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A Recovery Journey with Chris Budnick: A Healing Transitions Story · Finding New Waters

0:00
And it's not uncommon for somebody with a history of
0:02
addiction and if they're trying to explain part of their history
0:04
to substitute. Well, I have a history of
0:06
alcoholism because it's a little more people can tend to wrap
0:09
their head around that or be more accepting or less
0:12
judgmental of it. So I became pretty interested in
0:15
just kind of the experience of individuals with addiction and
0:19
kind of the how more marginalized and stigmatized
0:23
they have been historically than just people with alcoholism.
0:51
Good morning, everybody. This is Bea Reeves.
0:54
I'm the Director of Business Development here at New Waters
0:56
Recovery with my colleague Thomas Hogs Head, who is the
0:59
Director of Admissions and also of Facilities.
1:03
And our guest today is Chris Budnick, who is the Executive
1:06
Director at Healing Transitions here in Raleigh.
1:09
Morning, guys. Morning.
1:10
Thank you for being here. Thanks for the invitation.
1:13
I'll just start off by saying that Thomas came to New Waters
1:18
from working with Chris at Healing Transition.
1:20
So I want to kind of let him say how that transition happened.
1:25
Yeah, I think Chris and I met back in 2008.
1:28
I was introduced to you all by a mutual friend and fresh out of
1:31
recovery and ended up working at healing transitions for 10 years
1:36
and the rest is history. And how did you find your way
1:40
into this world and specifically healing transitions?
1:45
Yeah, I mean it's a pretty interesting story that's you
1:51
know, recovery based. So I'll try to tell it very
1:55
quickly. But childhood, some difficult
2:00
things. Difficult Head injury,
2:02
depression, divorce with my parents.
2:06
Grew up going to counselors. Went to my first mutual aid
2:10
meeting when I was 16. Went to outpatient treatment
2:13
when I was 18. Inpatient treatment as I was
2:15
turning 19. I majored in psychology as an
2:18
undergrad, and with a little bit of recovery, I started to
2:22
understand that I chose psychology as a major because I
2:25
was familiar with counselors as I was getting ready to graduate.
2:29
I didn't really know what it meant to have a psychology
2:33
degree and my advisor said we could have you do an internship.
2:37
And so of the three places I interviewed, the only one that
2:42
accepted me was a residential treatment program in Rhode
2:45
Island. And so I did an internship there
2:50
in September of 1993. And then in December of 93 they
2:53
hired me. And in 94I interviewed for some
2:59
jobs in North Carolina. I was seeing a young woman who
3:03
was going to school down here, and the job that I ended up
3:09
ultimately accepting was at a place called Charter Northridge.
3:13
When I showed up for the job interview, the Director of
3:16
Nursing was incredibly underwhelmed by me.
3:20
My experience, my lack of credentials, you know, But with
3:25
me being from Rhode Island, she wanted me to come back to meet
3:28
the woman whose position I was interviewing for.
3:31
She was going from inpatient to outpatient and she was from
3:36
Rhode Island and homesick. And so that led to a second
3:40
interview. And within that first 90 seconds
3:43
of meeting, Nancy learned that she worked at the treatment
3:48
center I'd gone through and had known my outpatient, counselor
3:51
and so forth. So this woman in Rhode Island,
3:55
Chance encounter and leads me to get hired at Charter Northridge.
4:01
The person she was going to work for.
4:04
I was the director of the outpatient program and he would
4:08
become the Founding Executive Director for Healing
4:10
Transitions. Dennis Parnell and Dennis, we
4:15
got to know each other and when he was new in his role, reached
4:19
out to me about doing my social work internship with him in
4:24
1999. And then he ended up hiring me
4:27
in 2000. Tragically, Nancy, who was the
4:35
woman from Rhode Island, her son is on our detox wall having
4:40
succumbed to his alcoholism. So just lots of intersections.
4:46
And it was, it was kind of, you know, for me, being able to look
4:50
in the rearview mirror and see, you know, power greater than
4:54
myself, you know, playing a role in guiding and and directing my
4:57
path. Yeah.
4:59
And that leads me to something is I know something we wanted to
5:02
talk to you about today is you know, we all three of us are in
5:05
recovery and we all work in the treatment field and kind of the
5:09
beautiful part of it. And then the tragic part of it
5:11
is not only seeing, you know, clients come and go and sadly
5:16
not make it and die, but ones we're really close to.
5:19
But also in our, you know, in our personal recovery people we
5:22
know from the rooms of the 12 step rooms and beyond who don't
5:27
make it. But then also the beautiful
5:28
thing like I know you talked about with somebody that that we
5:31
all three know who came through healing transitions and is now a
5:36
judge. So we talked a little bit about
5:38
like just the, you know, the real ups and downs of not only
5:42
being in recovery but working in the field.
5:44
Yeah, thanks. It's something I've spent a lot
5:47
of time kind of wrestling with and thinking about.
5:51
I am 33 years in my own recovery, which seems
5:55
unfathomable. You know, when I came into
5:57
recovery, the thought of staying for a year, you know, seemed you
6:02
know, like that seemed like a good goal.
6:06
The work that I started in the settings were very crisis
6:10
stabilization based. And So what I found to be very
6:14
different about working at healing transitions is that it's
6:19
a long term program. It's one where you may work with
6:23
people multiple times and it's one where for me, I've developed
6:29
relationships with people that you know are approaching, you
6:32
know 23 years next month. And the other thing that's a
6:37
real strength for us is, you know, 75% of our staff currently
6:41
are alumni of the program. So you go from somebody who's
6:46
showing up to receive services to becoming a colleague, you
6:49
know. And so there's this kind of
6:51
always this evolution of what the roles are and the and the
6:54
relationships. And because of that and because
6:58
of the just the volume of people that we serve, you know, we're
7:02
subjected to some of the most inspirational stories and some
7:07
of the most heartbreaking losses.
7:10
And those losses are, you know, compounded by, you know, knowing
7:15
their families, you know, in many situations seeing the pain
7:21
that and suffering that you know, family, friends, you know,
7:25
a lot of our alumni who work for us experience.
7:29
So it's just it's a little bit of extreme emotions that didn't
7:35
encounter in more of a short term kind of crisis
7:38
stabilization when I worked for Holly Hill and Dorothea Dix and
7:42
Charter Northridge and and things like that.
7:45
And so you know I'm I'm frequently you know kind of
7:48
contemplating like how do you, how do I personally stay in this
7:55
work and how do I support others.
7:59
And you know a couple of things from a work perspective is you
8:03
know we we created informed consent for employment for any
8:06
applicant to really think about. You know, here are the potential
8:10
benefits and potential risks that come from working in this
8:13
environment that not only may you encounter, you know, crisis
8:17
situations or loss of life, but you also may come to care for
8:21
people very deeply who then end up passing.
8:23
On the other hand, you may see somebody who was so hopeless,
8:28
you know and understanding that that person's family mother was
8:33
really hurting for them to see thirteen years later the mother
8:37
holding a Bible. Why while he's being sworn in as
8:40
a as an attorney, you know by the State Bar.
8:44
So. So we tried to do that and we've
8:46
really tried to invest in mentoring.
8:49
Part of Mike's, you know professional experience has been
8:53
seeing some of the risks that can happen when you become a
8:55
siloed organization and how important it is to be connected
9:00
to to others outside of your organization for perspective to
9:05
avoid kind of developing you know kind of a myopic view or
9:09
lens of the problem in the solution and to get outside
9:13
perspective and support. And so I've really been thrilled
9:16
to see how we've invested in in mentors for employees and how
9:21
that's benefited them, their personal recovery, their
9:24
professional development and so forth.
9:28
And you know, I think, you know, Thomas knows, you know very well
9:33
we, we lost somebody very close to us and in August and it was
9:38
something that I think many of us anticipated.
9:41
And you know, Bill White talks about anticipatory grief for
9:46
families. You know, like when you're kind
9:49
of anticipating the loss and what what what that's like to
9:52
live with that. And it's very, very complicated.
9:57
You know, somebody that first met in 2006.
10:00
Somebody that you know, worked for us.
10:02
Somebody who's I knew their family in different ways and got
10:06
to know their their son. And you know, kind of where I
10:12
ended up, you know, at the end of a 17 year relationship was
10:17
like all I can do is just, you know, let him know that he's
10:21
loved. You know, like I love you, you
10:24
know, and if today's a good day, I'm going to celebrate that.
10:30
And it was interesting leaving his service, which was like the
10:34
60th funeral I'd been to for one of our alumni.
10:38
I ended up stopping at A at a restaurant with a Co worker of
10:43
mine. Just either of us really hungry
10:46
but just needed some space to. Kind of.
10:48
Because I'd sat in that same, I'd sat in that same Funeral
10:53
Home 2 1/2 years before when they buried her, his sister.
11:00
And I'd sat in that same Funeral Home almost three years ago when
11:04
they buried his fiancee, all from overdoses, right?
11:08
And so we're sitting at this restaurant and, you know, just
11:12
trying to get some space and so forth.
11:14
And we'll look over and there's two alumni, and they're grabbing
11:17
something to eat and they're getting ready to go pick up guys
11:20
for a meeting, you know? And then a third guy walks in
11:24
who's an alumni who had just celebrated 12 years of recovery
11:28
that week. And then I realized that one of
11:32
the two that are earlier in recovery, about three years.
11:35
And I'd connected one of them with the guy with 12 years
11:37
because this guy was on his path to, you know, school and wanted
11:45
to kind of, you know, figure out a pathway from Wake Tech,
11:48
Tennessee State and this other alumni done it.
11:51
And then I was just freaking amazed this week to learn that
11:54
this guy started working for you guys 3 weeks ago.
11:58
That wow. I mean I want to let Thomas talk
12:01
to you more directly about this, but I mean you said 75% of your
12:04
employees or or alumni of healing transitions, we, I don't
12:07
know what the percentage of of them here is, but it's.
12:09
Fairly high, pretty high. We're about 25%, yeah.
12:13
So the intersectionality between providers in a different space,
12:17
we're all sort of tied together in a profound way.
12:20
Yeah. And and and our healing
12:22
transitions alum employees are you know they they're they're
12:26
amazing. I don't want to say they're
12:27
better than anybody else because that that you know, but they
12:29
are, they are amazing and we appreciate it so much.
12:33
It it, I mean, it warms my heart, right, to see the
12:37
opportunity that's being afforded to so many of our
12:40
alumni that are in recovery through coming to work at New
12:43
Waters. I mean it's really one of the,
12:46
it's an uplifting thing. It's all of all those things
12:49
that you need to kind of counter the loss, right?
12:51
You start putting in the other Ledger column.
12:55
Yeah, well. Like you just said, I mean, just
12:56
that encounter in the restaurant, it was this sad
12:59
thing. Think about the 60 funerals
13:00
you've been to been in the exact same Funeral Home.
13:03
But then not only was it sort of countered when you run into that
13:07
those the twosome at the table, but then the other guys coming
13:09
in who were on their way. It's just, yeah, it's it's
13:13
definitely like a Ledger, you know, of the pluses and minuses
13:17
unfortunately. But you mentioned Bill White,
13:20
and I don't know too much about Bill White.
13:22
I know that he was kind of wrote the book on treatment.
13:25
And I also know you're a big historian of NA Narcotics
13:29
Anonymous. Will you talk about that?
13:31
Yeah. So this is kind of interesting.
13:35
The way that pharmaceutical companies used to engage with
13:41
doctors was often, you know, kind of like holding events and,
13:47
you know, really kind of treating them well.
13:48
So a physician, psychiatrist friend of mine was being asked
13:53
by I don't know Pfizer or something to host event at a mad
13:56
hatter's and this is like maybe around 999899.
14:00
And I kind of crashed it and and I was interesting because I
14:04
watched like the doctors they're getting so many like items to go
14:09
and just kind of the culture around this sort of stuff is
14:12
their marketing, their, their medications.
14:14
And I got a $25.00 gift card to Barnes and Noble.
14:17
That was my gift for coming to this event, which I wasn't
14:20
invited to. And I used it to buy Slaying the
14:23
Dragon, the history of addiction treatment and recovery in
14:26
America. And it was a profound read.
14:30
And that's was my introduction to Bill White.
14:33
It was my introduction to his writings and his trainings and
14:39
his writing style, which was very accessible.
14:42
And I had emailed with him some as I started teaching at NC
14:48
State and just kind of wanting some feedback on some some
14:52
topics and things like that. But what struck me was a couple
14:59
things. This kind of overlapped and
15:01
coincided with starting at the healing transitions which at the
15:05
time is the healing place Wake County.
15:08
And it was very much kind of an A, a oriented group of people
15:13
that were involved with the founding and a very heavy A, A
15:17
orientation. And that led me to become
15:21
interested in learning more about the history of a A in
15:24
addition to learning about everything that Bill had written
15:27
about in slaying the dragon and and then also kind of just kind
15:31
of noticing some of the additional stigma that
15:34
individuals who are addicted to drugs other than alcohol face in
15:38
society. You know that even.
15:41
Yeah, it's not uncommon for somebody with a history of
15:43
addiction if they're trying to explain part of their history to
15:46
substitute. While I have a history of
15:47
alcoholism, because it's a little more people can tend to
15:50
wrap their head around that or be more accepting or less
15:53
judgmental of it. So I became pretty interested in
15:56
just kind of the experience of individuals with addiction and
16:01
kind of the how more marginalized and stigmatized
16:05
they have been historically than just people with alcoholism.
16:09
And so I I got very interested in the history of Alcoholics
16:12
Anonymous and I became very interested in something called
16:15
the Narcotic Farm, which was one of the few resources that was
16:20
really created as an alternative to federal prisons for for
16:24
individuals who are addicted. And it was because in the 20s
16:28
the wardens were saying these addicts who were coming to our
16:32
prisons are disrupting our prisons.
16:34
We need to get these addicts out of our prisons.
16:37
People saying they're the worst prisoners you can have.
16:39
And so they set up these two narcotic farms.
16:42
The medical director for our detox for many years, Doctor Al
16:46
Mooney. What I came to discover is that
16:49
the things I was researching around the narcotic farm, his
16:52
father had been a patient there. He had first gone there
16:55
voluntarily and then he'd been probated there in 1959.
16:59
And the the whole story of the first alternative 12 step group
17:06
to Alcoholics Anonymous, one called Addicts Anonymous had
17:09
formed in 1947. It had been formed at the
17:11
narcotic farm and Doctor Mooney's father John had been a
17:16
member of that group and that was his introduction to
17:18
recovery. And what was most fascinating
17:20
about In listening to Talk by by John Mooney is that when he went
17:23
there, the doctors said we're going to give you the
17:28
psychotherapy, that we have the best psychotherapy we have to
17:32
offer, but you need to agree to stay for however long it takes.
17:36
And he knew he was only probated there for a certain period of
17:39
time and he knew he wouldn't stay once that was expired.
17:42
And so he turned it down and they said if you're not going to
17:45
take the best, then the only other thing we can suggest as
17:48
you go to the Addicts Anonymous group.
17:50
And so what's fascinating about this to me is that the Addicts
17:53
Anonymous group introduced so many people to Alcoholics
17:56
Anonymous and also led to the creation of other 12 step groups
18:02
for individuals addicted to drugs other than alcohol.
18:05
So by Doctor John Mooney turning down what the doctor said is the
18:10
best he actually got introduced to something that turned out to
18:15
actually be a lifelong solution for him did.
18:18
Addicts Anonymous become Narcotics Anonymous?
18:20
Were they two separate? Two separate things, yeah.
18:22
Exist today, Addicts Anonymous. Nope.
18:25
There's been no that that Addicts Anonymous does not exist
18:29
today. It kind of existed while the
18:32
narcotic farm is open from 47 until the early late 60s.
18:38
But a lot of people left there. And if they couldn't and get
18:42
kind of assimilated into Alcoholics Anonymous, they would
18:47
start things like Drug Addicts Anonymous in Chicago in the
18:51
early 50s, Narcotics Anonymous in New York, which that branch
18:55
kind of folded and so forth. But all this stuff was just
19:00
incredibly fascinating to me. And also making me think about,
19:05
you know, the experience of folks who were addicted to drugs
19:08
other than alcohol in the 40s, fifties, 60s and what their,
19:13
what their fate was, which was usually one that did not end in
19:18
recovery and also robbed their families and their communities
19:21
of the benefits that recovery can can bring.
19:26
I ended up getting introduced to Boyd in 2007 as he was kind of
19:31
interested in in learning more about the history of recovery
19:35
for individuals with addiction. We were you know kind of
19:39
particularly focused on the Narcotics Anonymous story since
19:42
that's a more it's it's one of the largest fellowships for
19:47
individuals addicted to drugs other than alcohol.
19:50
And. And in 2009, in trying to make
19:55
some sense and get some guidance out of our, our interest,
20:00
consulted with Bill White and he said he wanted to kind of
20:03
collaborate with us. And so that led to article in
20:07
2011 on the history and culture of Narcotics Anonymous.
20:10
And then most of it Kind of rewarding for me was he asked us
20:16
to contribute to the second edition of Slaying the Dragon.
20:21
And so when I'd gotten the 1st edition of Slaying the Dragon,
20:24
it had a chapter in alcohol, Alcoholics Anonymous, and it had
20:27
a page and a half on Narcotics Anonymous.
20:29
And what he wanted was to create a chapter of its own substance.
20:34
And so we were able to contribute that to the 2014
20:37
second edition of Slaying the Dragon, which was really pretty
20:41
remarkable. And and then aside from that,
20:44
like, you know, Bill's just had a tremendous influence on so
20:48
many people in our field and helping us think about how to
20:54
better serve individuals, families and communities.
20:57
And for me, what my experience, my entry into the field and what
21:02
my early experience was was really kind of this acute care
21:07
response to a chronic condition. And there's so many kind of
21:11
mistakes or things that I feel like I've had to unlearn.
21:15
And a lot of his teachings helped me.
21:18
A lot of his writings helped me with some of that unlearning and
21:21
to, you know, kind of come to recognize multiple pathways to
21:25
recovery and how to think about different recovery management
21:29
principles, things that have had kind of a profound influence on
21:33
how we have evolved our services and our culture at healing
21:37
transitions. And to that point, Chris might
21:40
think about the chronicity. And we had a detox client at HT
21:44
that I think he had come through.
21:46
You can speak to the exact count, but the families and the
21:50
frustration for the staff, for their loved ones.
21:55
And you made a good point to staff that was frustrated.
21:58
You said, well, what if that was your father?
22:00
Would you have that same level of frustration as he came in and
22:03
out and in and out? And this individual has a unique
22:06
story. I didn't know if you could touch
22:07
on that for a little bit. Yeah, you know what's?
22:10
There's a lot of dynamics to that.
22:13
So staff frustration is kind of a universal thing that has gone
22:18
back decades and decades. I mean, the narcotic farm
22:24
started off with this kind of vision of we're going to bring
22:28
people out to a farm with fresh air and activities and we're
22:32
going to invest all this into them.
22:35
And the narcotic farm staff got very disillusioned because
22:39
people would end up using when they went back to their
22:42
communities. And there's, you know, 95%
22:45
relapse rate of people that went to the narcotic farm.
22:48
So there's this long history of people kind of saying, well, you
22:51
know, why is this person back here?
22:53
You know, why what isn't working?
22:55
You know, we've given them this, we've invested in this and they
22:59
seem to be doing well and and so forth.
23:02
And so, you know, understanding people's communities, you know,
23:07
Bill talks about Don Coyus and this idea of kind of treating
23:10
the soil and a healing forest and and analogies about that.
23:14
You know, we bring a tree into good conditions, it does well.
23:18
We put it back in it's old conditions and it starts to to
23:21
deteriorate and we seem surprised And then just with you
23:27
know, the individuals that we serve, regardless of the
23:29
community, they all differ too, you know.
23:31
And so one of the things that was very helpful to to
23:33
conceptualize was the idea of problem severity, problem
23:36
complexity and recovery capital and how those impact folks.
23:41
But it's, you know, it's it's an understandable but also
23:46
difficult thing for the staff who get frustrated.
23:49
So a lot of times for our staff, this unique frustration was, you
23:53
know, I'm an alumni of this program.
23:56
I did these things that were laid out.
23:58
It worked for me. If this person just does what I
24:01
did, it will work for them. And that may not be how it's
24:05
articulated, but that's really kind of the understandable way
24:10
of trying to make sense of why am I in recovery.
24:12
But this person's not. And so there's a couple
24:16
individuals that that come to mind.
24:18
You know one is a person is Thomas was referring to who had
24:23
just, you know so many frequent detox admissions and.
24:28
And then another was one who when I was doing a crisis
24:30
intervention team training this week, I always kind of describe
24:34
like some of these real extreme cases and how perplexing they
24:38
can be. And I always, I kind of use
24:40
code, you know, which is I say, you know, I'll say, you know,
24:44
the kind of guy that when he ends up at WakeMed, they take
24:47
the hand sanitizer out of the Bay.
24:49
And then, like the paramedics in there, like, I'll watch.
24:52
And on Tuesday, the two paramedics were like, oh, yeah,
24:56
you know, like, they know, like they know who these people are.
24:58
And then I was able to say, oh, by the way, that that guy's got
25:01
three years of recovery. He's in Kentucky right now, you
25:04
know, doing well. The other guy you know in 2012,
25:09
he stayed with us for 90 days and he.
25:11
Was working then. Yeah.
25:13
And. And it was kind of like he's
25:16
never stayed for 90 days before. And So what was going on?
25:19
Well, the staff were doing different things with them.
25:21
They kept him in detox for a month.
25:23
They gave him. They lessened the expectations
25:26
for him to fit into what everyone else was doing who was
25:29
there. That naturally creates some
25:31
tension. You know, why does this person
25:33
not have to do what the majority is doing?
25:35
And you know, part of my thinking on it was do you want
25:38
his type of alcoholism? You know, do you want his, would
25:42
you want to switch places with him?
25:45
Would you want his brain? You know, because I believe his
25:47
brain is, you know, just based on research that shows, you
25:51
know, that people who relapse after treatment tend to have,
25:56
you know, kind of smaller volume, certain parts of the
25:59
reward pathway. And so, so, you know, and and
26:03
looking at this stuff, you know, it was helpful to staff who
26:07
understandably you're dealing with somebody who's kind of at
26:10
their worst, who's not necessarily, you know, filled
26:14
with gratitude or making the type of change that kind of
26:18
feels like our experience is paying off, you know, But what
26:23
we started to do was we started to think about how do we define
26:28
success a little bit differently.
26:29
You know, and, you know, maybe for one person it's, you know,
26:32
in 13 years they'll become an attorney, you know, and maybe
26:35
for another one, it's just that they're not on the street and
26:38
they're not being responded to by EMS.
26:41
And and the EMS thing was in particular of interest to me.
26:46
So I I said, would you sign a release for Wake County EMS?
26:49
I'd like to know about your transport history.
26:52
And so EMS could go back to half of 2010.
26:55
They said we can give you half of 2010, which was 76 responses
26:59
and 70 transports and half a year And and the year that he
27:04
was with us in 2012, you know, it was down to 18 transports.
27:08
And so it's kind of like hey, hey, hey staff.
27:10
This may be difficult and frustrating, but guess what?
27:13
You know, each day that he's here, you know, he's less likely
27:16
to be being transported by the paramedics to the hospital.
27:21
What was particularly impactful and again, this, you know,
27:27
community partnership is so important and our paramedic
27:30
friends have been so important, they would send new recruits and
27:34
they would send advanced practice paramedics to spend
27:36
time with us. And so one day they're, they're
27:38
visiting with us and they said, Oh my God, he's here.
27:42
We've been so worried that something had happened to him.
27:44
We haven't been seeing him. And you start seeing this very
27:48
unique perspective of the paramedic world where they're
27:52
like we know that he doesn't like Turkey sandwiches, right.
27:57
And so you start seeing those people on the front lines and
28:00
understanding their experience and their worldview a little bit
28:03
differently and really seeing so much of the compassion that they
28:06
have for some of the people that can be challenging and difficult
28:09
to to work with. So we kept kind of tracking this
28:12
every year. I'll e-mail EMS and I'll I'll
28:15
say any transports this year and for the last seven or eight
28:18
years, no transports. The other thing is no admissions
28:22
with us and and we are in touch with them, you know, and we were
28:28
able on his 60th birthday to kind of put the word out there
28:32
and some of the paramedics and other people, Thomas and folks
28:35
were able to reach out to him and wish him happy birthday and
28:37
so forth. But his path of recovery is
28:41
somebody that never completed our program.
28:42
Somebody's probably wasn't going to be capable of completing in
28:46
the way that we had it designed. But it spoke to kind of making
28:50
some adjustments. And the only thing that was a
28:53
little bit ironic about it all was he came to me in 2012 at one
28:59
point and said, hey, I just got a bill.
29:01
And so kind of like me asking to reach out to EMS for this data,
29:06
it triggered a generation of a bill.
29:09
And we did a small podcast Series A few years back called
29:14
Voices from the Village and we did one with a with a one of our
29:18
advanced practice paramedic friends.
29:19
And we asked this person to come in and record the intro and it
29:23
was like, hey, do you know what a podcast is?
29:26
No. Well, it's kind of like a, it's
29:28
kind of like the radio, you know, and we just want you to
29:30
talk a little bit at the beginning of that and we'll add
29:33
it to the podcast. So #1, when he showed up, he
29:37
said, I want to donate some clothes because for so many
29:39
years I was getting clothes from you guys and so very touching.
29:43
And then #2 is we're doing this intro to the podcast.
29:47
It was hey, do you remember that bill, You know, and we had
29:50
different recollections of it. His recollection was it was half
29:53
a million. Mine was, it was 250,000.
29:56
So I've always had a little twinge of guilt that, you know,
29:58
like me asking him to share data, you know, generated this
30:03
huge bill that was outstanding for him.
30:05
But anyways it's it's one of the ways, you know, I think it's
30:08
been a learning opportunity for staff.
30:11
You know who? And again I I've heard it from
30:14
paramedics. You know, like we're
30:16
administering Narcan and then we're back administering Narcan
30:18
to the same person. Like there's a certain sense of
30:20
like our is what we're doing effective?
30:22
Does it matter? Why do we keep doing this?
30:25
And with the paramedic friends, we, you know, were able to
30:28
launch this post overdose response team and, you know,
30:31
basically said maybe if we paired some people with lived
30:34
experience with you, that it could, you know, get some people
30:38
out of that cycle. And so that project's over five
30:41
years old now. And in addition to serving the
30:46
individual, it's also giving the paramedics a sense of like we
30:49
have some resources. So we don't feel like we're so
30:53
kind of helpless to make any type of impact or change.
30:56
We had another guy who, you know, between 2017 and 2021 had
31:02
54 detox admissions. And my usual sense was if he's
31:06
not here with us, if he's with somebody else, he's giving us a
31:10
break. And if he's with us, he's giving
31:11
some other provider a break. And at 4:00 today, he's invited
31:18
me to come for a brick placement at our memorial garden.
31:23
And he's got over 2 years of, you know, sobriety now.
31:30
And I ended up writing a blog, which I don't do that often, but
31:35
I've got some really good colleagues, Jason Schwartz,
31:38
Shane Phillips, Matt Stapp and Brian Coon.
31:41
And they've, through Jason's leadership, have this blog site
31:45
called Recovery Review Blog. And I don't contribute often,
31:49
but I was in a supervision session and the woman who runs
31:52
our family support and education program said, oh, did you hear
31:57
that his mom sold the suit that she bought for his funeral?
32:02
And those that, those 8 words or whatever.
32:05
I was like, Oh my God. Like that is you could spend a
32:09
semester on that. And with him, I, I did this kind
32:15
of blog post, you know, about what does that mean?
32:18
You know, like, what does it mean for a family to get to a
32:21
place where they say we need to go ahead and buy a funeral to
32:25
bury our son in? And then the way he learned that
32:28
his mom had sold the suit was he was going to speak at a recovery
32:34
meeting and said, hey mom, I think my sponsor said if I wore
32:37
that suit that you bought for my funeral, it would be impactful,
32:41
you know? And she said, but we sold it,
32:43
We're not worried about having to bury you, you know.
32:47
So at 4:00 today, you know I'll, I'll be there as they do this
32:51
brick placement for us also. You know, another commonality is
32:55
these folks that we engage with over and over again, they're all
32:58
deep, deeply affable, right. Like in the recovery rooms, 12
33:02
step rooms, like it's a pretty nice group of people and I think
33:06
our struggles are what bind us together and staff rooting for
33:10
those folks that have more so participants, staff, you know,
33:14
we can sort of get a little worn down by them.
33:18
But that that kind of cocoon of support, he's especially
33:21
existent at HT and it's really something special to see.
33:26
Chris, on that note, maybe you could tell us a little bit,
33:29
There's some stuff going on down there.
33:30
I understand both of the men's and the women's campus.
33:35
Could you tell us about that? Yeah.
33:36
And what you said just prompted two other thoughts with me,
33:40
which is it. It's somewhat unique in this
33:45
work where there can be kind of an extreme set of feelings
33:50
towards somebody. So we had, we decided to select
33:55
two people for staff of the year and I said, well the first first
34:00
one we're selecting, you know he's his tenure goes back to
34:04
2002, you know, but it's really only the last two years that
34:08
it's been as an employee. So and and what I said was, you
34:12
know, I mean there's so many amazing things about why this
34:14
person was nominated and selected.
34:17
But I I said like with seriousness like when he's been
34:21
using like I want to hurt him like and like that's a huge.
34:25
You know, like the other thing that's been weird about being in
34:28
this work is trying to reconcile human, natural human emotions
34:31
and feelings with you know who what your professional role is.
34:35
But that that's kind of an, you know like this guy was such a a
34:40
a it just jeopardized other people's recovery the way you
34:44
came up on campus bringing drugs with them you know and things
34:48
like that. So but I love and I've went
34:51
through this with another guy recently and I just love how
34:54
recovery. You know how easy it is to to
34:57
see the goodness and the compassion when the person's not
35:01
impaired by their their addiction.
35:03
Our our, the greatest strength and greatest weakness in some
35:07
ways may be that we provide services on demand and we don't
35:11
turn people away. And the beauty of that is, you
35:16
know, I asked staff yesterday at our holiday luncheon if we
35:20
didn't operate like that and if healing transitions turned you
35:23
away when you needed help or if we weren't here, what would that
35:26
have meant? I had two people talk to me,
35:29
said one person. Said my sentence would have been
35:32
until 2040. I wouldn't be sitting here with
35:35
you right now. Another person came up to me and
35:38
said they would be referring to me by a number, not by my name.
35:43
And so there's some amazing things because we don't turn
35:47
people away. There's some amazing things
35:49
because we don't say there's no room here, call tomorrow.
35:54
But there's some tough things with that too, which is severe
35:57
overcrowding to try to meet the demands.
36:01
We are are fortunate that the community decided to support us
36:06
in increasing our capacity so that we could continue the
36:10
practice of services on demand. And so we're very excited.
36:13
Our women's campus stage, one of expansion should be done in
36:17
early to mid January, which gives us a brand new community
36:21
room that is large enough to accommodate our growth, but
36:24
allows us to move kind of the public and some of the staff out
36:27
of where the women reside excited about that.
36:31
At the same time we should be our new shelter will be opening
36:35
up giving us 80 new beds at our women's campus, but more
36:38
importantly creating an infrastructure to support the
36:42
number of people that we want to serve were averaged last month,
36:45
maybe 160 women for the month, but that's in a building
36:49
designed to support 88 women, right.
36:52
We'll be going to a capacity of 210 like with the
36:55
infrastructure, enough restrooms, laundry, dining and
36:58
so forth. We'll have some interior
37:00
renovations that are going on. And then we're really excited
37:03
that out of this project at the women's campus that we've been
37:07
given an opportunity from a Family Foundation to explore
37:12
apartment style recovery housing for women and women with their
37:15
children at our women's campus after they complete the the
37:19
recovery program at our men's campus.
37:22
Construction is been a little more slow to develop a lot more
37:27
coordination because it's property that we lease and
37:31
working with our our partners at the city.
37:33
So we're expecting to be done in October of 2024.
37:37
That expansion is intended to take us from an infrastructure
37:41
of 165 to an infrastructure of 291.
37:45
Of the challenging things is that in October we averaged 347
37:50
men at night in our 165 bed campus.
37:55
And so it's it's a little difficult that we've exceeded
37:59
our future capacity. We're getting a little bit of
38:02
relief at St. John's Metropolitan Community
38:04
Churches opened up White Flag Shelter, but because of the
38:07
demand has said we'll operate every night, whether it's cold,
38:11
cold weather night or not. And that's been supported by
38:14
funding from the city and the county.
38:16
And that's alleviating some of the demand for our services,
38:21
primarily for those who would end up in our detox if we
38:24
weren't providing the drop in shelter.
38:27
Chris, if you had a, do you have a number of how many unique
38:30
clients you guys have served since opening in 2001?
38:34
Yeah. So if you look at our database,
38:36
there's about, I want to say, about 2425 thousand
38:40
unduplicated. You got to, you got to back out
38:43
four from there, which are the cats.
38:45
We got 4 cat entries in the database from some previous cats
38:49
that we've served. I mean if you think about that
38:52
not only you have those individuals but you have their
38:54
families their it it the, the, the reach that that has I would
39:01
argue is more impactful than probably any organization in the
39:04
state I mean recovery standpoint has had.
39:10
I mean, I've told Chris this over the last few years, you
39:12
know, I've been to so many treatment centers around the
39:14
country that are super nice and some of them, a lot of them have
39:17
great treatment, you know, beautiful facilities.
39:19
But I don't think there's a place I respect as much as
39:21
healing transitions. It's amazing what it does with
39:23
this community and I mean just the the the ripple effect of
39:27
25,000 ish people is probably in the millions of lives touched in
39:32
some way. Thank you for the the kind words
39:34
and the the respect. Yeah, well, and also we usually
39:37
do this at the beginning of this.
39:38
Well, you just kind of just tell us exactly nuts and bolts.
39:41
You kind of backed into it of what Healing Transitions does,
39:44
and we already said when it opened, but just just the facts.
39:47
Yeah, so identified need in the community around an alternative
39:50
to jails and emergency departments.
39:54
Original concept was get a detox that could be that alternative
39:57
location. The killing place in Louisville
40:01
was identified and it had more than just the detox.
40:04
It had an emergency shelter that.
40:06
Provides basic human entitlement.
40:07
It's a shelter that people can come in under the influence and
40:11
it can serve as a kind of a cultivating what a way to
40:15
cultivate people into the recovery program.
40:18
So detox shelter and then long term recovery program is what
40:22
most of our beds are are devoted to And then we've added, we've
40:27
either had or evolved the additional services that we
40:30
would say are the ones that support our core services.
40:34
So again, core services shelter detox recovery program, we've
40:38
always had transition case management to help at the end of
40:40
the recovery program with linkage to recovery housing and
40:43
employment. We've always had a healthcare
40:45
coordinator who arranges healthcare professionals to come
40:49
in and do clinics and that roles evolved to do things like
40:52
prescription assistance. So this year we're going to do
40:55
about $45,000 in prescription assistance.
40:58
Hopefully that'll look different next year with Medicaid
41:00
expansion, referrals to providers in the community and
41:05
and so forth. When we open our women's, we
41:07
added a child and family specialist, I want to say around
41:12
2010 we said, you know, we should start this family
41:14
education support program. And so we've got somebody that
41:18
overseas that we added a recovery outreach program with
41:23
the idea that with expansion, if we don't do some other things
41:27
differently, we're going to continue to outgrow the space.
41:30
So we need to do a better job of supporting people when they
41:33
leave. Previously we would do follow up
41:37
with you if you completed the program, but we're leaving a
41:39
whole bunch of people off by not following up with those who
41:42
don't complete. And so we've got dedicated staff
41:45
that works with volunteers to help do outreach to people
41:49
whether they stay a day or a year.
41:52
We added a child and family peer support specialist a couple
41:56
years ago, which was very exciting because it's a woman
41:58
that had been through the program and been served by the
42:01
child family specialist. And so she's able to kind of be
42:04
in that role with the lived experience.
42:07
I mentioned the post overdose response team, we called the
42:10
rapid responder program. And then we've been able through
42:13
some funding to add some care coordinators and case managers
42:18
for particularly women at our emergency shelter and they've
42:23
been able to get over 40 women into housing this year, which is
42:27
a very impactful service that's being offered.
42:32
So that feels like in a nutshell what we do and we do it by you
42:37
know with no cost to the individual trying to eliminate
42:40
or reduce barriers, services on demand work with people as many
42:44
times as it takes, use a peer Orient a peer orientation but
42:49
not at the exclusion of clinical services.
42:52
So we partner with folks like Caroline Outreach and Monarch
42:55
and others to do the clinical care when it's identified and we
43:00
believe in linking people to the larger recovery community that's
43:03
where the lifelong and support will come from.
43:07
And we also kind of use this hand up not hand out model where
43:12
we match people's investment into their own change.
43:16
I love that, Yeah. Anything else?
43:18
Chris, what would you say the the most rewarding moment has
43:22
been in your tenure at HHP now healing transitions?
43:29
Does anything stand out in particular or is it an overall?
43:32
Yeah. So I, I come back to this one
43:34
particular story and there's hundreds of these stories, but
43:40
there's one that I kind of hold closely and colleague of mine,
43:43
Terry, we have this kind of ongoing thing where I know it
43:49
makes her cry. So I asked her to talk about it
43:51
to people. And so she always gets angry at
43:54
me way. But in 2019, there's kind of a
44:00
series of losses that kind of accumulated and there was a
44:03
woman that was struck and killed when she was intoxicated who had
44:06
walked off from our campus. There was a guy that I I was
44:12
texting with who is wanting to come back.
44:15
I was working that out, you know, well, swing by and see you
44:21
on Sunday. Come Sunday morning, mom was
44:24
going to take him to see the sunrise and then bring him,
44:27
bring him in and get notified the next morning that, you know
44:30
he died. Between the time that we had
44:32
agreed for him to come in and for him to arrive, his mom find
44:36
him, found him dead of an overdose.
44:39
And then you know 710 days later from that a close volunteer and
44:45
supporter, his stepson had had an overdose which eventually
44:49
became fatal. And I I remember that time
44:52
feeling just a lot of weight. And I took advantage of our EAP
44:56
program. One because it's what I what we
44:59
would recommend other people and I met with some people and so
45:03
forth and I did all those things with the thing that made a
45:06
difference. All the difference in the world
45:09
was I was sitting down for a monthly check in with this
45:12
employee, Terry, and it wasn't part of our conversation.
45:17
You know, we're meeting to talk about her work and things like
45:20
that. And she says, hey, I want to let
45:22
you know that my son got married, you know, and I was
45:25
invited to the wedding and again there's there's hundreds of
45:28
these types of stories, she says.
45:33
I didn't know this, but they had a a dance for the for the bride
45:39
with her father. And then all of a sudden I found
45:41
out that I was being asked to go out there and have a dance with
45:44
my son. And she says, and I'm
45:48
overwhelmed with emotion and I'm crying.
45:51
I'm, you know, a decade in recovery, but I'm still, you
45:56
know, feel guilt and remorse for not being there for my my
46:00
children. And as I'm as I'm doing that, my
46:03
son just hugs me and says it's all OK mom, you know, and she's
46:08
having this profound sense of forgiveness and, you know,
46:14
experiencing something that she didn't think she was going to
46:16
get to experience. And then she says to me, the
46:21
other thing that happened was I got a picture with my parents.
46:25
I've never had a picture with my parents before, right?
46:28
Something that I take for granted, that many of us take
46:31
for granted, she says. My parents divorced when I was
46:34
really young, and this is they were both at the wedding.
46:36
It was the first time that I was able to get a picture with both
46:39
of my parents. So there's hundreds of stories
46:42
like that. But that story is one that at
46:45
that moment it countered all the grief I was feeling about these
46:51
recent losses. And I think that if I were into
46:58
this question, what's been the most rewarding thing?
47:01
I think it's any time that I see the alumni come together in an
47:09
act of love and support for one another.
47:14
Last Sunday it was at the State Farmers Market restaurant where
47:17
they held a memorial service for one of our alumni and watching
47:23
the way the late the ladies who've been through our program
47:27
love on her and her last days. And I mean, those are the things
47:31
that are the most most validating.
47:36
That's amazing. That's good stuff.
47:38
I mean one other thought I have too about is our HT alum on
47:42
staff here, their ability to connect with our clients is, is
47:45
very profound. You know, we talked about the
47:48
bond that we have with HT and you know we're set up
47:52
differently, but our mission is the same, right?
47:54
This first step of, like, getting into recovery, how does
47:57
that look? And are those folks I just
48:01
mentioned? They're able to relate to
48:02
people, make them feel comfortable, like we talked
48:05
about when I work for you, make people feel valued because we
48:08
come in wounded, right? It's a it's not a moral failure,
48:12
our disease, our affliction. But collectively, on your side
48:17
of town, our side of town, and we're all we're all trying to do
48:20
the best we can anyway. You would if people wanted to
48:25
help HT in some capacity. What what are you recommending
48:29
Now? I know we're doing a coat drive
48:31
being winter. What else could we do?
48:34
What else could folks do to support healing transitions?
48:37
I just wanted to thank you guys for being sponsors of Oakwood 24
48:43
and that's coming up next week and there's lots of ways that
48:46
people can get involved so that and to be supportive.
48:49
One of the first things that we recommend is come take a tour
48:51
and tours can be scheduled or they can happen anytime during
48:54
business hours. Just come in and want to see
48:56
learn more about it. We find that that is impactful
49:01
because somebody may encounter somebody that's in need of our
49:04
services at some time and we'll be glad to know that exists.
49:08
It may lead to them wanting to contribute in some way either
49:11
through their talents or services or to contribute
49:15
financially. So about 45% of our annual
49:20
revenues is fundraising, so not, you know, grants or government
49:26
sources and things like that. So we've got a big ask or big
49:29
lift every year to try to raise money.
49:32
And one of the things that drives that for me is wanting to
49:36
be a living wage organization. We want our employees, again
49:40
75%, who are alumni, to be able to afford housing in the
49:43
community that they serve. Oh Chris, we're very grateful
49:48
for you coming out. Thank you.
49:49
Thanks for being here and for everything you do.
49:52
Yeah, thank, thank you for everything you do big supporters
49:55
of you guys and thank you always willing to to help out and it's
49:58
very warms my heart to think of the people that you hire here in
50:01
the world that you know.