{"id":221292,"date":"2025-10-13T10:40:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-13T10:40:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/221292\/"},"modified":"2025-10-13T10:40:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-13T10:40:07","slug":"mental-health-awareness-walk-features-former-nfl-player","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/221292\/","title":{"rendered":"Mental Health Awareness Walk Features Former NFL Player"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Jason Lennox, a Minnesota business owner is in the middle of a 307-thousand mile walk. <\/p>\n<p>He is dedicating it to the people who died in 2024 from substance abuse or mental health struggles.<\/p>\n<p>Jason Lennox&#8217;s father died at age 39, from cirrhosis of the liver, caused by alcohol abuse.<\/p>\n<p>His father&#8217;s death hit home, causing Lennox to go on his own path of mental health issues and substance abuse.<\/p>\n<p>Years after recovery&#8230; Lennox noticed a large number of deaths&#8230; from mental health and substance abuse.<\/p>\n<p>Those deaths&#8230; started &#8220;the Recovery Road&#8221; campaign.<\/p>\n<p>Lennox isn&#8217;t the only one on this Recovery Road&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Multiple people joined his cause, including former Minnesota Vikings defensive end, Everson Griffen.<\/p>\n<p>Everson Griffen\/former NFL player\/2:15<\/p>\n<p>If I had Jason my NFL career, I still be playing right now, Griffen said.<\/p>\n<p>In recent years, Griffen has been through some of his own mental health struggles.<\/p>\n<p>Saying that walking many miles with Lennox by his side has taught him a lot.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;You just find good habits, good routines, and good disciplines to be able to identify your weaknesses and grow, Griffen said.<\/p>\n<p>Lennox&#8217;s trip ends in Nashville, where he&#8217;ll be speaking at the InVest behavioral conference on October 22nd.<\/p>\n<p>to advocate for more funding and resources for those struggling with mental health issues.<\/p>\n<p>He is encouraging people going through tough times to &#8220;hang on one more day&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>because you never know what will flip the switch&#8230;.<\/p>\n<p>I always say it&#8217;s up to us to reach out to them, Lennox says.<\/p>\n<p>Lennox&#8217;s campaign also includes a fundraiser to open mental health and substance abuse facilities. <\/p>\n<p>The goal is $307,000, each dollar attributed to a person who passed in 2024 from either cause.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jason Lennox, a Minnesota business owner is in the middle of a 307-thousand mile walk. He is dedicating&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":221293,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[19869,124534,20052,97,124533,259,260,124532,19753,30106],"class_list":{"0":"post-221292","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-advocacy","9":"tag-behavioral-conference","10":"tag-everson-griffen","11":"tag-health","12":"tag-jason-lennox","13":"tag-mental-health","14":"tag-mentalhealth","15":"tag-recovery-road","16":"tag-resources","17":"tag-substance-abuse"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221292","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=221292"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221292\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/221293"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}