GCHD to present noted speaker on addiction recovery

By Editor | November 9, 2023 |

By Carmen Ensinger

In their continued war on drugs and the addiction that often follows, the Greene County Health Department is sponsoring noted speaker Dr. Jason Roop who will be presenting a program called “Breaking the Cycle” on Nov. 21 at Walnut Hall in Carrollton.
Registration opens at 8 a.m. and the event is free for anyone who wants to attend
Greene County Health Department Public Health Administrator Molly Peters said after hearing him speak at an illicit drug conference, she knew he would be perfect to bring to Greene County.
“During that conference, there were a lot of guest speakers that were sharing their models for preventative or recovery focused material,” Peters said. “He spoke about personality traits and risky behaviors and focusing on the positive personality traits to improve recovery and it seemed like a great topic for our community and something we are focusing on in our needs assessment, so we invited him to come and he accepted.”
Roop isn’t just someone who talks about addiction, he has experienced it himself. Roop spent 17 years in active addiction and would become homeless before entering recovery in 2013.
Since then, he has earned his Masters of Theology degree in 2018 and in 2022 earned a Ph.D in Business Management with a specialization in leadership.
He has been the pastor at Asbury, Ken. UMC since 2019 and currently serves as Executive Director of Workforce Education at Campellsville University.
In 2022 he was appointed to the Kentucky Opioid Abatement Commission by the Kentucky Attorney General and serves as a board member for Hometown Connect, a local nonprofit focused on making addiction treatment accessible for all.
“His research interests focus on the positive qualities found in people with substance use disorder,” Peters said. “The goal of his work is to change how people view addiction. Instead of looking at addiction as a character deficit or moralistic failure, it can best be understood through understanding ourselves.”
According to Roop’s theory, the driving force behind our thinking and behavioral patterns can be positioned to positively impact everyone around us. People in recovery don’t lose their superpowers, we just stop using them.
Roop’s seminar at Walnut Hall is being paid for through an Overdose Surveillance Grant the Health Department received.
“We had a budget line for training and felt this was an appropriate use of those funds,” Peters said. “We are going to have this as an open session so people in the community who want to attend can register with Kelli Angel at the Health Department.”
Peters said Boyd Hospital as well as Jersey Community Hospital are also planning to participate in the event and they are working to get law enforcement involved as well.
Opening the session Roop will be Jennifer Russell with the University of Illinois Extension.
“She will talk about individual personalities so that we can better understand our own personality differences and how that impacts our work force and life in general,” Peters said. “She teaches a program called “True Colors” which deals with the differences in personalities.”
Peters was impressed with Roop and thinks others will be too.
“I think he did a great job and just being able to participate and listen to him speak was inspiring to me,” she said. “It just made me want to definitely bring it back so that other people can hear his message and see that he is living proof that you can change your life around.”