Dad Who Lost Daughter To Drug Addiction Opens A Rehab Facility In Her Name

The Today Show recently shared a story about a man named Kevin Simmers that is warming many people’s hearts. Simmers was able to use his heartbreak and turn it into something good. After he lost his daughter Brooke in 2015 to opioid addiction, he opened a rehab facility for women to help others overcome drug addiction and get back on their feet, according to Today.

While Simmers was close to his daughter while she was growing up, she began to experiment with various substances working her way up to opioids. What started out as just cigarette and alcohol use later progressed into marijuana, pills, and opioids. Simmers was a former police officer who was on a drug task force but he never expected drug abuse to affect his own family. He was distraught when his daughter confessed her problem to him but he thought he had all the tools and resources necessary to help her overcome addiction.

He took Brooke to treatment centers, rehab, and local drug classes, trying to assist her in any way he could. She even spent time in jail. While she wanted to get clean, the road was difficult. It was during one of her visits to rehab that she mentioned to her father about wanting to open her own halfway house one day to help others that also battled the same demons she did. Unfortunately, she didn’t live long enough to see this dream become a reality. Thus, her father decided to accomplish this for her, even naming it after her. The facility Simmers opened is called Brooke’s House.

“It’s our belief that Brooke prayed for a house. She prayed for a house that would help women, her own rehab facility. She was going to call it Brooke’s House, so my wife and I decided that we were going to try to answer Brooke’s prayer and fulfill her dream and get her that house,” he said.

When Brooke was still alive, her father told her that if she managed to remain sober for one year, he’d help her found that halfway house she wanted so bad. Unfortunately, she ended up relapsing before she could reach the one year mark. She passed away from a heroin overdose, unable to see the beautiful facility her father would later build.

“Brooke would be exceptionally proud of what we’ve been able to put together,” Simmers said of the rehab facility he built in her name.

Opioid addiction is a major problem in the United States, with overdoses continuing to claim lives prematurely across the nation. As The Inquisitr previously reported, the opioid overdose rescue drug Narcan is becoming more and more readily available in hopes of preventing such tragedy.