Me, Myself, as Mommy: Weber Communities That Care Coalition helps families deal with addiction challenges
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- Members of the Weber Communities That Care Coalition pose for a photo.
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- Attendees at the Utah Youth Prevention Summit at Bryce Canyon National Park pose for a photo.
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- Attendees at the Utah Youth Prevention Summit at Bryce Canyon National Park pose for a photo.
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- Meg Sanders
Watching someone you love slowly die from substance use disorder feels like surviving a nuclear blast.
At the epicenter, the shockwave knocks you off your feet. You can’t breathe. The thick destruction swallows everything. Even as the impact weakens with distance, the damage still spreads, less visible, but no less toxic. Your emotions aren’t destroyed. They’re radioactive.
The fallout drifts for miles, settling quietly into every corner of your life so toxic you begin to avoid contact with anything it touches. Even on good days, when the sky looks clear, you still remember what the world looked like before addiction changed everything.
That fallout is what led my daughter and me to the Weber Communities That Care Coalition (CTC). Part of the devastation is our helplessness, our inability to get our loved one the help they need — whether because they aren’t ready or because we have nothing left to give.
Joining Weber CTC gave us purpose and a chance to take action. It’s not lost on me, my husband or our children that substance abuse can affect any family, shattering the illusion of so-called “good families.”
Weber CTC is a substance abuse prevention and community-building nonprofit with both adult and youth coalitions. The group includes members from North Ogden, Pleasant View, Harrisville, Ogden Valley and Huntsville.
Similar to a city’s youth council, you can find CTC coalitions throughout Utah. Parents, educators, health workers, law enforcement and youth bring their experience to the table to prevent substance misuse before it starts. We recognize addiction is prevalent in any city so we’re working to build a community where fewer kids fall into it in the first place. A key piece to any solution is meeting kids where they are — at skateparks, on trails, in schools and on social media.
With only a year of CTC experience under my belt, I was invited to attend the annual Utah Youth Prevention Summit at Bryce Canyon National Park. There I met youth coalitions from Iron County, Price, Hildale, Wendover, Washington County and cities across Utah. Hundreds of kids united by one goal: connection.
Coming from the D.A.R.E. generation with its graphic posters of diseased organs, tobacco-mangled faces and warnings that gangs were salivating to recruit me, I’ve realized how far prevention has come. Research shows scare tactics don’t work.
Instead, coalitions like Weber CTC focus on community-building, family bonding, early mental health intervention and addressing risk factors because addiction often begins in isolation.
One of our core strategies is the Strategic Prevention Framework (SPF), a public health model grounded in data. It doesn’t rely on fear. It identifies what’s actually driving substance misuse and helps communities build customized plans for change.
Members of the Weber-Morgan Health Department gather local data through the SHARP survey — the Student Health and Risk Prevention survey — which is completed anonymously by students. This evidence-based tool helps youth reflect honestly and gives communities a real picture of the challenges kids face. The SPF model guides coalitions to first identify the problem and then determine what’s causing it to next explore options to address it. From there they work to implement a targeted plan.
The most recent SHARP data from Weber County revealed a troubling trend: sixth graders are struggling with mental health, especially depression. They report increased risk factors including low connection to family, school and community.
In response, Weber CTC empowers our youth to identify action steps that can build stronger safety nets and reduce isolation.
At the summit, I sat in a breakout session where a group of rural teens shared how they started a peer-led mental health initiative at their high school. Our own coalition talked about lobbying the city to add prevention messaging at the local skatepark. A small change maybe, but one that makes our kids feel safer and more seen.
This is what real prevention looks like; not lectures or slogans, but empowering young people to shape the environments they live in. Weber CTC gives our youth the tools, voice and support to build the kind of communities they want to grow up in.
The half-life of fallout can last for decades. My family is still in pain, still hoping for an outcome that feels too far away. The damage from addiction feels permanent. You don’t walk away from a nuclear blast unchanged.
But joining Weber CTC gave us a place to put that pain. It turned helplessness into action.
Substance use disorder doesn’t discriminate, it affects families of every background, belief, income and even those already doing prevention work.
If it’s happening in your family, you are not alone.
And if you’re looking for a way to help, there’s hope in action. There are ways to dilute the fallout and help our communities make it to the other side.
Meg Sanders worked in broadcast journalism for over a decade but has since turned her life around to stay closer to home in Ogden. Her three children keep her indentured as a taxi driver, stylist and sanitation worker. In her free time, she likes to read, write, lift weights and go to concerts with her husband of 18 years.
