From living under a bridge, to living in recovery

SOMERSET, Ky. (WTVQ) — A Somerset father’s inspiring story of addiction, overdoses, homelessness, thoughts of suicide, and finally, recovery.

It’s a story of drug addiction starting at age 16 when Heath Randall was hurt in a high school basketball game.

“I was prescribed Percocet and I was addicted to them before I even knew what being an addict was,” says recovering addict, Heath Randall.

So he went from an athlete in school, to an addict in prison.

“I caught a trafficking charge here in Somerset and it started spiraling even worse and from then I remember not knowing what to do or how to live. I remember feeling alone,” recalls Randall.

Things continued to get worst from there.

“Once I started using a needle it took my soul away from me. I wasn’t Heath. It just turned me into someone different,” Randall says.

Someone who was an addict living underneath the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Bridge.

“And this is actually the first time I’ve been back here since the night that I decided to get clean. I probably slept right behind that tree,” he says.

There’s a reason he chose this bridge to live under.

“I could see straight across to my parents house. The leaves were gone then and I could see my son every morning whenever my dad would take him to school just so I could get a glimpse of him because I wasn’t allowed on their property,” says Randall.

Heath overdosed numerous times. His then 8-year-old son, Maddox, witnessed his last one.

“He walked in one time when I was flopped out in between the trash cans in the driveway and when the ambulance pulled up and was Narcan’ing me and that time I was actually dead. I’d been dead for about three minutes,” says Randall of his final overdose.

About a month later, Heath decided he wanted to end his life.

“I wasn’t ever a suicidal person but I didn’t know any other way out of it. I was gonna let the train run over me and it was at that farthest track. I was desperate. I didn’t know what else to do so I dropped to my knees and prayed to God ‘Either heal me or kill me because I can’t do it anymore’.”

But before walking onto the tracks, something greater than him told him to head home. And so he did.

While arguing with his mom on the front steps, his son came out.

“And he said ‘Daddy you don’t need the drugs. Do you love the drugs more than you love me? You don’t have to have them.’ And he put his head into my chest and I made a promise to him and I told him I would never use again and I’ve been clean ever since that night and I celebrated three years on August the 9th.”

Now, Heath dedicates his life to helping others recover as a peer support specialist at Lake Hills Oasis, a treatment center.

“And just to do a little good in somebody’s life even if it’s just one person, that everything I’ve ever went through was worth it cause I helped somebody gain back a little of their life. And that’s priceless,” says Randall.

His relationship with his son now, he wouldn’t change for the world. i

“I’m just glad that I got through it” says Randall.

He says on top of his job, support system, and son, he has Vivitrol to thank for keeping him on this path of recovery. Randall says it’s what helps him with his drug cravings.