{"id":942,"date":"2016-02-17T16:14:23","date_gmt":"2016-02-17T21:14:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/2016\/02\/17\/kannon-haskins-shares-his-story-of-addiction\/"},"modified":"2022-11-07T14:23:36","modified_gmt":"2022-11-07T19:23:36","slug":"kannon-haskins-shares-his-story-of-addiction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/kannon-haskins-shares-his-story-of-addiction\/","title":{"rendered":"Kannon Haskins shares his story of addiction"},"content":{"rendered":"

NOVEMBER 16, 2012\"\"<\/a>
\nby Shannice Singletary \u201914, Contributing Writer<\/p>\n

\u201cHi, My name is Kannon Haskins and I am an addict and an alcoholic. I am also a father. I am a teacher. And I am a Fuman alum.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Kannon Haskins introduced himself to us as if we were a crowd who knew his struggle, familiar faces at an AA meeting, as if he had no problem sharing his personal story, despite how harrowing it was. Hayley Cunningham of PHOKUS, Furman\u2019s peer education group on healthy living, introduced Dr. Haskins to a large student audience in Burgiss Theater, Wednesday, November 14.<\/p>\n

Kannon Haskins has always been confident in his ability to achieve most things that he set out to do. He lists his accomplishments\u2014graduating Furman, getting into medical school, building a successful private practice and clinics overseas, gaining prominence in his community\u2014yet underneath these wins, he was losing a battle with addiction.<\/p>\n

\u201cAddiction is a disease that will tell you all the way to your last breath that you\u2019re okay.\u201d<\/p>\n

Showing us pictures of himself as a young boy, Haskins tells us about the beginnings of his addiction, the day that he realized pain medicine made him \u201cfeel good,\u201d and then with college came experimentation with alcohol.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first time I drank alcohol, I drank the whole bottle because it made me feel good. Alcohol became my reward [for studying hard],\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

As he progressed into adulthood, Haskins began abusing prescription drugs, and his attempts to give them up caused horrific withdrawal symptoms the likes of which none of us could imagine. His career and marriage suffered and his family was forced to barely scrape by financially, living paycheck to paycheck.\u00a0Eventually it became more than he or his family could handle, and Haskins wound up in rehab, cut off from everyone he loved and fighting for the strength to triumph over his addiction.<\/p>\n

\u201c[I would ask myself] How did I get in this mess? How did this happen? How could I have gone from being a pillar in the community to this? I hadn\u2019t had a DUI and I hadn\u2019t had any legal issues . . .YET. And I like to use the word \u201cYET\u201d because it means, \u201cYou\u2019re Eligible Too.\u201d<\/p>\n

Haskins stressed this point to his student audience\u2014anyone who abuses a substance is “eligible” for the ruin that addiction brings.<\/p>\n

Since Haskins left rehab, he has been alcohol and drug free for years. Now he travels around sharing his story of addiction and how he overcame it. At many points his story was hard to listen to, but it is one that students need to hear.<\/p>\n

\u201cI share this with you with the intent of putting all my defenses down, because I don\u2019t have any secrets. And it should be okay to talk about this . . . Alcohol and drugs don\u2019t bother me anymore,\u201d said Haskins triumphantly concluding his urgent message.<\/p>\n

Presented by Furman PHOKUS, the lecture was preceded by a pre-CLP \u201cMocktail\u201d event where students participated in a variety of mini-games intended to educate them about the dangers of drug and alcohol abuse. Students were also tested on their knowledge and awareness of alcohol and drug related issues, and were informed about topics such as date rape drugs and clarifications of common student misconceptions of drinking.<\/p>\n

For more information about Furman PHOKUS, visit https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/orgs\/phokus\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NOVEMBER 16, 2012
\nby Shannice Singletary \u201914, Contributing Writer<\/p>\n

In a CLP lecture sponsored by PHOKUS, Furman alum and physician Kannon Haskins warns students about the pitfalls of alcohol and drug abuse.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":265,"featured_media":943,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-942","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-administrative","category-student-life"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/942","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/265"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=942"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/942\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/943"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}