Kylie Petro poses for a portrait with her daughter Adriana Terrell outside her home in Columbus recently.
Kylie Petro shared her personal story that is harrowing yet inspiring. It’s also a story that takes a great deal of bravery to impart to the world.
As The Republic’s Andy East reported Sunday, Petro, who is now 30, was convinced a few short years ago that she would die from a drug overdose. She said her life had been nearly consumed by addiction for years.
“This is how I’m going to die,” Petro recalled believing. “… I had almost accepted that was how my life was going to be like. I was just going to die.”
The Columbus native had been in and out of rehab. She had tried to get clean and had relapsed. And on her fourth overdose from what she thought was heroin, it took about six doses of Narcan to revive her. She had unknowingly taken fentanyl, the powerful synthetic opioid that is driving the current record number of overdoses in Bartholomew County. Local officials fear that due to the prevalence of deadly fentanyl, we remain on pace for 50 overdose deaths in 2022, up from the latest record of 33 last year.
That’s the bad news.
The good news is, Kylie Petro, and others like her, is not a grim statistic. Petro has been clean since that near-deadly overdose four years ago, when she wasn’t sure she’d make it. She’s working, she recently bought her first home, and she is building a life here in Columbus for herself and her daughter.
She came forward to tell her story, she said, because she wanted to help show those who are battling addiction that there is hope. And there is help.
“There was a time, to be honest, where I didn’t think (recovery) was possible,” Petro said. Her message to those who are in the throes of addiction is that recovery is possible. She’s living proof.
The Republic has made this point in a steady drumbeat in this space, but it means so much more coming from someone who has lived through these experiences. Recovery may be the most difficult thing someone who is addicted will ever go through, but examples like Petro are encouraging and vital.
For Petro, she said she was in jail after her last overdose when she “made a choice to never go back to that life.” She has kept that commitment to herself and her daughter, and in the process, she says she rebuilt relationships that she thought were long gone.
We applaud Kylie Petro for four years of sobriety, and we celebrate every soul in our community who has battled back from addiction. We have no way to count all those who have done so, but we want to believe that it’s a sizeable number, and we hope that number keeps growing.
If you or someone you know needs help to recover from addiction, a good first step is making a confidential call to 800-662-4357.
Petro’s story and those of others who have overcome addiction reminds us that recovery can sometimes take years, sometimes multiple tries. What is most important is that we never give up on anyone who wants to recover from addiction.
