300 to play dead on State House lawn

When Amber Blevens came out of jail for the fifth and final time, a window opened.

It was fleeting, but it was a real opportunity for her to give up heroin and regain control of her life. Most, if not all addicts have a window like this, said Blevenss stepmother, Kriss Blevens.

To overcome addiction is impossible without an overlapping moment when the addict is ready to change his or her life and support services are ready to help, the elder Blevens said.

If our health care system is set up to be ready when the addict is ready, the magic of recovery can happen, she said. If the funding and the bed is not there . . . there is no opportunity. It will progress until death.

At 8:30 tomorrow morning, 300 people will lie as if dead on the State House lawn to say that New Hampshire isnt ready to help its citizens who suffer from substance-abuse disorders. They represent the more than 300 people who died last year in the state as a result of a drug overdose.

At 22 years old, Amber Red Blevens was one of the 300 lost.

Ahead of a review of the states budget, the bodies will serve as a reminder and hopefully a prompt to restore substance abuse-related services cut by the House Finance Committee from the governors proposed budget, said Joe Gallagher, communications director for New Futures, the group organizing the event.

In January 2014, Amber told Kriss Blevens through a glass partition in jail that when she was released a few days later, she was ready for help. She wanted to check in to long-term rehab, get clean and pursue her goal of becoming an EMT.

Kriss Blevens put Amber on the waiting list for Farnum Center in Manchester, hoping that a bed would soon open up so Amber could receive long-term treatment there. When Kriss returned to the jail two more times in the following week to visit Amber, she had to relay the fact that no beds were open.

Her desperation became more and more, Kriss said.

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300 to play dead on State House lawn