The Shifting World of a 13-Year-Old Alcoholic

Logan Terry grew up in White House, a picturesque small town in middle Tennessee, where, when he was young, the biggest excitement was getting a Kroger and later a Walmart. However, his world shifted dramatically around the age of 12 after his parents divorced and other family losses occurred. Around this same time, the pain pill and addiction epidemic began taking hold in the early 2000s in White House, Tennessee. At 13, searching for confidence and trying to emulate the partying seen on television, Logan started drinking.

“I was 13 years old and I went to the Renaissance Festival and I brought back a yard glass… and I remember drinking it and I was able to chug it and I remember realizing at the time that I could chug this alcohol and that’s crazy but I didn’t want to stop and then I remember this immediate warmth like flow into me from the liquor.”

He realized immediately that he was hooked and spent the rest of his middle school and high school years chasing that feeling. When he was 16, he was introduced to Oxycontin, which became his “new love” and provided him with the confidence and energy he felt he lacked. Accessing these drugs was simple because pain pills were everywhere; kids were crushing them up in class, and the use of pills was seen as the “new norm” among the cool kids and athletes before the community had experienced major overdose deaths.

Breaking the Cycle: The Power of Long-Term Structure

Logan’s battle with addiction worsened over the years; by age 21, every dollar he made went toward buying drugs and drinking alcohol. The turning point was devastating: his best friend since kindergarten, Keith Dixon, passed away from a drug overdose in March 2014. Though he initially used Keith’s death as an excuse to further his drinking and drug use, a friend who had gone to rehab eventually convinced Logan to seek help. This first attempt didn’t stick, and he ended up in a cycle of going in and out of treatment from age 21 to 25, only willing to do about 40% of what was suggested.

The breakthrough came after becoming homeless and facing a near-fatal overdose on Christmas Eve 2017. Fortunately, because Logan was covered under his father’s premier insurance policy, he was able to go to California for treatment. While treatment centers were helpful, the key difference this time was not going back to his old home environment.

“The big difference this time is that one I didn’t go back to my old home environment like I had done every other sobriety attempt. I knew that if I was to go back after treatment and do the same thing that I was going to get the exact same result… This time I stayed in California and I went to a sober living and that sober living and my experience in that recovery home completely changed my life.”

Logan stayed in the recovery home for a year and a half, crediting the loving accountability, structured environment, and recovery work for his freedom. He learned essential skills (like how to copy and paste!) and found meaningful employment through the owner of the recovery home, who also became his sponsor.

Turning Tragedy into Mission: Hope in the Hills

While Logan was in California, 13 of his friends from White House, Tennessee, died from drug overdoses. This shocking contrast between his experience in the large recovery community of Thousand Oaks and the crisis back home drove him to figure out the cause. Logan concluded that the South and Appalachia were specifically targeted by “big pharma” for prescription pain medication, leading to the crisis, compounded by a lack of resources and severe stigma.

“13 of my friends died from drug overdoses while I’m in California getting clean and sober… I realized that it really kind of doesn’t make sense to me like how is the guy from one of the smallest towns… how is it that more of my friends are dying… or is there a bigger problem in Tennessee and in the South than there is in other places and I became kind of obsessed with figuring that out.”

Inspired by Tyler Childers’ song “Nose on the Grindstone,” Logan looked into the artist’s social media and discovered Healing Appalachia, a music festival that raises funds for recovery programs. This discovery prompted him to start the Keith Dixon Foundation in 2021, modeled after Healing Appalachia, to honor his late friend and provide scholarships to long-term recovery programs.

Logan’s relationship with the organization deepened, and he eventually received a $10,000 grant for the Keith Dixon Foundation from Hope in the Hills (the nonprofit that produces the festival), presented by Tyler Childers and Jason Isbell. In June of this past year, he was asked to apply to become the Executive Director of Hope in the Hills. The nonprofit was co-founded by Charlie Hatcher, Ian Thornton, and Tyler Childers in response to the overdose crisis, notably after 26 people overdosed in Huntington, West Virginia, in one day in 2016. The annual Healing Appalachia music festival provides crucial funding, giving out over $630,000 in grants to recovery programs across Appalachia in its biggest year yet. These grants often fund recovery housing scholarships, addressing the need for long-term engagement, which is the key determining factor for positive outcomes.

Ready to hear more about Logan’s journey and the incredible mission of Healing Appalachia?

Dive into the full conversation to hear more about Logan’s path to sobriety, the vital importance of Naloxone (Narcan) in saving lives, and how Hope in the Hills is helping Appalachians heal Appalachia!