A Huntington woman whose son is in a West Virginia state prison getting treatment for opioid abuse will attend the State of the Union address in Washington, as a guest of President Barack Obama.
Cary Dixon, who spoke at the opioid abuse forum that Obama hosted in Charleston in October, will sit with first lady Michelle Obama as the president delivers his final State of the Union address on Tuesday.
Dixon's son is in a residential substance abuse treatment program in a state prison, where he is serving time for drug-related crimes. He is eligible for parole in September.
Sitting in the president's box at the State of the Union is a very select honor, and guests are almost always mentioned in the president's speech.
The guests, the White House wrote last year, "exemplify the themes and ideals that the president lays out in his address."
Last year there were only four guests in Obama's box, all of whom were mentioned in the speech. Obama had eight guests in 2014, the most any president has had going back to Reagan.
This year's guests, the White House said, personify the president's time in office and represent compassion, innovation and courage.
Obama came to West Virginia, the state that leads the country in drug overdose deaths, to discuss the opioid crisis.
At the forum in Charleston, Dixon told the president about how her son's addiction had affected her entire family.
She talked about shock at hearing of a first DUI, fear at a first trip to jail and embarrassment when family from out of town can't interact with a loved one under the influence of drugs.
"We dread the next phone call, we can't sleep because we haven't received a phone call," she said. "We're relieved when our loved ones acknowledge that they have a serious problem and understand that they need help. And then we're devastated when we help them seek treatment only to find out that there is a month-long waiting list, or that there's no insurance coverage, or that there's a big requirement for money up front for treatment."
A visibly moved Obama told Dixon that her thoughts reminded him of his own daughters and gave her a hug after the event.
"It's like having your heart walking around outside your body," he said of parenting. "All you care about is making sure they're OK, but they're so vulnerable."
On Friday, Dixon said that she was honored and humbled to be invited to the Capitol for the once-a-year speech.
She said she was hoping to focus not on her personal story, but on addiction in general.
"As a community and as a nation we haven't known what to do with this disease," she said. "Addiction is a disease, people don't want to become addicted to drugs. These are real people, they're not bad people, they are sick people."
She said she was grateful for the national attention focused on the issue.
When Obama was in Charleston he announced new steps intended both to help stem the flow of prescription painkillers and to make it easier for people fighting addiction to find treatment.
Those steps included asking federal agencies to provide training on properly prescribing opioids to doctors who work for the federal government and asking agencies to review their health insurance plans to ensure there are no barriers to addiction treatment.
The White House also frequently points out that the Affordable Care Act requires insurance plans to cover substance-abuse treatment. But just because treatment is required to be covered does not mean it is available.
"We need funding, we need resources for treatment," Dixon said on Friday. "We need resources for prevention."
Reach David Gutman at david.gutman@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-5119 or follow @davidlgutman on Twitter.