Ken Hutto set up and pledged $10,000 to the Ryan Howell Memorial Scholarship in honor of the son of a close friend, a young man who took his life due to mental illness. Ryan developed symptoms of mental illness and began using drugs to self-medicate. In an all-too-common scenario, this leads to a downhill spiral. While experts often debate whether the drugs or the mental illness comes first in these cases, the typical pattern is mental illness leads to drug use, which exacerbates the mental illness, leading to further drug use.
An additional aspect of this tragedy is the lack of professional care available. Treatment facilities will deal with either mental illness or drug use, but not both. Ken Hutto recognizes that this is a widespread issue with devastating consequences. Ryan’s parents tried to get Ryan help but they were thwarted by this very problem. No facility would agree to admit Ryan due to his dual-diagnosis.
Tragically, Ryan is not an isolated case. In addition to the Ryan Howell Scholarship fund, Mr. Hutto is working to raise awareness to change the system so that other families don’t suffer the loss of their children due to a lack of treatment.
