in their lives, including child loss, and so I knew I had to speak out,” Kennecke said.

“This is really important work and what you’re saying is so powerful, talking about stigma, we could not have more impact,” Office of National Drug Control Policy Director Dr. Rahul Gupta said.

Kennecke says people using drugs often place blame upon themselves and as a result, don’t get the help they need.

“I know she was ashamed because I found a poem in her journal that now is stuck in my heart: needles in cupboards, needles in veins, needles take away thoughts, desensitize the pain and numb the shame,” Kennecke said.

Kennecke says the country is reaching a tipping point when it comes to the opioid crisis because just about everyone now knows someone who’s struggling with addiction. Her hope is to prevent other families from going through the same tragedy she experienced.

“The answer to what it is we could have done differently, I guess a million things. But all I can do is what I can do now,” Kennecke said.

White House officials point to increased funding for treatment and education programs, along with making the opioid antidote Naloxone more readily available to the public, for leading to what they call a ‘significant’ decline in overdose deaths across the nation.