Boca Resident Creates Non-Profit to Help Those with Mental Illness

By: Michael Demyan

Photo courtesy Jordan Meyers.

“You don’t have to go through this alone.”

That is the motto for Finding a Lost Voice, a new and upcoming non-profit organization founded in May by Boca Raton resident Jordan Meyers.

The organization’s goal is to raise awareness of mental illness, while also providing support and education.

“The whole point of Finding a Lost Voice is to get vulnerable and face your fear of talking about your mental illness,” Meyers said.

Meyers knows first-hand what it is like to have a substance abuse disorder. After years of bullying, he was only 12 years old when he found a way to feel different. He explained how he used to fill half a water bottle with Hennessy and then replace it with water. By the time he reached high school, he and his friends would hang out at a gas stations waiting for a customer to buy them alcohol.

Drugs became a part of his life around the same time after a co-worker offered him marijuana. Things then started to get worse as he began drinking shots and vodka, while continuing to take larger doses of his prescribed ADD medication.

One day Meyers heard news that a girl he started seeing was with another guy, so he told a friend that he was going to drive into a tree. He didn’t, but by the end of the night he was drunk, high and had 128 missed calls calls on his phone, along with an APB for suicide watch.

The problems continued for Meyers until one day he decided to talk to somebody and that simple act of talking to someone was the first step in changing his life forever.

Now Meyers, along with the help of Dr. Rachel Needle, wants to be that same helping hand for others who struggle, feel lonely or just need someone to talk to.

Finding a Lost Voice is a tool to help others speak out and through that, be empowered and inspired, while they in turn can inspire others through their own stories of struggle, and hopefully triumph.

On the organization’s website, numerous people have already shared their stories and have become a part of the movement of not going through things alone.

In 2015, the American Society of Addiction Medicine reported that 20.5 million Americans who are at least 12 years old had a substance abuse disorder. Drug overdose was the leading cause of accidental death that year.

The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism reported that 15.1 million adults had alcohol abuse disorder, while over 600 thousand children ranging from 12-17 years old did as well.

In the future, Meyers hopes to expand his reach to people who have these abuse disorders, especially the adolescents, through concerts.

“I’d like to get people going out on tours with different bands to share their stories and talk to the kids at the shows and hopefully get the bands involved,” he said.

Meyers has talked to a couple of bands on Warped Tour who are willing to participate, but he is waiting on the announcements until everything is finalized.

Currently as Finding a Lost Voice grows as an organization, Meyers strongly urges people to share their stories, whether they have already found their voice or if their story has yet to reach a conclusion.

“We want to hear their stories. We want to be their platform. We want to be able to help them find the help that they deserve,” he said.

To contact Finding a Lost Voice or to share your story, visit findingalostvoice.org.