‘When you’re an addict, nobody listens to you — you’re just a junkie.’ — Valerie Brodbeck
A lot of people are trying to figure out how to combat southwest Ohio’s growing heroin-addiction crisis, which is taking lives, hurting families and taxing health and law enforcement resources. Many agree that the work being done by a local grassroots advocacy and support group, Families of Addicts, is worth watching. Founded two years ago by Lori Erion of New Carlisle, it holds open weekly meetings in Dayton, Middletown and Eaton. This week, we talked with her and one of the group’s other leaders, Valerie Brodbeck of Oakwood, about the group and its goals. Learn more at FOAfamilies.org. — Ron Rollins
Rollins: A lot of people may already have heard of Families of Addicts, since you’ve gotten a lot of publicity in the last year or so. But remind us about the group and its work.
Lori Erion: Our mission is to embrace friends, families and individuals who are struggling with addiction and to promote recovery, support and advocacy. What that means is that FOA provides support for the entire family — grandma who may be raising her grandkids because their parents are addicts; the person struggling with addiction who hasn't made the decision yet to change, but who has come to the group because they heard about it from a family member; the person in early recovery who's bringing someone along in their family who wonders how to help them. The idea is to build a better community understanding about addiction so that people can be supported as they need it, and families can understand what addiction is like and what it's about, and so that a person who is in any stage of recovery can find someone who will listen and support them.
Valerie Brodbeck: I found, in my experience, that there was an empty space for family support. And families of addicts really go through a lot — not knowing what to do, being ashamed, not feeling they can ask for help. FOA helps them see that others are going through the very same things, and it normalizes for them, so that they can create a better environment at home and then have a better chance to help the person who's addicted, when they're ready for help.
Rollins: What are your roles?
Erion: I'm the founder and executive director. I've heard that often means you get paid, but that's not the case. We're an all-volunteer organization.
Brodbeck: Hopefully, not forever.
Rollins: How did you come to start the group?
Erion: Based on my own personal situation, I saw what the community needed. Navigating getting any kind of help is just atrocious. There are good places and not-so-good places out there, and I didn't know what to do. Working with an addict is a long, tedious process, and I needed to find out and share what was, and wasn't, working.
Brodbeck: I'm the recovery advocate. I do a lot of speaking out, trying to get rid of the stigma around addiction, collaborate with other agencies sharing my own personal experience. Through FOA I've gotten a voice where I can speak up and be heard; when you're an addict, that's not the case — nobody listens to you, you're just a junkie. I also work a lot on passion-building — the idea that once you put the drugs down, recovery is beautiful. That you can find a hobby, go out in nature, make friends — do something with your life, create that positivity, that purpose. That's really important when you're in recovery.
Erion: I'd like to develop that idea of passion-building into a program, where we help get people in recovery back into mainstream communities.
Brodbeck: You can go to AA, or Narcotics Anonymous or whatever, and that's fine, but it's important to connect with people who haven't had addiction so that you can see another way to live.
Erion: That's the idea of normalizing. And making people in recovery become an asset to the community, not a liability.
Brodbeck: And not be ashamed. In my early recovery I didn't want to talk about it. But then you don't know that there are real success stories out there, which can help you.
Erion: When you first came to FOA, I didn't know you had been an addict.
Brodbeck: Nobody knew. I kept it to myself. It wasn't until FOA that I found I needed to speak out, and was comfortable enough there to do it.
Erion: That's what FOA does — it gives people who've gotten better a place to regroup, move on and show an example of what they did. I didn't have an appropriate platform to share that hope.
Rollins: You’ve alluded to addiction pasts. What are your stories?
Erion: In a nutshell, I've had nine years of my own recovery from addiction to alcohol and other drugs. Then about three, four years ago, I found my daughter April was shooting heroin. So then starts this pattern, where as a parent you think you need to get help, but you have no idea what you're dealing with. When you finally do get help, get them into treatment, which is a real struggle, you think, "Good, that's it. They'll come home and it'll be all good, we're done."
Brodbeck: But no, it's only begun …
Erion: It's such a rollercoaster ride. And when I realized what it was doing to me, I decided what a support group should do for people. And April helped me to understand her addiction by just listening to her, her feelings, and the support she needed. So I started the group. I didn't have any master plan. It developed as we went along. There was nothing like FOA. Like I said, April helped me so much — I wanted the addicts to be a part of it, because they do help us understand what is going on. I hope when someone comes to our meetings, they will hear someone share their story and have an affirmation that it's worth moving forward and upward with their child. And we had the second anniversary of our first meeting on Nov. 6.
Brodbeck: My story is that I'm in long-term recovery. I was an addict about seven years, starting when I was around 18, 19. I had big problems getting into detox and treatment. I was in, out of treatment seven, eight times. It wasn't done right. You have people go in for detox three days, they kick you out, that doesn't end well. Or you end up on a waiting list to get in, and it'll be two weeks, but you need something right then, or something else bad is going to happen.
Rollins: So, it seems pretty well known how dangerous heroin is — that if you use it once, you’re basically hooked. What was the appeal?
Brodbeck: I really had no idea what I was getting into when I started. I grew up in Oakwood, and I'd never seen it or been around addicts, or had any idea what that was like.
Erion: April said her attitude was, sure, all drugs are bad, right? So, OK, how bad could heroin really be?
Rollins: Val, what finally worked to help you get clean?
Brodbeck: You know, a lot of people ask me that, and I really don't know. It wasn't like I suddenly had this single moment of clarity or anything. It was just the timing, when finally I used everything I had learned up to that point, all those things I'd been told, and held onto those. And as things changed, I realized how great life could be. I hadn't known that, and so it's really important that people speak up about it. But I don't struggle now, I don't crave it anymore.
Rollins: Talk more about this idea of normalizing and passion-building, and how it fits into long-term recovery.
Brodbeck: Normalizing means learning basic things like making friends. When you're in addiction, you don't learn basic things that other people learn. So I did meetup.com and joined hiking groups, made it a priority to meet people. That was all new to me, and I needed help. Now my network and support group of friends is the most important thing to me. I'm back at school, earning my graduate degree. I've learned how to do that, get my career started, that kind of thing.
Erion: Val has been the inspiration for the passion-building program. It proves there are many different pathways to recovery. FOA is passionate about the idea that there is not just one right way. For you, it may be through these other avenues.
Brodbeck: Most people in recovery could lead group sessions themselves, they've been to so many meetings. But the thing that helps is wanting to know why you want to live — what are you passionate about? You need something to do with your time. One thing that really leads to relapse, honestly, is boredom.
Rollins: Really? That makes sense, but I’ve never heard it put that way.
Brodbeck: It's totally true. Once you're clean for good, you know you need to stay busy. Your brain is active, and addicts are driven people. So you have to learn new habits. In lots of recovery programs, they're all about meetings, meetings, meetings, you have to go to meetings. But then in between the meetings, you're just sitting around your apartment, just thinking about drugs. You need to stay busy.
Erion: We'd love it if funders that give grants would think of it that way. Look at the funding that's given to senior citizens, for things like pet therapy. That's great, but it's also what people in recovery really need, too. The problem is, we have everybody scrabbling and fighting not to have people dying. But after you've given someone a dose of Narcan, then what after that? The standard is that it takes seven tries for someone to get help and have it stick — and by then, you're grouped out. You don't want just another group. Where we're missing the boat is taking recovery people to the next level.
Brodbeck: Getting clean is the easy part, and it's hell. But there's nothing to help you want to stay clean.
Rollins: So, what do you feel you’ve been able to accomplish with FOA?
Erion: I definitely feel we've helped create a way better community among the families. In 2015 alone, we've had total weekly attendance at our meetings of over 2,000 people. Also, I think we've helped reduce the stigma around addiction, so that people can talk about it, and find support.
Rollins: There’s a lot of talk about reducing stigma being a big part of dealing with the problem. Where do you think society is on that?
Erion: I think there are three categories of people. One, you have people who say yeah, we need to talk about this. Two is people who get it, but really don't have much to do with it. Three is people who are never, ever gonna get it — they think it's a choice, an addict is an addict, and they just deserve what they get. We're trying educate people to understand what addiction is, and not feel so negative about it.
Brodbeck: You can see it with Narcan, the drug that Dayton police are giving to save people who've overdosed. Some police departments say they just don't want to use it — that it's not their job, and it's just contributing to the problem and they'll keep right on using after you save them anyway. That's very ignorant. It sends the message that your life is not valuable — and addicts already think that. You don't think you can get help, and that you don't deserve it.
Erion: There's still also a lot of stigma in health care, how hospitals deal with addicts and how they're treated. I think there should be more substance-abuse education for doctors and nurses.
Brodbeck: A lot of them need it.
Erion: I don't think enough people realize that addiction really is a form of psychosis. You'll hear when someone is having a psychotic attack that they hear voices — well, addicts will say that when they're on Vivitrol, which stops the craving for heroin, that it stops them from hearing the voices. My daughter has told me that when an addict is cutting locks, stealing from people, you're in fight or flight mode — that your life depends on that next dose. Nothing else matters. So these people are really in a constant state of anxiety, but it's not treated as a mental health state. The attitude is that this is something they did to themselves. Reducing the stigma would be about reaching out to them, trying to help them if they relapse, seeing recovery as a process.
Rollins: Val, what would you say now to your younger self?
Brodbeck: That life is amazing. It doesn't have to be so hard. Getting clean may be hell, but it's worth it. I would go through it again to have the life I have today. And it's worth something. At that time, I did not feel that way.
Rollins: Would you have been able to hear that message?
Brodbeck: I'm not sure. That's the hard part of this. There's no quick and easy solution, and sometimes you don't hear. You still have to tell people anyway. I want people to feel humanized. I talk to addicts and I want them to hear, "You are a human being. You can't take on that identity of being an addict. That doesn't have to be you."
Rollins: What would you like to see for the organization in the future?
Brodbeck: Well, it's frustrating. I see what we do as working, and people would invest in us it would help us reach more people, and help us do more good.
Erion: Who knew we'd get this far? I really see three things. I get calls from all over the country, asking if they have FOA in their cities. So we need to be looking at expanding to other communities in Ohio and beyond. Second, I would like to develop a peer-to-peer support network that includes families and also recovery peer supporters. Third, we want to create the passion-building program Val talked about. And we need to find a way to be self-sustaining, or else we'll just be a support group in Dayton. I could see us linking up with a larger non-profit, and would love someone's expertise to help accomplish our mission and vision — it's a pretty big vision, but it would take a lot more people on board to make it happen.
Rollins: From working with families and addicts, which way do you think the drug problem is headed?
Brodbeck: Meth is coming in now. It's the next big thing.
Erion: What I see is, people are dying. Narcan is saving lots of lives, and there are pockets of people trying to make a difference, but we need to connect them all together. The problem and the fallout from it are so big, it's too much for any one organization to do anything about. It would be much more efficient if they were all playing together.
Brodbeck: Some things are moving in the right direction, but there's still a ways to go. There seems more positivity then when I was in my addiction. There's Narcan now, the stigma seems to be going down, a lot of organizations are cooperating, some things are changing.
Erion: But there's so much to do.
Brodbeck: And addiction affects every area of life — it upsets the entire family, and parents have to take off work to help their children into treatment, or out of jail, so there's lost work, there's disagreement in the family, some people get divorced over what to do about it, you have grandparents having to take care of their grandchildren.
Erion: There's all the money for treatment costs. It's huge. Not to mention the huge anxiety you live under as a parent, the constant worry. You jump if you hear sirens. If the phone rings, you don't know if this is it — you're waiting for that call. If they've been arrested, it's not so bad — they're in jail, at least, so safe. But you never know. It's a really stressful way to live.
FOA can help make the rollercoaster ride a little shorter and smoother, helping them see what others have gone through. We help people not beat themselves up.
Brodbeck: And a lot of treatment places are just set up to deal with the problem one way. We're open to all.
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