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Kessler Family Tackles Addiction Problem

Jacob Kessler reviews application requirements for a possible drug counseling career with his father, Sen. Jeff Kessler, D-Marshall.

Photos by Drew Parker
Jacob Kessler has endured a long road to recovery following his December 2014 arrest.

GLEN DALE — Jeff Kessler will never forget the day he saw his son, Jacob, in the grips of withdrawal symptoms. It happened in December 2014 when Jacob Kessler was lodged in the Northern Regional Jail on drug trafficking charges.

During the holiday season of 2014, the lives of the West Virginia senator and his son changed forever.

Jacob, then 24, was arrested Dec. 4, 2014, on a nine-count indictment charging him with trafficking oxycodone after an investigation by the Ohio Valley Drug and Violent Crime Task Force that showed he allegedly sold oxycodone through 2013.

In February 2013, he allegedly sold painkillers near West Virginia Northern Community College in Wheeling and traveled between Bellaire and Wheeling to sell pills, leading to charges of interstate travel in aid of racketeering, four counts of use of a telephone facility to facilitate the distribution of oxycodone, three counts of distribution of oxycodone and one count of distribution of oxycodone within 1,000 feet of a protected location.

Jeff Kessler described the day he received a home phone call from U.S. marshals as the worst day of his life.

“I remember I had gone to the Project BEST (breakfast) at Oglebay and got there a little late. I went in and asked for an open seat and saw Bill Ihlenfeld Sr. I sat down and the next thing I know, Bill Jr., who had been in line getting his food came and sat down to eat with some other federal employees. We en-gaged in some small talk and then he got up and left,” Jeff Kessler said. “By the time the event was over, I got a call from my wife saying Jacob had been indicted. I’ve had much better holidays.”

He said although Jacob’s arrest came as a shock, he was relieved he was safe during the two weeks at the Northern Regional Jail  after months of not knowing where his son was on a regular basis.

“I remember him looking at me and saying, ‘Dad get me out of here. I can’t stand living like an animal in a cage,'” Jeff Kessler said. “In a way, I was relieved because I knew he was going to be in a place where he would not die. I knew where he was for once instead of somewhere on the street. Before that any time the phone rang you’d jump, because you were fully expecting that he was arrested, in jail or dead. No one was ever going to call with good news about him.”

Jacob said although he had been struggling with an oxycodone addiction for five years, the call to turn himself in was a shocking experience.

“I met my dad at the federal building and I was completely flabbergasted,” he said. “I didn’t think it was real at first. It was shocking that I had actually gotten into that magnitude of trouble.”

Face of Addiction

Jacob’s battle with addiction began in high school, when he frequented alcohol and pill-filled parties during his time at Wheeling Central and John Marshall high schools. Temporary stints at West Virginia University and West Liberty University proved to further his substance abuse issues.

“When I was in high school I partied a lot and drank, whatever was socially acceptable with the group I hung out with. It kind of progressed over time and I started experimenting with other things and then I got introduced to pain pills (oxycodone) and I really like them. I was hooked and that was all she wrote,” he said. “Throughout the years, I would stop using pills, but then I would drink really heavily to substitute, but that got me into legal troubles, too.”

Jeff Kessler said he knew of his son’s troubles with basic parent’s intuition.

“You know your kid and when they’re lying and hiding. I sensed a change in his behavior. He said he was on his way to do something and would be somewhere in two minutes, then I would find out he was somewhere else in town where deals were known to go down. The demeanor in his eyes, you just knew he was on something. Power tools and jewelry would turn up missing from our house.”

Road to Recovery

Prior to his 2014 arrest, Jacob’s parents arranged for him to receive treatment in Ashtabula County, Ohio.

“I went through a couple treatment facilities in 2012 when stuff really hit the fan. I made the deal with my parents to go to Glenbeigh up near Cleveland,” he said.

“It was a nice treatment facility but  I just knew I wasn’t ready. I did it to make them happy and get them off my back.”

He was released after a short  time, however.

“They let me go and said I only had something like a 1 percent chance of relapsing. I told them I was fine,” he said. “That was during my manipulative stages.”

In 2015, Jacob experienced a major milestone in his recovery, pleading guilty to a  federal drug charge, which led him to rehab and eventually drug court.

He was released from the Northern Regional Jail in February 2014 and entered Miracles Happen, a residential substance abuse program. As a result of the plea, he began participating in the first Federal Drug Court of the Northern District of West Virginia — a drug court his father implemented before realizing it would be used to help his own son.

“I did three months inpatient and two months out and that was the starting point of my recovery.

“It saved my life,” Jacob Kessler said.

“I was ready and that was the difference. You really have to want to be clean and stay clean in order to do it.”

After the completion of his 90-day rehabilitation, he began living at Lazarus House, a sober living facility in Wheeling.

“Living at Lazarus House and going to drug court was a lifesaver for me. I didn’t like getting up at 7 a.m. and going to drug court for four hours to hear about my problems, but it built relationships with people that were going through similar situations,” he said. “For me, it really took getting in trouble. It was a wake-up call. I was in a false reality for the longest time and I needed that jolt.”

A Clean Life

Clean from alcohol and drugs since January 2015, Jacob is now reviewing options for his future, possibly including a career as a drug resource coach. He is currently employed at Coffee and Tanning in Wheeling.

“It’s important to show people there’s hope. You can get clean and there is help out there. Maybe in a perfect world, I can stop someone from the suffering and despair I had to go through to get to where I am now,” he said. “Social media has been a major platform for me. I can share my recovery time and what’s going on with me for people to see.”

Social media networks weren’t always on the Kessler family’s side, however, leading Jacob and Jeff to both find a better understanding of the problems surrounding society’s views of addicts.

“Right after my arrest, I did the worst thing and checked the comments on the Facebook post about me with thousands of shares. I couldn’t believe the terrible things people were saying about me, without knowing me at all,” Jacob said.

“It’s scientifically a disease. A lot of my actions during my active addiction weren’t my choice. It’s not like I woke up one day and said I want to be a drug addict and screw up my life.”

Jeff Kessler said his main goal on the topic is to have society understand addiction affects people of all backgrounds.

“Addicts need drugs like we need water and air. It’s the single focus of their existence,” Kessler said.

“Of course, all the media reports came out saying ‘senator’s son charged,’ but what people don’t understand is it knows no socio-economic bounds. This is not only affecting the dregs of our society. I’ve met so many people who relate to me and no longer feel ashamed to tell their story since our situation occurred.”

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