A cup of coffee and conversation at the Gathering Grounds

** Part One of this two-part series centers on quiet conversations at the ninth annual candlelight vigil that honors those lives lost to addiction, bringing the human cost of Alaska’s overdose crisis into sharp focus.

At a café-style table inside the Gathering Grounds coffee shop, Michael Carson sat with a notebook and a candle. January 9 marked the ninth annual candlelight vigil remembering those lost to opioids, including Kellsie Green, who died on the floor in an Anchorage jail nine years ago while detoxing from heroin.

Joining Carson at the table were John Green, Kellsie’s father and founding member of the vigil, and another community leader who preferred to remain anonymous. What had once been a formal outdoor ceremony, in the beginning became a quieter, more intimate gathering over coffee and conversation.

John’s coffee sat without a sip being taken. His face was etched with a grief that spoke before his words did; the weight of his loss hangs on, a pain no parent should ever know. “When Kellsie died, I was angry. I thought getting her into jail was going to be the thing to save her ... I had to tell her story, or nothing would have changed.”

For many families in Alaska, when a loved one experiences a severe mental health crisis, the justice system becomes the last resort because there is too little information, too few accessible resources, and too few beds.

“More help could have been available, should have been available to her, but wasn’t,” says Green. He thought that if he called the police, the justice system might help his daughter get off heroin. It was the moment when his family had nowhere else to turn.

“As a parent you don’t watch your kid grow up and say, when my kid becomes a heroin addict this is what I am going to do.... So you don’t know what to do... You get on the internet and spend all your nights going through all these different pages looking,” says Green. The suffering a family goes through when a loved one succumbs to mental health or addiction is a private experience that may isolate a family; however, it is all of our social responsibility to provide help.

When you meet a man like John Green, a father who lost his daughter to addiction, in a jail cell detoxing from heroin, this is meeting resilience in the flesh. As a community we can continually learn from this man’s tragedy to help keep others from suffering in such an extreme needless way. This doesn't have to happen.

“When Kelsey died, in the Anchorage Daily News, I read so many people's horrible comments: I am glad your junkie daughter is dead, you're a bad parent, just all these horrible horrible things. Everytime I would be on facebook...I was being brutalized... “ said Green.

There is a social stigma that surrounds substance use and mental illness that silences families, cloaking their pain in shame and fear of judgment, of being seen as a “bad parent.”

Being a parent is a difficult job, but sometimes the will of our children is something we might lose control or influence over. And just because a child suffers, makes bad choices doesn’t mean that the family is necessarily at fault, people are more complicated than this simple assumption, families need help as well.

“It’s amazing how many representatives and legislators will tell me privately how addiction has affected them or their families, but they won’t speak publicly because they’re afraid of being blamed for not being a good parent,” says Michael Carson.

Watching a loved one spiral into addiction or mental illness is a helplessness few can truly understand. Speaking about it publicly or even privately is a challenge, and silence makes it easier for society to look away.

Few step into that light as openly as John Green has, by continuing to tell Kellsie’s story, he sees that her death carries meaning, fuels change, raises awareness, and helps others find support where he found none.

Kellsie’s death, led to changes inside Alaska’s correctional system, with the state revising how it monitors people going through drug withdrawal in custody. For her family, there is some comfort in knowing that in death she still helps others.

“I am very proud of her...she’s helped more people in her death than she would have ever been able to in her life...all I did was open my mouth and tell her story. She gave her life for the cause.”

Kellsie’s death continues to shape conversations about reform because it revealed critical gaps in Alaska’s systems of care. The quiet truth is that no one in Alaska is immune to dealing with a mental health crisis in our families. Health is everyone's concern.

According to the 2025 Matanuska-Susitna Borough Community Health Needs Assessment and the Alaska Department of Health’s HAVRS data, overdose trends in the Mat-Su are rising sharply. Fentanyl-related deaths, rare in 2019, jumped from about 15 per 100,000 to nearly 45 by 2024, with the steepest increase occurring between 2023 and 2024. That year, the overall drug-induced death rate climbed to roughly 54 per 100,000, surpassing the statewide average, driven largely by opioids, especially fentanyl.

In Part Two, the conversation moves upstream to the root causes, moments of hope, and the actions Alaskans are taking to prevent crises before they reach a tragic tipping point. For more information browse this Matsu Opioid Task Force web page: https://matsuopioidtaskforce.com/