By Stephen Smoot
“Addiction is giving up everything for one thing. Recovery is giving up one thing for everything.”
Vanessa Coble shared this message on her 649th consecutive day of sobriety as she and seven others commenced their new lives through the South Branch Adult Treatment Court graduation ceremony last week.
Some gave praise to God for their recovery; others thanked their families. Every single one expressed sincere and overwhelming gratitude for the program and the caring individuals who support their journey.
Judge H. Charles Carl opened the proceedings, inviting Richard Largent, “a veteran and a participant” to lead over 100 attendees in the Pledge of Allegiance.
Adult Treatment Court, which changed its name from “drug court” last year to reflect the broader nature of the program, requires all participants to complete a hierarchy of phases, starting with the first.
Phase one sees participants at their most raw, pained, and broken. April Walker, a graduate, in her talk recalled that at first “I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to complete the program.”
All of the treatment team share the admonition that the treatment court program poses a strong challenge to participants at all levels, but the level of difficulty is not punishment, but purpose. Walker shared that “thanks to the tough love . . . (I am) capable of so much more than I ever believed. They are always pushing me.”
The first phase includes intake, detoxification, weekly meetings with the judge, support group participation, and much more. Structure and meaningful support activities keep the participant engaged.
Phase one also introduces responsibility and accountability with 18 hours monthly of community service and daily check in calls. One must test drug-free for 60 straight days before advancing to the next phase.
Some hit problems and have to make the painful return to the first phase. Larry Miller traveled a tragic path into addiction, losing a six month old child and his wife in a very short period of time. “I had no idea what to do” said the man who found himself wracked with pain, but the responsibility for two children.
“I drank away the pain,” he said, then recalled how he fell into relationships that encouraged digging to deeper depths of addiction with hard drugs.
Layers of pain and addiction confronted Miller at every step. He admitted that at one point “I messed up, lied about it (and) back to class one I went.” He did not give up. He persevered. And then he got to share the message at his graduation that the path certainly was not easy, but was worth it all, even through the “multiple setbacks.”
He thanked “everyone who had my back along the way (and) would not let the addict in me reign again.”
Phase two opens up an intense series of therapeutic treatments because, as Adele Lavigne with the treatment team reminded everyone, sobriety remains tenuous and fragile without real recovery that begins with healing the mind and soul of the addict.
Healing must happen because in many cases the trauma, whether a one-time event or ongoing for years, has pushed each one into seeking escape through substance abuse. When Miller “hit rock bottom with nowhere else to go (and) all I cared about was the next fix” he understood that “I couldn’t do this on my own anymore.”
Ashlyn Levin described a life growing up in what she described as “a party house” that opened the door to abuse. When she questioned how they lived, “the people I trusted said I was crazy.” This led to “full-blown addiction at 14” that led to a series of destructive choices and relationships.
Levin finally found herself face to face with a resource officer at her high school after abusing drugs in the school bathroom.
Shannon Kuykendall shared that while still young, her father was shot by police and was physically handicapped as a result. Even though she had better options, Kuykendall chose to spend her teenage years caring for her father who veered between compassion and cruelty, depending on if he was drinking.
She “carried the pain and the trauma of her past” and that proved a barrier to her attempts on her own to get clean. Kuykendall explained how she was “slipping back into addiction (because of) the false belief that just once wouldn’t hurt.”
But once she ended up in Treatment Court and started navigating through the process, “their belief in me started me believing in myself.”
Phase three opens the period of reintegrating the participant into the community with education opportunities, finding stable and secure housing, and participating in community activities. Lavigne explained that Treatment Court does not do any of these things for the participant, but gives them the tools, including emotional, to do for themselves.
She also added that the addiction to drugs only serves as a part of their problem, stating that “they lose themselves . . . people come to us with absolutely nothing.”
They need the building blocks of living in civil society, such as their birth certificate, drivers license, and other requirements to just function.
Terri Whitt used such things as examples of her success, sharing that as she leaves the program “I have a job. I have a car that I bought completely by myself” as well as her own place to live, things that many who have not faced addiction or other challenges take for granted.
Phase three also reinforces the environment that the treatment team seeks to foster, one not just of community, but of family. Miller spoke of a grief management program that helped him to overcome the pain of losing his wife and child, saying “I needed it more than I ever knew.”
From this sense of family, Whitt could look around to treatment team and participants alike and say “you are my family now. You all healed a very broken girl.”
In the fourth and final phase, participants enter an aftercare phase that prepares them for independent living. This also includes direction toward building positive and constructive friend and family relationships while avoiding those who would encourage poor choices. They also must “complete a graduate project of their choice to give back to the community.”
Even with graduation commencing their full-fledged lives as sober individuals functioning in the community, phase four and its aftercare never really end. Lavigne and Sarah Royal, the program Director, emphasized that no one truly leaves. All can reach out if they are facing challenges or pain. All were invited to continue sharing and communicating and using these supports to their sobriety.
“When you venture out, you can all get in contact with me,” said Royal, who added some final advice. She explained that “addiction found you” because they were caring, compassionate people with big hearts, but could not contend with the trauma that afflicted their lives.
To continue the journey started, she challenged all to “be a better person each and every day.”
At the conclusion of the presentation, all gathered for a buffet lunch by Lost Mountain BBQ and continued sharing, laughing, and enjoying the fellowship of others, whether fellow participants, family, friends, or treatment team members, who shared their courageous and special journey.
