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Craig Weaver, a former area businessman and the author of the book "Hell on Earth," which relates how an opioid addiction not only ended his business ventures but nearly took his life, is about to launch an effort to address the drug crisis that had resulted in many thousands of deaths nationwide.
"I'm going to try to save the world," Weaver joked this past week as he explained his concern about the nation's drug woes has led him to create a new group known as the Opioid Crisis Ministry.
That group will hold its first meeting in the former Simpson Temple United Parish, 2212 Sixth Ave., at 7 p.m. Wednesday and then follow that introductory session on Thursday at the same location.
Weaver, a native of Cresson, created a good life for himself through a meat and jewelry distribution business despite being addicted to opioid pills that he received from a doctor, who was treating him for a severe leg injury suffered during a pickup football game while he was in college.
In his book, he outlined his three-decade path to a heroin addiction that eventually overwhelmed him. Weaver was able to get "clean," as he puts it, after a stint in an area recovery facility, but he also believes that recovery in many cases fails because it does not address what he calls the "addictive personality" that remains after treatment.
"When you leave rehab and get off medication, you're going to relapse unless you first find something bigger than yourself," he stated during an interview.
For Weaver, that something larger than himself was finding God, and even after 13 years off drugs, he still repeatedly asks before acting, "What would God want me to do?"
"I'm a soldier for God," he stated unabashedly.
Weaver calls his Wednesday meeting an introductory session to what he believes is a new way at addressing drug addiction. He will speak, as will another individual who has been clean for three years.
His sessions, which will be open to young people and parents as well as the general public, will be attended by experts in drug rehabilitation.
There is an urgency to addressing the present day drug crisis, Weaver said.
Drug dealers are lacing all of their products, from pot to cocaine to heroin, with deadly fentanyl and it's killing thousands.
Blair County last year recorded a record 70 drug overdose deaths. That number stood at 39 through the first eight months of 2023.
His way of attacking the crisis, he stated, will help addicts keep their jobs and keep their families.
"There's a way out of addiction," he said.