John Humphries Share

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After 17 years of liv­ing dan­ger­ous­ly in addic­tion, Mar­i­on res­i­dent John Humphries trans­formed his life and has become a wise voice of tes­ti­mo­ny to inform and inspire youth, and help addicts find recovery.

Humphries was born and raised in Mar­i­on and attend­ed Mar­i­on High School. He began using drugs for fun and to try to fit in, but became led by a grow­ing addic­tion which led him away from grad­u­a­tion. Lat­er in life, it caused him to sep­a­rate from his two daugh­ters. Steal­ing also became an addic­tion stem­ming from sub­stance abuse. He wan­dered from town to town, worked at var­i­ous restau­rants, and at times slept in his car.

“I grew tired of myself,” Humphries said. ​“I didn’t believe in God. But, one day, after hav­ing heard many times about Jesus, I said, ​‘Jesus Christ, if you’re real, I want to believe, but I don’t. I’ve tried every­thing. If you’re real, I need you now.’” Those words were an ulti­ma­tum on April 24^th, 2012. ​“It was either accept­ing God, or prob­a­bly death.”

Since that life-alter­ing day, Humphries is unapolo­get­i­cal­ly vocal about his past and pur­pose. He regained cus­tody of his daugh­ters, and began a career as a com­mu­ni­ty health work­er and peer sup­port spe­cial­ist for Bridges to Health. Humphries also recent­ly co-cre­at­ed a part­ner­ship, ​“Cody and John Speak.” Cody Knuck­les, also a recov­er­ing addict, and Humphries trav­el to schools, church­es, jails and more to spread aware­ness of the pow­er each deci­sion has on one’s life. They tell of the dan­gers of fen­tanyl and oth­er drugs today, and to hope­ful­ly change the path of trou­bled youth through pub­lic ses­sions and one-on-one conversations. 

“If I’d been a teen today, I wouldn’t be alive,” said Humphries. He recalled a room of a few hun­dred mid­dle school stu­dents where 80% raised hands when asked if they knew some­one who had over­dosed. ​“They just need to be told they have a pur­pose. It doesn’t need to be com­pli­cat­ed. Write music. Take care of ani­mals. Large or small, the world needs it. Pro­tect it. It means you might not have cer­tain friends.” He added, ​“We just need to build each oth­er up.”

He named some places of non­judge­ment where all are wel­come: Dis­ci­ples of Christ, Hope House, Grant Coun­ty Res­cue Mis­sion, Grace House, Agape House, Core+ (765.231.2111), and an online pro­gram, ​“Bare Knuck­le Recov­ery,” on Face­book. He encour­aged vis­it­ing codyand​john​.com where sto­ries and con­tact info may be found.