Among the quiet streets of Manatee County is a growing epidemic: opioid overdose rates are among the highest in the state.
- Manatee County facing rise in opioid overdoses
- Doug Carpenter started the Freedom Conference
- The two-day event features speakers who have battled addiction
Doug Carpenter, a member of Resonate Life Church in Bradenton, decided it was time to do something about it.
"In the last three or four years we've seen opioid addiction just devastate this community," Carpenter said. "I've had three friends in the last year and a half pass away from overdoses," he said.
Carpenter and a group of church volunteers organized the area's first Freedom Conference. The two-day event hosted eight speakers who know what it's like to battle addiction, and want to show those who are struggling that they can also get through it.
After battling addiction for nearly 25 years, Carpenter was committed to helping others in the community.
"That's why it's so important to me, that's why its so dear to my heart, and I know what people are going though, Carpenter said. "You don't wake up one morning and go 'I want to be a heroin addict,'" he said.
Carpenter also heads up a recovery ministry, Addicted to Life, that runs out of the church on Friday nights. The conference, meant to be a way to reach people beyond the ministry's meetings.
"The opioid addiction that's going on right now, all the deaths that are happening, this will hopefully awaken the people in the churches and the people in the community to start doing something about it," said Philip Turner, who attended the conference.
While this is the first Freedom Conference, Carpenter says it won't be the last.
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