Owensboro native Roy Henry said he was his own worst enemy as he recounted his time battling his addiction to methamphetamine. Now, he is proudly 13 months sober. Getting to this place was a hard road for him. He noted he underwent three near-death experiences before seeking professional help and he eventually stopped using.
While he was the owner of Boogalou BBQ out on Carter Road, Henry said he found himself getting mixed in with people that introduced him to the world of drugs in 2017.
“I was making a lot of money. I’ve never made that kind of money and I didn’t know how to handle it. In that drug world when you make a lot of money, the wrong people will seek you out,” Henry said.
Nonetheless, he takes the responsibility for his own actions. Those actions led him down a “rabbit hole of my own mind.”
During different periods he thought he would able to stop using via his own choice but he always said one thought would creep into his head:
“One more time, nobody’s gonna know about this. It’s not gonna hurt anybody because I’m not hurting anybody,” he said. “I’m doing it to myself.”
It wasn’t until his third near-death experience he realized he needed help.
Henry said he was working in Nashville, Tennessee, when the experience happened. While there he was paranoid that someone — police or others — were going to catch him with the drugs.
At one point he had gotten so nervous that he ingested one gram instantly in a tactic to hide the paraphernalia. Almost instantly he said he was hit with an adrenaline rush and thought that was his last moment.
“I thought, ‘Here I am. I’m going to die on the bathroom floor at a campground. I’m never seeing my kids again and this is how my story is going to end,'” he said.
One of the people at the campgrounds called the ambulance and Henry was given an opiate to bring his levels down.
When he went under, he didn’t come back for about a day and a half.
In the hospital in Nashville, he learned it had been laced with molly and bath salts.
“But two good things came out of that: I finally realized that my life was unmanageable and that my life was out of control and there’s no way I could face this monumental task without professional help,” Henry said.
From there he went into Redeemed and Restored, a faith-based drug and alcohol addiction center in Hopkinsville.
The second thing that came out of it was his realization of the importance of his relationship with God, not only to achieve sobriety but for himself in general.
Since going through the program, Henry is able to find solace in knowing that God is with him, moving him forward and overcoming obstacles. For these reasons, he encourages anyone with drug addiction to go to a Christian-based rehab.
Henry never believed he would’ve gotten in such a situation when he was in Owensboro growing up. An alum of Owensboro Catholic High School and a member of the church, he put religion into a box and now he feels that box is gone — along with the old Henry.
“I made the choices to be that person that I no longer want to be, and so it was almost like that person died that day, and then a new person was born,” Henry said.
Even beyond his faith in God, he feels it’s impacted how he parents. When he was still using meth, he found himself thinking he was a good father to his children.
He tried to do good for his kids, but he came to realize he was another one of his worst enemies: a hypocrite.
“It’s made just obviously a huge difference in who I am in our relationships,” Henry said.
Now after moving away from Owensboro, he is residing in Naples, Florida, and enjoying his time with his daughter before she enrolls at the University of Kentucky next fall. Henry is proud to share his story because he is able to see the lives it touches along the way.
“I probably had 50 people that I knew … from different aspects of my life that had reached out and shared their stories. Some I didn’t even know about, but there was so many [in Owensboro] that instant messaged me or called me or just you know really stepped up for me,” Henry said. “You start getting all those messages and all those people’s support, it was just awesome. Made a big difference.
