It took 46 years to get to this point. Live on Facebook, passed out from a drug overdose.
Ronald Hiers was trying to kill himself.
He has been battling addiction for almost 50 years. His poison of choice has evolved throughout the years.
It was alcohol in high school, cocaine in his 20s and 30s, and ended with heroin.
One of his wake up calls came when a disturbing video showing Hiers and his wife passed out on the sidewalk was posted online.
People walked by him as if he weren't a human being. They poked at him, laughed and didn't call 911.
“That video was the best thing that happened to me. It got me here, and here is where I’ve been trying to get to 46 years,” Hiers said.
After he watched the video again, he said it doesn't get any less painful. But, he has no resentment for the man who posted it.
“He didn't owe me a phone call. He didn't owe me anything. He didn't get me there. He didn't get my wife there. She and I got ourselves there,” Hiers said.
Now, the Frayser High School graduate faces his demons at Turning Point, an addiction-recovery center in Southaven, Miss.
It’s a battle he is doing alone, not with his wife..
Turning Point said that if a family or couple has a history of using together, it is best they are treated separately.
When couples go through intentional separation in treatment, a critical turning point has to happen. It is an internal change that grounds them to further the work needed to maintain long-term sustainable recovery.
The road has not been easy, but Hiers has not lost his faith.
“That's what God does. He puts you in the path of things he wants you to see and guess he got tired of me not calling him, he had to call me,” Hiers said.
God wasn’t the only one he said called. On the top of his list to thank is his daughter.
“She made it possible. She bothered me on my telephone for hours that day,” Hiers said. “I didn't want to talk to her. I'm busy trying to kill myself, but she kept calling.”
If he meets the man who posted the video, he wants to ask one question: "Would you have called 911 if it had been one of (your) loved ones?”
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