CLAYTON, N.C. — As Election Day approaches, a family in Clayton shares their experience with addiction recovery, highlighting the challenges faced by countless North Carolinians and what they hope the gubernatorial candidates will do to address the opioid and fentanyl crisis.
Kayleigh St. Romain, 18, reads a book to her siblings during a weekend home — a simple moment she now treasures with her family, in stark contrast to the darker days when addiction took control of her life. What started as marijuana use to help her sleep spiraled into dependency on prescription pills.
“Within six months, I was using prescription pills to get high,” St. Romain recalled from when she was 15. “Things went downhill very quickly.”…