Excited to announce the newest member of the #SameHere🤙Influencer Alliance: Wayne Drehs @wdrehs from ESPN
Wayne’s an Emmy-winning feature writer for ESPN.com & The Magazine. In fact, his start date at ESPN was the same day as Darren Rovell.
He’s such a good dude that when he saw that Darren was involved w @weareallalittlecrazy & the Sit-Down Tours in the Midwest, he asked how he could get involved. Maybe we’re bringing these media members over to the cause from the dark side one-by-one ;).
In all seriousness, what I appreciate about Wayne is – we give our influencers two questions to answer: about why they want to get involved in The Alliance, & what they hope The Alliance accomplishes. Instead of taking the easy way out, Wayne in answering shared some of his own MH battles – even one that helped SAVE his life, once he asked for help. Please welcome him as our list of influential media friends & supporters grows. We’ll have him & his #SameHere pic up on the site, shortly!
“I believe in our technology- and gadget-driven society so many of us are losing touch with who we are and how we interact with the world. There are trap doors at seemingly every turn. I watched my mother battle depression and eventually succumb to alcoholism. My own anxiety heightened in the fall of 2015, sending me to the emergency room with what I was certain was a heart attack. Doctors told me I was fine. It was anxiety I still fight today. But during my evaluation doctors discovered I had a life-threatening enlarged aorta. A year later open heart surgery saved my life.
More than anything else I think it’s the first step that is most important. Erasing the stigma that comes with people suffering from anxiety and depression. It’s real. It’s embarrassing. It sends your brain into a tailspin. I think the more we all realize how common this is the more we can lean on each other to help us through those dark moments.”
