By William Ney
J.D. Vance got famous telling the world what’s wrong with Appalachia.
He turned struggle into a brand and pain into a talking point, packaging the region’s hardest truths for readers who’d never set foot here. His book Hillbilly Elegy painted Eastern Kentucky and Southern Ohio as broken places filled with broken people — a morality tale about failure.
But if you actually live here, you know that story’s not complete.
I wasn’t raised deep in the mountains. I grew up in Kirksville, in the foothills, where I had more opportunity than most — a professional father, a mother with a psychology degree, and the expectation that life would go according to plan. Yet when alcoholism wrecked that plan, it wasn’t privilege that steadied me. It was Eastern Kentucky.
People who had lost more than I ever had still showed up for me — quietly, consistently, without judgment. That’s what recovery really looks like here. It’s a neighbor brewing coffee for a 7 a.m. meeting. It’s a peer-support worker driving an hour of back roads to check on someone who missed group. It’s counselors staying late because hope doesn’t keep business hours.
Vance called our region a cautionary tale. What I see is a master class in endurance.
Working as the Assisted Outpatient Treatment Coordinator for Pathways Inc. in Ashland, I see that endurance every day. The clients I meet aren’t failures; they’re proof that healing happens in small, steady steps. Every phone call returned, every therapy session attended, every relapse met with another try — those are victories. They don’t make national headlines, but they keep families together and towns alive.
That same spirit filled the fairgrounds in Ashland this year during Healing Appalachia 2025, where more than 25,000 people gathered to celebrate recovery through music and community. The event, organized by Hope in the Hills, a West Virginia-based nonprofit, shows what’s possible when Appalachians lead their own renewal. No political campaign could build that stage. It rose from faith, creativity, and the conviction that dignity is a renewable resource.
The truth is, Appalachia doesn’t need elegies — it needs investment, partnership, and respect. We don’t need outsiders explaining us; we need neighbors believing in us.
When I look around Carter County and the surrounding hills, I don’t see hopelessness. I see people fixing cars, mentoring kids, starting recovery groups, and helping each other stay afloat. It’s messy work, but it’s holy work — the kind that builds communities strong enough to outlast any election cycle.
So, to anyone still quoting Hillbilly Elegy as the final word on who we are, I’d invite them to come see for themselves. Spend an evening at a recovery meeting, or a night at Healing Appalachia, and watch the real story unfold. You’ll find that Eastern Kentucky isn’t a monument to what was lost — it’s a living proof of what can be found again.
About the author:
William Ney is the Assisted Outpatient Treatment Coordinator at Pathways Inc. in Ashland, Kentucky, and a Master of Education candidate in Clinical Mental Health Counseling at Lindsey Wilson College.
