Latest / God + Mental Health Podcast / Why Every Addiction Has a "Why": Adrienne Bumpers on Trauma-Informed Recovery

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Why Every Addiction Has a "Why": Adrienne Bumpers on Trauma-Informed Recovery · God + Mental Health Podcast

0:00
[SPEAKER_00]: Hello and welcome back to the God of Mental Health podcast.
0:03
[SPEAKER_00]: My name is Rosaline.
0:04
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm so excited to be back in front of the microphone with you this week.
0:07
[SPEAKER_00]: I am so excited because I have someone that is going to talk to us today about their organization as well as what they do in the mental health field.
0:17
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm so excited to welcome Asian bumpers.
0:19
[SPEAKER_00]: Hi, Adrian.
0:20
[SPEAKER_00]: How are you?
0:21
[SPEAKER_00]: Hey, Rosaline.
0:22
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm doing well.
0:22
[SPEAKER_00]: How are you?
0:23
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm doing good.
0:24
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm so excited for our conversation.
0:27
[SPEAKER_00]: So Adrian is the director of the Potter's House at Atlanta Mission.
0:32
[SPEAKER_00]: And this place is a faith-based recovery program that helps him in overcome addiction, homelessness, and trauma through holistic healing.
0:39
[SPEAKER_00]: And with a background in case management and shelter leadership, Adrian is passionate about addressing the root cause of substance abuse by focusing on mental health, trauma and community support.
0:48
[SPEAKER_00]: and not just addiction itself.
0:51
[SPEAKER_00]: So, I wanted to really talk a little bit about addiction through this episode, but I want you all to hear who Adrian is.
0:57
[SPEAKER_00]: So, Adrian, why don't you start and just tell us a little bit about you?
1:00
[SPEAKER_01]: Sure.
1:00
[SPEAKER_01]: So, I was born and raised in Arkansas in a middle class family.
1:06
[SPEAKER_01]: I will just tell you this is a little bit about my story.
1:09
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't even experience witnessing visible poverty until I was 16.
1:16
[SPEAKER_01]: I grew up in the church.
1:18
[SPEAKER_01]: I became a believer when I was 13.
1:20
[SPEAKER_01]: So I knew the Lord.
1:22
[SPEAKER_01]: I had done some mission work in rural Arkansas, serving and helping through the church and what we were doing locally.
1:31
[SPEAKER_01]: And then when I was 16, I actually went to a gas station by myself.
1:35
[SPEAKER_01]: And there was a man there, I've not seen anyone panhandled before, but there was a man there that had all these necklaces and bracelets hanging all over him.
1:44
[SPEAKER_01]: And he started walking towards me.
1:47
[SPEAKER_01]: When I saw him, I got really nervous, but he came towards me and he said, me, I'm kind of having them in every time.
1:53
[SPEAKER_01]: I was too afraid to say no.
1:55
[SPEAKER_01]: So he said, I'm not going to ask you for money.
1:58
[SPEAKER_01]: But I am going to ask you for a commitment.
2:00
[SPEAKER_01]: If you promise to affect five homeless people in your lifetime, I'll let you have one of these necklaces and or bracelets.
2:07
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I said yes, because again, I was a little too afraid to say no.
2:12
[SPEAKER_01]: And he gave me an necklace.
2:14
[SPEAKER_01]: I was able to keep that our church actually in a couple of years started to branch out from some of the mission work that we did.
2:21
[SPEAKER_01]: And we actually went to church in San Antonio that had
2:26
[SPEAKER_01]: an outreach program for people experiencing homelessness.
2:28
[SPEAKER_01]: And that was kind of my first experience I'm working with this population, but ever since that day, I knew that was a gotten counter and I knew that I was called to help and to serve.
2:40
[SPEAKER_01]: What happened from then on is that I started serving in different ways, but continued to come back and continue to feel compassion for people experiencing homelessness.
2:51
[SPEAKER_01]: So I would serve at suit kitchens when I was in college.
2:53
[SPEAKER_01]: I would do some
2:56
[SPEAKER_01]: in the summer when I wasn't at school.
2:59
[SPEAKER_01]: I then knew that I was called to something more professionally.
3:02
[SPEAKER_01]: So I decided that I should go to seminary.
3:05
[SPEAKER_01]: And while I was at seminary, I worked with an on-profit that didn't enter city work for people experiencing homelessness and for other
3:13
[SPEAKER_01]: service agencies in the city.
3:15
[SPEAKER_01]: So I have just kind of gradually always followed whatever God has kind of put in front of me that has led me professionally to serving people experiencing homelessness in the now for the last 10 years serving people that have been experiencing addiction.
3:31
[SPEAKER_01]: and hopelessness.
3:32
[SPEAKER_01]: And I would also tell you, you know, a few things just personally about me, you know, of course, Emma Church Goer.
3:39
[SPEAKER_01]: I love the Lord.
3:39
[SPEAKER_01]: I also am a wife to a wonderful husband for the last 16 years.
3:46
[SPEAKER_01]: I also am a mom to to young girls ages four and seven.
3:51
[SPEAKER_01]: And
3:51
[SPEAKER_01]: We now live in Georgia and we've been here for the last 15 years and it's been a wonderful life that I've been privileged to live so far.
4:01
[SPEAKER_00]: That's so good.
4:02
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm a mom too.
4:03
[SPEAKER_00]: I have a five in a three year old.
4:05
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm in the trenches with you too.
4:07
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
4:07
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
4:08
[SPEAKER_01]: It is busy.
4:09
[SPEAKER_01]: It is very, very busy.
4:11
[SPEAKER_00]: That is so cool.
4:13
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
4:13
[SPEAKER_00]: So tell me how you got connected to your current role as director of Atlanta mission and in that can you explain kind of what the work that you all do, what you see consistently.
4:23
[SPEAKER_00]: I would love to hear about that.
4:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, after I got out of school, I knew that I needed to get more experience at doing direct work.
4:31
[SPEAKER_01]: If I was ever going to make an impact, and I knew that I would really want to focus on non-profit work.
4:36
[SPEAKER_01]: So I was able, when we moved here to Georgia, I was able to start working for a non-profit here locally, and I was running a shelter in doing case management services with an
4:45
[SPEAKER_01]: people in the local community that needed shelter.
4:48
[SPEAKER_01]: What I did experience, you know, I just, I have a lot of passion in this space.
4:54
[SPEAKER_01]: And so just professionally, I jumped in with both feet and quickly got to realize that I needed to learn self-care practices and I had to learn that the hard ways.
5:05
[SPEAKER_01]: So I got really burned out.
5:06
[SPEAKER_01]: within the organization and needed, needed something different.
5:10
[SPEAKER_01]: I had a friend who had moved over to start working with at Liana Mission.
5:15
[SPEAKER_01]: They had an opening here at the Potter's House for their volunteer coordinator position.
5:20
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I had done work with volunteers before, so I was able to transition over to the organization.
5:26
[SPEAKER_01]: I am now, I've been the director for the last four years, but I have definitely done four different roles within the organization as well.
5:33
[SPEAKER_01]: So I've just slowly progressed to the role that I'm at today, but I really love the work that we do and I really love getting to do it specifically at this campus at the Potter's House.
5:43
[SPEAKER_00]: that's so good.
5:44
[SPEAKER_00]: That's so good.
5:44
[SPEAKER_00]: How do you feel like going to seminary help you in your transition to especially being in this role?
5:51
[SPEAKER_00]: Because that is a different turn of events.
5:53
[SPEAKER_00]: I think when I think of seminary, I either think of a pastor, a chapel leader, or someone that's working very closely in the church.
6:01
[SPEAKER_00]: So how do you feel like that is a different type of path?
6:04
[SPEAKER_00]: How do you feel like that is aid as you in the work you do now?
6:06
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
6:06
[SPEAKER_01]: So, I mean, you got your social work degree.
6:11
[SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, when I was told, so I have a sociology of actualers and when I was told when I was in school, I'm you're never gonna get a job if you don't go on and get your masters.
6:20
[SPEAKER_01]: So, I kind of knew I had to get further education.
6:24
[SPEAKER_01]: And I knew that if I don't do it now, I'm not going to ever go back to school.
6:28
[SPEAKER_01]: And so it was a choice between going and getting an MSW or going to seminary.
6:34
[SPEAKER_01]: And I just really felt God calling me to seminary.
6:37
[SPEAKER_01]: I am a United Methodist, just by denomination and they advised me to pursue specific types of seminaries that would help me pursue ordination within the United Methodist stretch.
6:51
[SPEAKER_01]: So that was kind of how I knew I needed to go to seminary and that's kind of my path while I was there I quickly realized that God was calling me into the community and not specifically into a pulpit and not specifically to a denomination And I actually feel like I use things that I learned at school every day at work because our organization is a Christian organization And so we are doing active ministry here
7:16
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think the gift that I was given through going through seminary, I was able to take some nonprofit management classes kind of in coordination with the seminary degree.
7:25
[SPEAKER_00]: That's really, really good.
7:26
[SPEAKER_00]: That's really good.
7:27
[SPEAKER_01]: So that was helpful.
7:28
[SPEAKER_01]: And I also, my master's, I'm a master of arts and social change studies.
7:32
[SPEAKER_01]: And so that kind of incorporates some community work and I've seen stuff.
7:36
[SPEAKER_01]: But it also, you know, from the faith perspective, I got to take a lot of classes on
7:45
[SPEAKER_01]: Learn kind of break down my faith in order to really rebuild it so that I feel like I have a really rooted understanding and how I approach ministry within the work that I do every day
7:57
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh that's so good.
7:58
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that that's very helpful to know because when we're in ministry, I think that it can be a lot of like our own faith is constantly challenged based on what we see.
8:09
[SPEAKER_00]: And so kind of for you, it sounds like you were able to get more of a foundational approach on and what you were doing and being able to build off of that, especially in what you do now.
8:18
[SPEAKER_00]: Like you said, I use it every single day.
8:20
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I love hearing that because ministry can be
8:27
[SPEAKER_00]: Like you talked about having the self-care practices and sometimes coming into that it can be hard to know This what you need because we're so mission-focused while also being very Being very mindful of how you can take care of yourself.
8:41
[SPEAKER_00]: I love hearing how that was kind of a thread to what you're doing now
8:45
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
8:45
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
8:46
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
8:47
[SPEAKER_00]: Excellent.
8:47
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
8:47
[SPEAKER_00]: So tell me a little bit about the Elena mission and what y'all do at the Pirates House.
8:51
[SPEAKER_00]: I would love to kind of go into that a little bit more.
8:53
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
8:54
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
8:54
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, Atlanta mission is it's the largest homeless service provider within the city of Atlanta.
9:00
[SPEAKER_01]: It also has been around since 1938.
9:03
[SPEAKER_01]: So we've been around the block.
9:05
[SPEAKER_01]: We've been serving the community for a long time.
9:08
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
9:09
[SPEAKER_01]: And our mission is to transform lives through crisis of those facing homelessness, poverty, and addiction.
9:16
[SPEAKER_01]: So we have three campuses in Atlanta to that serve women with children, one that serves men, and then we have the Potter's House, which is a campus that is north of the city about 60 miles in a rural area.
9:30
[SPEAKER_01]: located near Jefferson, Georgia.
9:32
[SPEAKER_01]: It's been in our location since 1967, so we've been around almost six years, which is crazy.
9:40
[SPEAKER_01]: And what I understand is that, so we're on a 550 acre farm, the family that owned, at least a parcel of the land was connected with it, land emission board members,
9:55
[SPEAKER_01]: And I understood that they had some men in their family that struggled with addiction and at the time what recovery looked like as they would send them out to the farm to work it off a long time ago and so when they gave the property ever to our organization that's how we started with the mission of serving specifically men struggling with drug and alcohol addiction so we've been strictly doing that here at this campus serving adult men.
10:21
[SPEAKER_01]: for almost 60 years, and addiction has changed a whole lot over that time, so we've been trying to adapt and adapt our services over the years to be able to more effectively serve what we see coming through a doors.
10:34
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, so when you say addiction, what areas does that cover?
10:37
[SPEAKER_00]: Because I know addiction can be a flood of different things.
10:40
[SPEAKER_01]: Sure, so it's specifically drugs and alcohol addiction.
10:43
[SPEAKER_01]: So it has to be substance related.
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[SPEAKER_01]: That is something that we assess as what's your primary need.
10:51
[SPEAKER_01]: So you can have co-occurring
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[SPEAKER_01]: And guys struggling with sex addiction, maybe hoarding like different things that could be kind of interrelated, but we definitely want to treat people who have a substance addiction as a primary need.
11:08
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, okay, so I want to ask a question.
11:10
[SPEAKER_00]: So many people kind of separate mental health and substance abuse.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Why is it important to understand why they're so deeply connected because I think we think mental health, we may kind of think very broadly, but substance abuse is a one with it's why is it important for us to understand how connected they are?
11:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Well I think technically a substance use disorder is a mental health diagnosis.
11:32
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean that is kind of the recent
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[SPEAKER_01]: transition that's happened within the psychology world.
11:38
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, you know, we need to be treating both in the same, I guess, is how we view it within our work.
11:47
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's an important thing to know, you can also have co-occurring mental health needs.
11:52
[SPEAKER_01]: So you can have a substance use need, but you can also struggle additionally with anxiety, depression, PTSD, even bipolar schizophrenia,
12:04
[SPEAKER_01]: and often are very prevalent with using substances because that if you're struggling with anxiety you might be coping with using instead of trying to feel whatever you're feeling with anxiety.
12:16
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think it's just vitally important.
12:18
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, everybody who comes through our doors has a mental health disorder essentially is how we're treating the work that we do.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So it's critical.
12:27
[SPEAKER_01]: It's critical
12:28
[SPEAKER_00]: And I ask that question because I think sometimes we, because there is still so much shame around mental health that people can assume that, okay, I only drink, you know, this many times, or I may drink every day, but it's only this and not connect that that is connected to mental health struggles and may just see it as I'm just drinking or
12:49
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm just using here and they are socially, but it really might be tied to the use of it maybe deeply connected to something else that we may not be addressing on the surface.
13:00
[SPEAKER_00]: So why don't you tell me a little bit about what the men that come into y'all's organization?
13:06
[SPEAKER_00]: What are some of the emotional challenges that you see?
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[SPEAKER_00]: and how is that something that they may not have even understood in the beginning of coming to the organization that were there?
13:17
[SPEAKER_01]: Right, right.
13:18
[SPEAKER_01]: So first off, we, so we're an approved facility to receive people that are court mandated to treatment or are referred to as from probation or jail because they have had a lot of legal trouble due to using drugs or alcohol.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And so we also have people that voluntarily enter our program, but for the most part, our program is intensive.
13:42
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a year long.
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[SPEAKER_01]: When you come in, we have some really strict rules, so we don't allow nicotine use, which is an interesting challenge.
13:53
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, and we also, we limit a lot of communication with the outside world initially, so we keep yourself in for a period of time while you focus on the program, because we really want to eliminate a lot of distractions.
14:12
[SPEAKER_01]: space up in North Georgia and you walk outside.
14:16
[SPEAKER_01]: You can actually hear the birds.
14:17
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't hear cars and sirens and different things.
14:22
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a very conducive environment for therapy, for recovery and so
14:29
[SPEAKER_01]: with where we're located and where guys are at when they come in.
14:34
[SPEAKER_01]: They're going from difficult transitions.
14:37
[SPEAKER_01]: They're at their lowest, oftentimes having to get to a place where they recognize like I really need help or they're told you have to do this or you're going to prison.
14:46
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, those are some really high stakes that some of our guys are faced with when they enter into our program and so they might be interested in the services that we offer, they might not be interested in services, but they have some consequences that they might face and so there's some motivation to actually
15:03
[SPEAKER_01]: come into our treatment program.
15:05
[SPEAKER_01]: So what we see isn't oftentimes people are really reluctant when they come in to services.
15:14
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a very new environment where eliminating distractions in the transition into, I can't call my, who member, I can't,
15:22
[SPEAKER_01]: smoke because I'm withdrawing at, you know, different emotions on the whole game and of emotions are coming through.
15:29
[SPEAKER_01]: You could be scared.
15:30
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, there's a lot of grief too.
15:31
[SPEAKER_01]: A lot of grief, a lot of loss.
15:34
[SPEAKER_01]: Also, you might just not be feeling great because you
15:38
[SPEAKER_01]: we don't detox it our facility but still some people are still in the withdrawal process when they get to us and so you literally are feeling really terrible at times.
15:48
[SPEAKER_01]: You might not be sleeping well because you're in a new environment.
15:50
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a very stressful transition in and we have a lot of people.
15:55
[SPEAKER_01]: So we serve, I think right now we have about 125 guys within our program.
15:59
[SPEAKER_01]: So we serve a lot of
16:04
[SPEAKER_01]: and going from maybe being really isolated out in the community experiencing homelessness and and realizing like, I've got to do something different.
16:12
[SPEAKER_01]: and jumping into our atmosphere where you have all these people everywhere.
16:15
[SPEAKER_01]: It could be a little overwhelming.
16:17
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's very hard.
16:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Your first week, even your first 30 days is pretty, a pretty big transition time, both for your substance recovery and just what happens in those first 30 days in your transition, but also just emotionally and like starting to really acclimate
16:41
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's kind of how you start, and then over time, we are really intentional about starting to address some of those root causes of why did you start using in the first place.
16:53
[SPEAKER_01]: So we do a lot of education.
16:55
[SPEAKER_01]: You're.
16:56
[SPEAKER_01]: Anybody that comes into our program, the first six months that they're with us, they're going through classes curriculum and they're working with an interdisciplinary team.
17:03
[SPEAKER_01]: So every client that we have gets a counselor that they're paired with, whose license or about to be licensed, they're going to also have a peer in recovery who has walked the journey themselves who can coach them along the way.
17:19
[SPEAKER_01]: And then we have a social worker who's helping to reduce barriers for that individual.
17:26
[SPEAKER_01]: People who are surrounding you as well as some other support staff on campus who are walking you through and I kind of like to say you're unlearning and you're learning
17:37
[SPEAKER_01]: We use an evidence-based curriculum that guides a process.
17:41
[SPEAKER_01]: Every client goes through a 12 step coaching with their up here and recovery that they're paired with.
17:47
[SPEAKER_01]: So there's a lot of emotional work that our guys are doing through this whole process.
17:53
[SPEAKER_01]: There's such a good education.
17:55
[SPEAKER_01]: There's like real therapy happening.
17:57
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, it's a big transition.
18:00
[SPEAKER_00]: are a lot of them new to this information.
18:03
[SPEAKER_00]: Like these are things they've never been told or I'm pretty sure haven't gone through the court systems.
18:09
[SPEAKER_00]: At that point, you've you've experienced some type of maybe institutionalization.
18:14
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, some, it's like some, you've been probably been somewhere maybe for treatment.
18:20
[SPEAKER_00]: Are a lot of them new to this or they just haven't maybe opened themselves or maybe even
18:26
[SPEAKER_00]: Force is not the word I want to use, but required to, like, face it, essentially.
18:31
[SPEAKER_01]: The majority of our guys have done some level of recovery program before.
18:36
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe they tried to super, a super living environment, maybe they tried a 30-day program, maybe they were court-mandated to other treatment processes before they were court-mandated to our level of care.
18:47
[SPEAKER_01]: Most people don't jump into a year-long program that will, like your first six months, you don't get to work, you will transition to work that second half of the program.
18:58
[SPEAKER_01]: Many people don't just jump into that because it's their first time struggling, but we do have some that this is their first time trying a recovery program.
19:07
[SPEAKER_01]: So we have kind of the whole spectrum.
19:10
[SPEAKER_01]: I will tell you that what I hear a client saying is that the most important service that they receive within the work that we do is the
19:19
[SPEAKER_01]: the relationship with the counselor because they would never ever would have, maybe it wasn't available in other programs where they never had access, never had the finances, never had the awareness or the there was too much stigma, they just never would have pursued working with the counselor and that that worked.
19:36
[SPEAKER_01]: the emotional work that things that they were able to start doing with that counselor was able to allow them to realize, oh, I really needed this.
19:45
[SPEAKER_01]: This really helped me me talking about this, that and the other me understanding unpacking my trauma.
19:51
[SPEAKER_01]: We often have a lot of I've never told anybody this before statements, you know, that come out in those counselor sessions or that start coming out with the stepwork that they're doing because the stepwork 12 stuff work kind of brings a lot of that out to and that has been I think one of the most important things that we can do for our guys is to help them understand those root causes so that hopefully they can be successful later.
20:16
[SPEAKER_00]: I love this before a couple of regions spiritually.
20:19
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that one also want to say in conjunction to meeting with the counselor consistently is their requirement to see them for a year.
20:27
[SPEAKER_00]: I have clients who I see for a year.
20:31
[SPEAKER_00]: and the amount of work we're able to do, I mean sometimes we're just still touching the surface in the first year, like we may not even get to real deeper things, but it's that unpeeling of the onion, like what I show people, what you see is not really who I am under the surface, and I think spiritually there can be this intimidation with God, especially in a faith setting where you just
20:58
[SPEAKER_00]: reveal this to God even though he knows it.
21:01
[SPEAKER_00]: But that consistent opening yourself up to not even just your counselor, the people around you, the pure support person, the staff, like they're starting to actually unravel some of those places that have been so shameful.
21:15
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
21:16
[SPEAKER_00]: And that shame, what I love about the Lord is he shines light on it to not make us feel like he's, you know, done with us, but that he actually is like let me shine the light so you can see this and show you that there's actually another way right absolutely.
21:33
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, so first and foremost, our organization feels called to expose everybody who walks through a door to the message of Jesus Christ.
21:42
[SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, we pray with our clients.
21:44
[SPEAKER_01]: They experience a lot of opportunity to learn about Christ, to learn about God's teachings.
21:49
[SPEAKER_01]: And if they so desire, they can establish a relationship or renew a relationship, they can even get baptized with us.
21:57
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's all kind of core in the work that we do.
22:00
[SPEAKER_01]: We don't require anybody to become a Christian, but we absolutely feel called to infuse that into every day work that we do.
22:10
[SPEAKER_01]: So I love, I tell the guys sometimes, you know, one of the statements that I would hear when guys come into the program when it comes to their faith is that they would say, like, I just need to get right with God.
22:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, what does that mean to you like what is getting right actually look like to you when it comes to your relationship with God because like God hasn't necessarily seen you differently like God has been trying to get you to be closer to God this whole time
22:45
[SPEAKER_01]: So this is there isn't like a writer wrong.
22:48
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a I just really need to be pursuing that relation I I love the idea of just kind of expanding that because we do I think we can easily feel like we're in a transitional or not.
22:59
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not transitional Transaction all relationship with God right if I do good things and God's gonna accept me If I don't do good things and God is not going to accept me right I think the reality in this is kind of how I describe it is
23:13
[SPEAKER_01]: you to me, sin is always a thing that's trying to drag us away and pull us away from God.
23:19
[SPEAKER_01]: But God is the one that's the counter to that and is always trying to draw as closer and closer back to God.
23:26
[SPEAKER_01]: And so God is always creating those avenues and always pursuing us and has never been given up on us.
23:32
[SPEAKER_01]: And we start to see it when we start to pray.
23:36
[SPEAKER_01]: and reads scripture and allow and accept God kind of doing something back in our lives.
23:43
[SPEAKER_01]: When we start pursuing that relationship, as when we start to see the change in that, and I think even when we feel like we're in a great relationship with God and we're following what God's called us to do, but we make a mistake, right?
23:57
[SPEAKER_01]: We'll feel shame and guilt because of that mistake when God isn't necessarily putting that on us.
24:05
[SPEAKER_01]: God just wants us back.
24:06
[SPEAKER_01]: He wants our heart back.
24:08
[SPEAKER_01]: And so that's just something we try to teach our clients through the processes of, yes, they're kind of unpacking a lot of things and they're they're digging up a lot of junk in their past that if if they've been in believer or even if they've not they likely have an understanding of how God's been involved in their life through all of those different instances, all the traumatic things that he's experienced, whether it was
24:35
[SPEAKER_01]: I was a typical client has severe trauma that happened when they were a child.
24:40
[SPEAKER_01]: and they likely started using either as a child or as a teenager.
24:45
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, that's kind of our typical pattern for what we see in humans.
24:48
[SPEAKER_01]: And that is early exposure.
24:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so that is early exposure.
24:53
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think sometimes we don't see, and I can get into when we're talking that we're breaking the stigma of this, like these are early exposures to trauma and ways of coping.
25:05
[SPEAKER_00]: that we're seeing it maybe 30, 40 years later, and as human beings, they can a pre-judgment call of who this person is without really understanding the depths of maybe with experience.
25:17
[SPEAKER_00]: And I want to tie two things you said before kind of acts about some of them as conceptions with this population.
25:23
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think I always think about two things with this.
25:26
[SPEAKER_00]: And God goes through or went through such great
25:33
[SPEAKER_00]: But if I go through such great links to hand my son over so that when I look at you, I don't see sin, I see righteousness.
25:41
[SPEAKER_00]: I will go through such great links so that you know that I love you and I care for you.
25:45
[SPEAKER_00]: And then the second thing I think that the guilt in the shame comes from is that feeling of just being exposed.
25:51
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
25:52
[SPEAKER_00]: There's in Genesis, it talks about when Adam and Eve seeing God X Adam, you know, who told you you were naked?
25:58
[SPEAKER_00]: And I always think to myself, I would got X at question, but I wonder, like who told you that you weren't supposed to be exposed and naked before me?
26:06
[SPEAKER_00]: Who told you that you had to hide and cover yourself?
26:08
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I think there is this still this hard thing for us to conceptualize that God actually wants us to be fully exposed to him.
26:16
[SPEAKER_00]: without shame to know it's out of us love him loving us to know he has us, but also I'm going through such great lengths to know that for you to know that I love you and care for you.
26:27
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I think you explained that it's like perfectly of how like what does get right mean?
26:33
[SPEAKER_00]: Like can you really get right in my opinion?
26:35
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think I could ever get right.
26:37
[SPEAKER_00]: I think when I think about it it brings me to my knees to think about I am loved by a holy father.
26:43
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm unworthy of that.
26:46
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I love the way that you kind of find that's a name of like, what does that mean?
26:49
[SPEAKER_00]: That's really, really good.
26:51
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that God ultimately wants us to have an abundant life, right?
26:55
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, I mean, that's what Jesus says in John 1010, right?
27:00
[SPEAKER_01]: That the people kill steel and destroy.
27:02
[SPEAKER_01]: But I've come so that you can have life and life abundantly.
27:05
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I don't think that means possessions.
27:07
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that means fullness.
27:10
[SPEAKER_01]: Joy.
27:11
[SPEAKER_01]: Peace, love, grace, right?
27:14
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it means all of those things that free us, it means freedom.
27:21
[SPEAKER_01]: And so that's kind of what we hope to be able to offer to our guys is that they find that freedom because one of the gifts that I think that I've been able to see since being here is just to see how
27:34
[SPEAKER_01]: How relentless God is at showing us the love and the grace and the pursuit that he has for everybody.
27:41
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I can't tell you how many times guys have just told me stories where God met them in a really special way.
27:47
[SPEAKER_01]: And they knew that it was God.
27:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Like we are having miraculous encounters here.
27:52
[SPEAKER_01]: all the time because God is really trying to show these guys to experience such shame and hurt and isolation and trauma that the love is abundant and that that is going to be healing and freeing for each of them and said that
28:10
[SPEAKER_01]: To me, it's such a cool witness and testimony of like, it's working and it can continue to work.
28:17
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
28:17
[SPEAKER_00]: Is there one story that you can think of all the top of your head that you'll never forget or one that's like really has or was really impactful to you or maybe very recently happened?
28:29
[SPEAKER_01]: I can tell you about a recent story, and this is about a guy named Will, and I think it kind of speaks to the mental health piece as well.
28:36
[SPEAKER_01]: So, Will came to us.
28:39
[SPEAKER_01]: He struggles with a current co-occurring mental health diagnosis.
28:45
[SPEAKER_01]: He has a severe and persistent mental illness.
28:49
[SPEAKER_01]: as schizophrenia.
28:50
[SPEAKER_01]: When he came to us, he really just, he was, he struggled.
28:55
[SPEAKER_01]: He was angry.
28:57
[SPEAKER_01]: I really didn't want to engage in program services.
29:00
[SPEAKER_01]: And then when he started trusting us a little bit, that's when he started to disclose the voices that he was hearing.
29:05
[SPEAKER_01]: The things that he was, he started to display in terms of behavior.
29:10
[SPEAKER_01]: He was talking to people that weren't there.
29:12
[SPEAKER_01]: We, you know, we kind of experienced the awareness and severity of it.
29:17
[SPEAKER_01]: Typically his needs are beyond our scope because of the severity of the diagnosis, but he was really engaging in program services by that time when he started trusting us to really tell us what was going on.
29:30
[SPEAKER_01]: So his work that he was able to do with his counselor, he was very resistant.
29:35
[SPEAKER_01]: to getting a full diagnosis and actually getting care through his medications.
29:41
[SPEAKER_01]: Very, very resistant.
29:43
[SPEAKER_01]: So the relation that he was able to build trust with his counselor as he was disclosing.
29:48
[SPEAKER_01]: And spiritually, he was growing tremendously and connected his mental health with a spiritual battle that he was struggling with.
29:56
[SPEAKER_01]: And through that, he was praying for freedom, praying for
30:01
[SPEAKER_01]: The diagnosis to be gone, the change to be broken, and it did it fully go away, but it got better.
30:08
[SPEAKER_01]: He started healing, which was really cool.
30:11
[SPEAKER_01]: And then he started trusting his counselor enough when his counselor started to say, Justin, like, I really think you need to go get a diagnosis and see what they say.
30:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Or really think you need to try getting on medication because what if it?
30:22
[SPEAKER_01]: help to you differently.
30:25
[SPEAKER_01]: And he was able to do that.
30:28
[SPEAKER_01]: When he started to do that, he finished his GED, which was huge.
30:32
[SPEAKER_01]: And then he started going back to his counselor, basically every day, once he stabilized on his medications, he was able to go back to his counselor and just say, thank you.
30:42
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I owe you my life.
30:44
[SPEAKER_01]: Like thank you so much, because this started to change his
30:52
[SPEAKER_01]: He's stabilizing in his job like he's doing well in his job.
30:58
[SPEAKER_01]: He continues to self-manage now his mental health medication and taking care of his needs and I don't know about you But but support it somebody with schizophrenia is maybe one and the more challenging diagnosis Many that come through our doors don't want to acknowledge some of the severity of it and they don't want help
31:19
[SPEAKER_01]: And said this was a real success story of him actually getting to a place where he could receive help because of the trust that he was able to build and because I think his faith of just trusting that God put people in place that we're going to encourage him in the right direction.
31:33
[SPEAKER_01]: And right now he's thriving and he's doing really well.
31:36
[SPEAKER_00]: I love that.
31:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
31:38
[SPEAKER_00]: And it also kind of goes to show like that personal relationship with the Lord.
31:42
[SPEAKER_00]: Can do leaps and bounds and and also community how community can really be the hands and feet of Jesus alongside you.
31:52
[SPEAKER_00]: So tell him, so kind of segue into that, I would love to kind of talk a little bit about some of the biggest misconceptions people have with addiction homelessness and even Mike mental health with people who might be experiencing this, where are some of the ones that you see?
32:08
[SPEAKER_00]: And then what do you feel like based on even like some of the staff or what you've learned over the years has changed you about this population?
32:16
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
32:17
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, first and foremost, I think with addiction and substance use and mental health needs.
32:23
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean,
32:24
[SPEAKER_01]: Experiencing homelessness is a traumatic experience in it at that cell.
32:28
[SPEAKER_01]: I, there's stigma that are associated that I've heard, you know, since I've been in the work that, you know, people choose to do this.
32:36
[SPEAKER_01]: Why don't you get a job?
32:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Why don't you do this?
32:38
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, the satin the other, like, it's a choice.
32:41
[SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes it's absolutely not a choice.
32:43
[SPEAKER_01]: And
32:44
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that the difficulty of an experiencing homelessness, the difficulty of at least what we see, like I said most of our guys that come into our program, they started using at a young age.
32:55
[SPEAKER_01]: They were introduced at a young age, so they were absolutely dependent.
32:59
[SPEAKER_01]: When you start using substances, it starts to change the chemical makeup in your brain.
33:03
[SPEAKER_01]: We teach the science of addiction here.
33:05
[SPEAKER_01]: because we want people to understand what the healing process looks like even with your brain when you stop using substances.
33:11
[SPEAKER_01]: And so you think that it's a choice to use.
33:14
[SPEAKER_01]: It's really not.
33:16
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a debilitating.
33:17
[SPEAKER_01]: illness and starts to impact your your body negatively over time and then with mental health I think that it I think mental illness can come because of this experiences right any time trauma is involved you can easily start coping and it affects your mental health right so what.
33:37
[SPEAKER_01]: What I think can be, you know, dispelled is to actually just start learning people who are experiencing those things and to learn their story because there's always a why there's a whole way that way.
33:49
[SPEAKER_00]: It's always a why.
33:50
[SPEAKER_01]: Every time I talk to somebody and start hearing their story, I want to know, well, what's the why?
33:54
[SPEAKER_01]: Where did it start?
33:56
[SPEAKER_01]: Where did things start to break down?
33:58
[SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, that starts to help me start piecing back together.
34:02
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, well, then where do we go?
34:03
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that's the work that our,
34:04
[SPEAKER_01]: Our peers in recovery do, I think that's the work that the 12th step work in general does for the NAA community.
34:12
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that's also, you know, the critical work our counselors are doing.
34:16
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
34:17
[SPEAKER_01]: But, you know, for addiction specifically, the things that I have learned is addiction is isolation.
34:24
[SPEAKER_01]: I just put it really simply.
34:26
[SPEAKER_01]: The opposite of addiction is connection.
34:29
[SPEAKER_01]: And so you see in the recovery communities that they promote connection, they want you to have a sponsor who can coach you through the steps.
34:37
[SPEAKER_01]: They want you to have a home group and have meetings that you go to on a regular basis.
34:42
[SPEAKER_01]: Some people stress going to 90 meetings and 90 days, right?
34:46
[SPEAKER_01]: There's all these different patterns that are really forced connections.
34:50
[SPEAKER_01]: To estimate to be your sponsor is to ask somebody not just to be
34:54
[SPEAKER_01]: like heavily involved in your life potentially, but to hold you accountable to what you're doing.
34:59
[SPEAKER_01]: That's not in easy relationship to just ask somebody to be a part of, right?
35:03
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's probably like the first time they maybe have had real accountability.
35:07
[SPEAKER_01]: Man, absolutely, absolutely.
35:09
[SPEAKER_01]: But it's critical in the process is to have some truth-tellers in your life to be able to encourage you along the way so that you start recognizing these patterns of behavior
35:20
[SPEAKER_01]: on your end.
35:21
[SPEAKER_01]: So we permit that we want all of our clients to be rooted in community.
35:26
[SPEAKER_01]: When they leave us that they not only have a job and sustained income and they can get housing, but we really want them to have
35:35
[SPEAKER_01]: community.
35:35
[SPEAKER_01]: We want them to have maybe a church home that they can be a part of.
35:38
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe a social group that they can join.
35:41
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
35:41
[SPEAKER_01]: We want the Navis sponsor.
35:43
[SPEAKER_01]: We want them to be going to recover meetings regularly.
35:45
[SPEAKER_01]: It's kind of our prescription that we say you need to do these things, but we also foster that by the volunteers that come through the way and which are staff.
35:54
[SPEAKER_01]: support our clients and then also the ways in which we promote community within.
35:59
[SPEAKER_01]: Guys, form real close bonds with one another, living in community with one another.
36:04
[SPEAKER_01]: And those relationships can easily extend while beyond our program.
36:08
[SPEAKER_01]: And so we really just want that for everybody who comes in because we want to promote the connection.
36:13
[SPEAKER_01]: I think ultimately, if we could have it our way, we would want somebody to leave here with a
36:24
[SPEAKER_01]: and restore relationships with others.
36:26
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's really good.
36:28
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
36:28
[SPEAKER_00]: One last question before we close, and know we talked about this briefly, and you said there's always a why.
36:33
[SPEAKER_00]: So I want to ask the question, like, why is the why is the important Adrian?
36:37
[SPEAKER_01]: I think if you don't know the why, then you don't know how to really address all the symptoms that.
36:42
[SPEAKER_01]: are going on.
36:43
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, it's like just putting a bandaid on something that is, you know, a terrible infection.
36:52
[SPEAKER_01]: A bandaid's not necessarily going to help.
36:53
[SPEAKER_01]: You've got to actually like take some antibiotics and really treat to the source.
36:58
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think it's that, you know, all the behaviors that we see, the coping mechanisms that are unhealthy, the addiction itself,
37:07
[SPEAKER_01]: It's all just symptoms of a real rooted issue and we like to believe that it's connected just back to a traumatic experiences.
37:15
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, rejection of being admit abuse a lot of those things.
37:20
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, okay, okay, so.
37:22
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll actually just in closing, like if someone is, you know, listening today and they feel just really ashamed to ask for help, what was you want them to know?
37:31
[SPEAKER_00]: It's certainly since, you know, a lot of the clients you serve are maybe on the more severe end, but maybe someone is like wrestling with God through their addiction.
37:42
[SPEAKER_00]: or feels completely disconnected.
37:43
[SPEAKER_00]: It may even be like a particle.
37:45
[SPEAKER_00]: So in our daughter, just I don't even want to be a part of the faith.
37:50
[SPEAKER_00]: But because they feel so ashamed, well, and they really want help.
37:53
[SPEAKER_00]: What was you want them to know?
37:55
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I say why it's a life for death.
37:59
[SPEAKER_01]: matter.
38:00
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I think the longer that you use it ultimately will just lead to death.
38:04
[SPEAKER_01]: I've seen it.
38:05
[SPEAKER_01]: I hate that that's a reality within our work.
38:07
[SPEAKER_01]: It's heartbreaking.
38:09
[SPEAKER_01]: But I think that that's a huge risk to continue to lead a life towards if you know that it's a problem.
38:15
[SPEAKER_01]: I also would recognize that like relapse is a part of recovery.
38:19
[SPEAKER_01]: So you can be doing really well and then you have a relapse.
38:24
[SPEAKER_01]: And the difficulty of asking for help in any of those situations, it is really hard.
38:30
[SPEAKER_01]: It takes courage.
38:32
[SPEAKER_01]: But...
38:32
[SPEAKER_01]: our God is a loving for giving and healing God and puts a lot of people in the services area of work as helpers.
38:41
[SPEAKER_01]: I believe that the work that our organization is is really just responding to God's need to help other people.
38:47
[SPEAKER_01]: And so there's a lot of places just like us that are doing great work across the country.
38:53
[SPEAKER_01]: It's in no matter where you live.
38:55
[SPEAKER_01]: There should be opportunity to get help.
38:58
[SPEAKER_01]: and helpers along the way you can get either, but you know you've got the part of the 12-step process is to start surrendering.
39:06
[SPEAKER_01]: You've got to get the courage to be able to do that and that's a really big step.
39:11
[SPEAKER_01]: It's the bravest thing that I've seen anybody coming into our program.
39:14
[SPEAKER_01]: to do is to actually make that step forward.
39:17
[SPEAKER_01]: But I definitely know that it's better on the other side.
39:20
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you dream of any kind of life abundant, there is more.
39:23
[SPEAKER_01]: It exists.
39:24
[SPEAKER_01]: There is more and God has it for you or for your loved one who needs help.
39:28
[SPEAKER_00]: Love that.
39:29
[SPEAKER_00]: I love that.
39:30
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, Adrian, how could people get in contact with the Potter's House if they're interested?
39:36
[SPEAKER_00]: I would love for you to share that information with us as well.
39:39
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, absolutely.
39:40
[SPEAKER_01]: So you can find out more about our organization.
39:44
[SPEAKER_01]: Specifically, our campus at www.tpatrecovery.org.
39:49
[SPEAKER_01]: so you can find more about our campus and the work that we do.
39:52
[SPEAKER_01]: Also, if you live locally, or if you don't, we actually have people that come from all over to come into our services.
39:59
[SPEAKER_01]: So you can apply online right there on the website and that's the first step in raising your hand towards needing help.
40:07
[SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, I haven't mentioned this, but I was on our program as free.
40:12
[SPEAKER_01]: So the work that we do the services that we offer, it is all free for somebody coming in, which I think is even more critical to the people experiencing homelessness, poverty and addiction.
40:23
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, they don't have resources to get the kind of level of services oftentimes that we offer.
40:28
[SPEAKER_01]: And we feel like it's critical to offer these services.
40:30
[SPEAKER_01]: So if you know somebody is really struggling financially, we are a great place for them for addiction services.
40:37
[SPEAKER_00]: I love that.
40:38
[SPEAKER_00]: I love that.
40:38
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, thank you, Adrian.
40:39
[SPEAKER_00]: It has been a joy to talk to you about this.
40:42
[SPEAKER_00]: Same.
40:42
[SPEAKER_00]: If you are listening, thank you so much for listening to the podcast, and we'll see you all in the next episode.
40:47
[SPEAKER_00]: Bye.
40:48
[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks, Rosalind.