CLAYTON, N.C. — As Election Day approaches, a family in Clayton shares their experience with addiction recovery, highlighting the challenges faced by countless North Carolinians and what they hope the gubernatorial candidates will do to address the opioid and fentanyl crisis.
Kayleigh St. Romain, 18, reads a book to her siblings during a weekend home — a simple moment she now treasures with her family, in stark contrast to the darker days when addiction took control of her life. What started as marijuana use to help her sleep spiraled into dependency on prescription pills.
"Within six months, I was using prescription pills to get high," St. Romain recalled from when she was 15. “Things went downhill very quickly.”
One night in 2021, her parents found her unconscious from an overdose, a scene that would forever alter their lives.
"We honestly had no idea. There really weren’t any signs in the beginning," said Kayleigh’s mother, Stephanie St. Romain. "She was involved in sports, really enjoyed school, and loved being around family, cousins and friends."
“She was getting great grades, was doing everything she was supposed to,” said Trent St. Romain, Kayleigh’s father. “One night, we got home from the gym, and she was completely, totally out it.”
For Trent and Stephanie St. Romain, finding help for their daughter was a daunting task. With limited options for adolescent treatment in North Carolina, they’ve traveled to multiple states to find a treatment center that could provide the care Kayleigh desperately needed.
“Finding a treatment place for our adolescent daughter who was under 18 was impossible,” Stephanie St. Romain said. “We had to go get on a plane and fly out to wherever we could find a bed.”
“Three different states, nowhere near home,” Trent St. Romain recalled.
After a 30-day treatment stay in Georgia, Kayleigh St. Romain returned to North Carolina and began attending Wake Monarch Academy in Raleigh, one of only 43 recovery high schools nationwide, according to the Association of Recovery Schools. For her, the program was life-changing.
“Wake Monarch has truly saved my life,” Kayleigh said. “They have given me resources, so I am able to have a life today.”
At the time she was working toward her diploma and at a restaurant to save up for a car. But while things looked good on the outside, she say internally, she still wasn’t well. A relapse after 21 months of sobriety led her back to using fentanyl.
“Logically, I know this is going to ruin my life, but I have the compulsion to use that overpowers everything that I love and care about,” Kayleigh St. Romain said.
She checked into rehab again in Pennsylvania and got back on track but relapsed once more shortly after turning 18. That’s when her parents made the agonizing decision to take a tough love approach and remove her from their home.
“We have four other minors living in a house and at that point, we can’t keep doing this. This is not healthy for everyone in the home,” Stephanie St. Romain said. “It’s scary. You think the worst, you’re going to get that phone call that she’s on the street or in the hospital or something bad has happened.”
“We told her we’ll always be here for you 100%. But if you relapse after you turn 18, you’re going to have to figure this out on your own,” Trent St. Romain said. “We can’t do it for you.”
In retrospect, it became the wakeup call Kayleigh needed.
"At first I was like 'how dare ya’ll kick me out,'" Kayleigh St. Romain said. “I needed to be thrown out to realize how serious my behaviors were."
For the last nine months, she’s been enrolled in the nonprofit Healing Transitions’ recovery program, where she spends the weekdays at its women’s campus and the weekends at home. As one of the youngest people in the program, she’s gained a new sense of hope and resilience.
“At some point, something clicked, and I’m in a completely different place. I have so much hope for my future,” said Kayleigh St. Romain, who is a few credits shy from earning her diploma. She has aspirations of becoming a certified nursing assistant.
“I want to help others see their future. You can find hope again, life is worth living,” she said.
"She finally said the words that Stephanie and I had been dying to hear," Trent St. Romain said. "I'm doing it for me."
A call for change
The St. Romain family hopes whoever wins the gubernatorial race in November will bring solutions to the table, not just for their daughter but for families across North Carolina. They say their difficult journey highlights the need for investments and funding into recovery resources.
"I don’t care who the governor is, they need to put these recovery high schools in every county," Trent St. Romain said. “You could save so many lives."
North Carolina currently has one recovery high school in Raleigh and one in Charlotte.
The family also believes the next governor can help reduce the stigma around addiction by openly discussing it more often.
“Addiction doesn’t have a face,” Trent St. Romain said. “You could be the all-American girl from the suburbs, the homeless person down in Raleigh. You could be the multimillionaire in Cary, it doesn’t matter, it doesn’t care.”
“Plant that seed that something is there for them, recovery is a thing,” Kayleigh St. Romain said. “I just want to let people know there’s something more out there in life.”
Candidates' plans to address the opioid crisis
As North Carolinians prepare to vote, both candidates for governor, Democrat Josh Stein and Republican Mark Robinson have spoken about the fentanyl crisis.
Stein has highlighted his work with a bipartisan coalition of state attorneys general to secure $50 billion in settlements from drug manufacturers. Part of North Carolina’s share is allocated to support organizations like Healing Transitions and Wake Monarch Academy with treatment, prevention and recovery services. Stein has also called for a dedicated Fentanyl Control Unit to aid district attorneys in handling large-scale fentanyl trafficking cases.
“I urged Congress to put more fentanyl scanners at the ports of entry at the border, which is where the fentanyl is coming through,” Stein said in an interview on Spectrum News 1's Capital Tonight show. “It’s driven by trucks, 90% of the time by Americans. We need to have enhanced surveillance.”
Robinson, on the other hand, believes stopping the flow of dangerous drugs will require tougher law enforcement. He has pledged to get legislation passed mandating law enforcement cooperate with ICE. He has also criticized Stein for what he describes as misplaced priorities, asserting North Carolinians need a leader focused on aggressive policing methods.
“We don’t need somebody that’s gonna mess around and run off and sue doctors, drug companies and go after TikTok,” Robinson said on campaign trail. “We need somebody that’s going to do what the cops used to do. It’s high time we start making criminals afraid again.”