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Former MLB Star Says Faith In Jesus Helped Him Beat Opioid Addiction

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Nick Givas Media And Politics Reporter
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Former Major League Baseball star Darryl Strawberry spoke out about his personal struggle with drug use Wednesday, crediting his faith in Jesus to help him overcome opioid addiction.

“It’s faith. It’s in Jesus that my life changed forever. We need to get back to faith and get faith programs to educate them and that part of the brokenness that’s going on inside,” he said on “Fox and Friends.”

“And there’s some brokenness that goes on inside that needs to be healed. We don’t know what happened to people, so we should always care about them. Because their life matters, regardless of them getting addicted to drugs. There are places that can help them and education is the most important part.”

Strawberry said it’s not about race or color but about people helping one another to get back on the right path.

“People help people. And if we don’t get back to what this is really all about is being real people and not color, but get back to just helping people — people are going to continue to die,” he said.

He added President Donald Trump was right to label the problem a crisis and said young people are especially susceptible to drug and alcohol addiction because of their brain chemistry.

“He [Trump’s] right. It’s a crisis. And we just need to get out here and we need to just really educate everybody, and the stigma of addiction and drugs are real. And people need help, and we just need to get back to doing that,” Strawberry said. “Anything that you use as a drug that alters your mind is going to change your thinking and the process of who you are. That’s why so many young people are getting so addicted to the opiates. Because their brains are young, and once it alters their mind they feel good, it changes them and it separates them from who they really are.”

Strawberry said opioid and drug addiction is not limited to urban areas, claiming many of the young people he sees in treatment are from the suburbs. He also warned parents to be more discriminating with how they dispense pain medication to their children.

“These are suburban kids that are coming to treatment that are lost. That are looking for answers … we try to lead them into faith so they can find out ‘what’s wrong with me.’ The trauma inside of them no one knows,” he said. “And parents need to be careful about allowing their kids to pick up prescription pills. They need to get away from that when they get injures. Give them Tylenol and let them go lay on the couch until they feel better.”

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