ERIN, Tenn. (WKRN) — This April marks three years since Joshua Mitchell, from Erin, Tennessee, lost his life to a fentanyl overdose.
Now Josh’s siblings are honoring their older brother by helping others find a sober way of living.
“You know losing someone is hard, but it’s the only thing that got me out of my grief,” explained Emily Mead said.
It will soon be three years since Mead and her brother, Preston Mitchell, lost their older brother, Josh.
“Oh, ah, it’s hard. But I’m thankful for the 27 years we did have to build memories,” Mead said as she looked through photographs.
For Mead and Preston, some of the memories are easily remembered but others are hard to forget.
For the last seven years of his life, Josh battled with addiction.
“It started in high school with partying. I feel like that’s pretty normal for high school kids. They go to parties and drink,” Mead said.
Josh would later experiment with drugs then opioids.
It was right before Christmas of 2019, during a family intervention, when he agreed to go to rehab.
“Then COVID hit, so he was doing really good after, but COVID was devastating to a lot of people in the addiction world,” Mead said.
Soon after, he would relapse in January of 2021.
“He overdosed in the car with a friend and that friend ended up driving him to the hospital and they were able to reverse the overdose,” Mead said.
Fearing the worst was yet to come, she got the phone call a few months later that Josh didn’t wake up.
“I really didn’t want to see anyone else feel the pain that we felt because this is a completely treatable disease that is personal to me because we lost him,” Mead said.
Turning her grief into action, Mead started a nonprofit in her brother’s name. Joshua 1:9 Run for Recovery helps pay for rehab for those struggling with addiction.
“If we can help just one person, that makes all the difference, just one person,” Mead said.
So far, the nonprofit has helped around a dozen people get the assistance they need.
“It’s a beautiful way to honor [Josh] and I love helping people,” Mead said.
Helping has been a source of healing for Mead and her family.
“With faith, you question, why him? I don’t know, but maybe this is why, so we can help people,” Mead said.