 Hi, everyone. I'm Ed Baker. Welcome to the Addiction Recovery Channel, or ARC. I couldn't be more excited than I am today to celebrate recovery. September is Recovery Month, and that is the theme of our show. And in order to help us celebrate recovery, we have two distinguished guests. We have Gary DeCarolis, who is the Executive Director at the Chittenden County Turning Point, and we have Laura Charbonneau, who is the founding member of the Step Into Action Recovery Walk, which we'll hear a lot about later. Thank you both so much for being on the show. Thank you, Ed. Yeah. I think it's a good idea to start with a working definition of this word, recovery. People use the word a lot. People hear the word a lot. What is recovery? What is recovery from addiction? Recovery from substance use disorder. This is the accepted definition by the Substance Use and Mental Health Services Administration, or SAMHSA. Recovery is a process of change through which individuals improve their health and wellness, live a self-directed life, and strive to reach their full potential. Now, that's general in nature, and SAMHSA goes on to describe what they call four major dimensions of recovery. Basically, this show will be digging down into each of these four dimensions. I'll read you the definition of the first dimension of recovery is health. Overcoming or managing one's diseases or symptoms, for example, abstaining from use of alcohol, illicit drugs, and non-prescribed medications if one has an addiction problem, and for everyone in recovery, making informed, healthy choices that support physical and emotional well-being. So let's start with that. What are your thoughts about that particular category, health? Well, first of all, when you think of someone coming perhaps from years of an addiction, active addiction to recovery, that word process early on in the definition from SAMHSA made some ultimate sense to me because it is a process. It's not a, okay, I'm over here and now I'm over here. It's a process. Change, in any respect, takes time. And so health, to me, is a cornerstone of moving into recovery. People's bodies have taken a beating. We found that one of the three highest comorbid issues that people deal with, for example, is oral health. And so people aren't flossing and brushing their teeth necessarily the way you might think. So it's taken inventory of my body, of my physical health, of taking classes in yoga and meditation and some of the things that help restore health to one's body is critically important. Yeah, well said. Well said, Gary. And SAMHSA seems to recognize that pretty explicitly. The definition of health seems to be broken down into two distinct phases. One is the achieving of what they call abstinence. And then the second is for people in what they call recovery, making informed, healthy choices that support physical and emotional well-being. What are your observations of that? I agree with a lot of what Gary just shared and it really made me think about being a person in recovery. What started the journey for me was seeking help with my health. Calling up a treatment center who was staffed by doctors who were able to help me get there, who were able to make sure, like Gary mentioned, that all the other areas of my health were addressed. So I like that it covers both sides of that, not just the health of becoming abstinent, but then making healthy life choices as well. Right. And again, that idea of process. And really a never-ending quality of life improvement. Absolutely. That's one of the exciting things about recovery is that you can do it for the rest of your life. Absolutely, yes. It's not a place that you arrive at and you've done it. That's a mistake if one thinks that you do that no matter who you are. The other thing that health peace touches on and that we know is that many people experience trauma if not before they started using drugs or alcohol during their active addiction. And so that has to be dealt with early on. And that's where therapy and treatment programs, Laura said, becomes critically important. If not dealt with, it could be the stumbling block to move forward. Yeah, and I think that the recovery movement captures that idea with pathways to recovery and that people have different pathways to recovery. Where one person may need psychotherapy, another person may need physical therapy, some people may need both. Again, that idea of process. I think that, I have a quote from William White. William White is one of the chief architects of the recovery advocacy movement and he seems to capture this idea of recovery being in stages pretty accurately. He has three distinct stages. One is partial recovery. For partial recovery, he describes it as it reflects decreased severity and frequency of alcohol and other drug problems amongst persistent efforts to achieve recovery stability. So I'm sure that you see a lot of that at the recovery center. People in early recovery, not yet stable with maybe continued use, but a sustained effort to achieve abstinence. Do you care to speak to that a little bit? We have a lot of people that are very early on. Their health is not fully addressed at this point. Issues of housing are very big for them. Meaningful work hasn't even been looked at. Our job is to take someone from where they're at, offer them the various supports that we have in the center from a peer support worker that's willing to sit down with them and help develop an action plan for them. It goes back to that old saying, if you don't know where you're going, you'll probably end up somewhere else. We want people to think about what is their recovery path, what's important for them to help them grow in their recovery. Once they identify those things, then it's amazing how fast they move forward from there. And the importance of support during that really tough time. Very tough time. The first year is fragile and there's ups and downs. There's old friends that might be still actively using it, still part of their life. There's push and pulls that are all over the place. We have some people that come into the center at 9 in the morning, stay at 5 at night and don't move because they're afraid of what the streets could be like for them. And we say, fine, if that's going to be helpful to you and you're going to feel safe, you stay in the center. We have a yoga class, meet with some friends, and we see that. Over time, they might grow in their recovery enough to say, okay, I need to venture out because I've got to take care of this, that and the other thing. And that's okay. And we're open every day of the year in part for that very reason. I was thinking about that on the way over to the studio today that you are actually open 365 days a year. That is incredible. And there's no cost to anyone. So beautiful. That's beautiful. William White, the second designation that he has, so partial recovery first and then what he calls full recovery. Where full recovery most often refers to abstinence or sobriety, improved global health, which is that process that we're describing, and then repair of the person-community relationship or citizenship. So full recovery, the person is really no longer struggling with the recurrence of use, but the more building, building on sobriety, on health, and on reinvolvement in the community. I think that the recovery walk does have a lot to say about that reinvolvement in the community. So the step into action recovery walk started exactly on that purpose. It was a group of women who spanned in sobriety of, I really think one month, even just one month to a year, a few years, who wanted to do something, who wanted to give back to the Turning Point Center, and not just the Turning Point Center, but the recovery community in Burlington. And it gave us purpose. I was joking around earlier with we didn't really know what we were doing. We definitely stumbled through a lot of that process, but we did it together. And in the end, there was something that we could show for it, and we were able to give back to the community that was helping us put our lives back together. Yeah. Let's talk a little bit about that, and then we can go into some of this other definition of recovery. What were you going to say, Gary? I'm sorry. I remember the first walk, and it was at Oakledge Park, and a number of family members of the women that organized it came to that event that day. And that was part of the, for them, it was part of their rebuilding, their family connections, because they were women in early recovery, and some of those family relationships get strained, if not broken. In early recovery, it is building those things back. And that takes time, but I think by organizing the effort, they're very proud of what they did, and they had every right to be. They started something from nothing. And there was, I think, at least 150 people there that day. Wow. Wow. That's for the first walk. Yeah. That's amazing. And so their families said, you know, they could see, A, their enthusiasm, B, their achievement, and the seriousness of what they took their recovery. And so they were there to celebrate with their daughters. It was quite, quite one. And it was all women at that point. It was all women, you know. Yeah. The Oxford House is part of a network that includes men. And in the beginning, some men helped out, but it was definitely the core of the planning process, and the energy definitely came from those women. Well, let's talk a little bit about that. Now, the second definition in the SEMS definition is home. So the importance of home, a stable and a safe place to be. What was, you were a member of Oxford House. You wanted to describe that and what that meant to you? Yeah. You know, I'm part of this community because of the Oxford House. I found myself in treatment in this area, and had no idea where I was going to go after. And Gary had mentioned it, you know, the old people. And I actually lived in Burlington, and it was part of a lot of my old people and places that contributed to my lifestyle before. And I found the Oxford House, and I never would have imagined that I could have maintained recovery in this area. And what it gave me was, you know, essentially a family. You know, it was a safe place that requires abstinence, total abstinence. However, at the same time, I was learning to provide for myself again, to financially provide for myself, to take care of all parts of myself, my health, my sobriety, doing things I needed to become part of this community again. Yeah. I mean, you couldn't describe this any better, any better than that. That is beautiful. You know, people who aren't in the field don't get the kind of information that we get. It's just part of life. And by and by, the general public thinks that if a person with addiction or substance use disorder doesn't have a drug in their system, that all they have to do is now not put a drug in their system again. But I think one of the things that we're speaking to now is this idea of brain disease, that if you have substance use disorder or addiction, and you have no drugs in your system, that doesn't mean that the functioning of your brain has healed. So it's been mentioned a couple of times, people, places and things, temptations, people trying to give you drugs. It's very, very dangerous until the brain begins to heal. Very, very dangerous phase of recovery. And that's where Oxford House, a safe environment family, people to get to know, people to believe in you, the same thing with the recovery center. I'd like to put that slide up of the mural at the recovery center. If you could put that slide up just for one second, we can talk a little bit about that. Yeah, because it really speaks to what we're talking about now in terms of home and how... And you know, when I've seen the most radical change from anyone early in recovery is when they go from being homeless to having a home, that just a sense of place is so important. I mean, the turning point tries to do that for folks and we can get so far with that, but we do turn the lights out and people have to leave at some point. But a place that you can put your head on a pillow at night and know you're safe and secure is so important. And I think that's what sober housing does for folks and it's another one of those foundational pieces that definition talks about. To the audience, I mean, if you can get by the recovery center, what street is the mural on? The mural is on King Street. We're on the corner of South Winterski Avenue in King Street. The mural is on the King Street side. If you can get to the King Street side and take a look at that mural, you notice that right in the middle of the mural is a small frame and it says Home Sweet Home. And it couldn't be better said that although people don't live there, of course, it's open 365 days a year and for many people it's a transition from homelessness to like temporary home. It's a place that feels like home. There's family there, there's safety there. And they're by and large other than this executive director and maybe one or two other people. Everyone there is in recovery. All the staff are in recovery. They've been where every guest is and so that's a very powerful connection that they make. And there's that. I think about it a lot and I think one of the things that's very comfortable about a place like the recovery center or Oxford House or 12 step meetings for that matter is that there is no stigma there. There is nothing pushing somebody away or pushing somebody down. It's all, we understand, we've been there, we accept you, you're important. It doesn't get much better than that. That's why people I think come back. And you have talents and gifts to give to the world and you want to help you see those and then put them to use. Yeah, the art room. Yeah, the art room is a great place. So we can, the third major dimension in this hemp's definition is purpose. And I know this is one of your favorite topics. They describe it as meaningful daily activities such as a job, school, volunteerism, family caretaking or creative endeavors. And the independence, income and resources to participate in society. Again, that process. You want to speak a little bit about purpose, Carol? You know, I think, and this is where employment kind of straddles this area here though, we all have gifts to give to the world and part of our job is to help people realize they have those gifts. They may have forgotten about them or lost them somehow, but they're there. And then you want to take the extension of that as finding meaningful work, work that reflects those things about you that are special, that are your gifts to the world. And so we do have an employment consulting team in the center that will help you go from preparing a resume to interview with skills to finding recovery-friendly employers out there, you know, finding that work, and then moving forward. And when that clicks in, so you talk about it, we've talked about health, home and purpose, you're on your way to a great life. Yeah, yeah. And so, and those are all, those are all inoculations against addiction. Great way to put it, yeah. Those are, that's your recovery capital. And we want to help grow that capital and we can't tell you how many amazing people walk through our door. When they first walk through the door, they don't think they're so amazing, but it doesn't take too long for them to catch the way. That's beautiful. Do you remember that about, I know that you've been in recovery since the very beginning of the Step into Action Recovery Walk. So do you remember when what Gary is talking about first began to occur for you? When you began to feel purpose, you began to feel meaning, you began to feel like you had something to offer. Absolutely. And what I was thinking about when Gary was speaking was you stop, when you find that purpose, you stop identifying as somebody who is in recovery, even though that's an important part of who you are, but these other things start to define you so much that the only thing that I identify back to, you know, that time when you're piecing everything back together, you're looking for your purposes, that's what has defined my character in a positive way. And that is when I felt the stigma drop away. That I'm no longer someone hiding behind, you know, what I used to struggle and the challenges that I face, but I'm someone that has triumphed over it. And it's only made me who I am today in such more of a positive way than I would have ever imagined. Oh, so, so well said. I remember Laura in that early committee where she was the business person. She had the business head, so that was one of her, that was her, and it was emerging real quick in that committee. That's great. Under the surface, hidden by symptoms of addiction, when the symptoms are gone, what's great begins to grow again. Exactly. So, you know, when you were saying that, a couple of things. One is that you felt the stigma drop away, which means that we with addiction, and I'm a person with a history of addiction also, we internalize stigma. We feel shame. We feel worthless. And after a while of brain healing and a while of encouragement and a while of support, we drop away. That would become the best we can be. I wanted to read William White's third designation of recovery, and I think this describes you. He calls it enriched recovery. It refers to a state of optimal health, functioning, and community service rising not in spite of addiction, but because of the strengths that are developed through the addiction recovery process. Do you feel that? I do. And it's come through a process. We've been speaking about and it has come organically through that process. When you talked about education, that is something that I'm pursuing now that I never thought I would pursue again. Professionally, family giving back are all very big pieces to my life and they're always all present in my life. And I never thought that this is where it would come to. So it surprises me in a lot of ways that what my expectation was and then what life is like today are very different things. It's like a complete reorientation to reality. Really, really something. Now, the last dimension of the SEMS definition is community. So we have health, home, purpose, and community. Community is defined as relationships, social networks that provide support, friendship, love, and hope. Would you like to address that a little bit? There's a couple of thoughts that quickly come to mind. 12-step programs do a lot of things for a lot of people and one of the things that I find wonderful about it is they create community. You can't do this alone. And you'll meet people who come in and say, I don't need anybody. I can do this by myself. And you kind of look at them and know that that path isn't going to start great ending. It's the sense of community. It's like if you've ever gone jogging by yourself and then you go jogging with a buddy you can jog about five more miles with that person with you than you can by yourself because we're connecting, we're talking, we're the friendship that's there. And I think that's what 12-step communities have done for each other and community does for all of us. And we need it. Small community for many people. But that's probably one of the magic formulas of recovery is community. It's all about community. And connecting safely. I think it's been alluded to during our talk today that sometimes people will enter into their addiction already severely wounded either by adverse childhood experiences or some trauma that precedes the addiction. And then through the course of addiction there are additional wounds that blend with and complicate the initial wounds. So upon abstinence you have a person that's wounded. And many times that area of relationships is one that's become completely empty over the years. But it's so important to us to have relationships. So that's the idea of process again. And the idea of I'm really glad you mentioned the 12-step programs because that was where I found my pathway to recovery. And one of the clearest things for me was the pace at which I was ready to develop relationships was very slow and people seemed to understand that and they seemed to provide a safe place where I could grow into having relationships that I felt safe in. And after a number of months and then years I began to really generalize that out into my entire life. And today I have relationships with hundreds of people. But it wasn't always that way. Gradual and a very important process. The point you make to it is that that was your process and there is no one way to move in recovery. Everyone has their own path helping one find that and finding the group of people that will support you in that path is very critical too. There's no judgment about your speed or lack of speed and that's critical. What about that for you community, relationships, social networks, love, hope, friendship? That's everything for me right now. I'm pretty sure the National Recovery Month theme this year is stronger together. And that's how I really think I've maintained this for the last seven years is the community that I've built. Gary and I were chatting before and he asked if I was still in touch with the women that first walked with and those are my closest people. That's my closest network and I know that I couldn't be doing this alone and it does go beyond the relationships of that sober living situation of any sort of 12 step program. It's the community that I build within my family. It's the community that I build within my work relationships but this has taught me how to do it. So I can relate a lot to what you were just sharing and that's another area of my life that was really fostered by sober living was how do I interact with people? How do you resolve conflict? How do I connect with other people? Because that's a huge issue for me without continuing to look inward and develop myself. It's pretty amazing that eventually we become mentors and examples of health. It's a pretty beautiful thing. I wanted to go back to the recovery walk in a few minutes but there's something that I think is really important for us to talk about when it comes to recovery. One of the things that I've noticed and a lot of people and I'm sure you have noticed it also is that people with severe opioid use disorder people with opioid addiction are one of the most vulnerable populations in America today. There's no doubt about that about it. The heroin supply is contaminated with fentanyl. Just today I was at a meeting and we had a discussion of a young man in the Chittenden County who died from a fentanyl overdose and it was from counterfeit Xanax. So this drug is really taking a lot of lives in America. So you have people with opioid use disorder that suffer a terrible stigma and then you have people with opioid disorder who are prescribed what's called medications for addiction treatment methadone or buprenorphine who are exposed to like a secondary stigma the accusation being oh you're not really abstaining you're still using because you're on this medication. I think we need to address that that people with opioid use disorder on medication for addiction treatment can also be in recovery if they meet some of the other criteria. Yeah let's just talk about that a little bit. Do you have people receiving MAT that come to the recovery center? Between 30 and 40 percent of our guests are on either suboxone or methadone and what those drugs do for folks is they take the cravings away and they allow themselves it allows them to settle down and start to focus on what they need to do for themselves both on the health end and all those dimensions that we talked about without that for them they probably wouldn't be able to make it and get to that place of recovery and I've seen folks go from using those two drugs to weaning themselves off it over a period of time with the support of a doctor and then actually giving up on other people they need to keep continuing for a long period of time but the survival rate of folks that allow themselves to use medically assisted treatment is huge the projectory is very positive. I think it's over 50 percent that the mortality rate is cut over 50 percent with people on medication and some of the research today showing that it's a longer term process than it was once thought and I think patients who are on MAT or medications for addiction treatment take a beating because of that the general public says why do you need this medication for so long why can't you just stop you're using on purpose and it's not the case it's a medical condition with a medical prescription supervised by medical personnel and it has really life-saving outcomes where they recognize that. Do you have any experience with that or friends who maybe are receiving MAT? I don't have personal experience with that but I have you know I've supported and I'm actually currently supporting another woman who that is her path right now it's part of her process and she's not stopping there and I think that's a really great thing about the turning point and really all the resources in this area is that you can use that as part of your process and you can also use other pieces. It's a valid pathway to recovery so I would appeal to the audience to the viewing audience that let's get behind everyone that's seeking recovery today let's support people this is a brain disease this is not a choice this is not a criminal behavior this is a legitimate disease I think it has the same rate as prostate cancer and diabetes too people don't choose prostate cancer people don't choose diabetes too people don't choose addiction it's a disease we need to get behind them because the more they feel the support of the general public the less reluctant they will be to come and seek help and get help and recover and before we end I'd like to get the slides for the step into action recovery walk up again and take a look at some of the faces maybe you can talk about I know we talked a little bit earlier and you talked about the reaction of the community when we're walking down church street what was your experience of the reaction of the community? it's hard to find the words honestly you know Gary had mentioned that it started at Oakledge Park and now it is right at the top of church street and we walk right down church street and it's not just people who are in recovery it is like Gary mentioned earlier it's families, it's friends it's business owners who you know feel the effects of this and as you walk down people wonder who's this crew in their purple t-shirts and usually there's signs and they talk about being in recovery and you see people starting to read the signs they process a little and then they start cheering us on and I think a really important part of it is to see the face of recovery because all we see I'll take that back what we see quite frequently is the face of addiction is the face of people struggling is the face of people dying and I think if you're not familiar with what the face of recovery looks like you would be shocked because it's your neighbor it's myself here's the face of recovery awful lot of high fives during that walk high fives you know keep it up nice going good work it's really really something and that's the eradication of stigma people want to respond in a positive way people have been taught the wrong things we need to teach them the right things people do recover it's beautiful if I was to say anything to the general public it would be lower the volume on judgment and raise the volume on acceptance that's just that simple and you raising the volume on acceptance you get to know some amazing people if you're judging people you lose that opportunity absolutely you know at the end of the show we will show a slide that has the recovery walks in Vermont occurring in Vermont so we're heading into the end of the show now I'm in the habit of asking the guests to end the show with a comment to the viewing audience so we were scheduled to have Jennifer Bayon on the show but she couldn't appear today so she prepared something in writing that I'll read Jennifer is a she works at the recovery center peer support specialist and then she also works at the Chittenden Clinic as a peer support so Jennifer prepared a brief statement I'd like to read that in closing Jennifer is a person who is receiving medication for addiction treatment Jennifer says Matt saved my life I was a mess and had nothing going for me I have since rebuilt and relearned it was definitely a process and hard work but so worth it with two exclamation points I think opioid addiction is a cultural issue and we are so quick to blame the individuals using instead of targeting and addressing the problems medication for addiction treatment helped to address those problems in my life so I could focus on other things like a job housing, my family a couple more exclamation points I'd like to say to people out there who might be struggling to not give up I'd like to say to people out there who might be struggling to not give up if you slip, get back up also we can't get better alone so to families and friends educate yourselves ask questions and try to understand what we are going through it's tough for us too and MAT can help make life livable it's a small piece of the puzzle well said so those are words from Jen and I'll give you the camera now it's hard to follow that she hit all the high points it's yeah at some basic level it's humanity here and we're all equal and it's celebrating recovery it's celebrating life it's allowing everyone the opportunity to do that and if communities can embrace all their citizens no matter what their station in life at we have an amazing it's about time we start doing that alright Gary thank you yeah that is hard to follow but I wanted to just echo educate yourself I know for my own family where 50% of the children are in recovery that it's very much changed the perception that not just my parents and my siblings other siblings have but my extended family when before they might not have understood it and understood that it is a disease and that there are solutions but it's also a different path for everyone and I think that's also very important to understand is there's no cookie cutter way you know to recover there's going to be stumbles and it's not going to look perfect but it doesn't mean that the person isn't fully striving for recovery and we have to stick with people we can't abandon them we have to abandon stigma not people yes alright thank you so much for being on the show thank you glad to be here thank you