Description of the video:

The following presentation is made posssible by the generous support of the Bloomington Health Foundation and The Community Foundation of Bloomington and Monroie County/Regional Oppportunities Initiatives, Inc.

And we thank those individuals in this video who have the strength to share their stories...

Terry

[Terry] My story is different but it's the same as so many other people's.

[Moderator] One year ago, Terry took the stage at the South Central Opioid Summit to talk about substance use disorder and how it had claimed the life of her son, Brad. Of those in the audience, one person in particular felt her story personally -- her son, Jason, Brad's twin brother.

[Terry] He came up to the casket and I said I can never do this again. Please. I can never do this again...and he said, "I know, Mom. It's okay, you won't have to. You won't. I promise."

[Moderator] Her presentation over, Terry left the podium.

[Terry] He was just so incredibly proud and told me that, many, many times. And, then a month later, he's gone.

[Moderator] Despite Jason's promise to his mother, he, too, died of an overdose. Terry had now lost both of her sons.

[Terry] It's a club that we...that we join that we didn't ask to join, but we're all members of, and our dues are as high as anybody can possibly pay.

[Moderator] Jason, too, had struggled with substance use disorder and to his family, friends, and neighbors, he was winning. He had been clean for seven years, but when he found himself slipping away, something kept him from asking for help.

[Terry] Stigma. Don't make it...don't make it so difficult for someone to say, um, I've been clean for seven years and I need some help. I don't know how you do that.

[Moderator] That is why we are here [2019 South Central Opioid Summit] today -- to hear their stories, to discuss solutions, to look for answers.

[Greg May, Chair, Monroe County Opioid Advisory Commission] You know, Summit really is a convening of local experts to say, you know, these are the things that we're doing in this community. It's really this collaborative learning experience about, yeah, we don't know how to, you know, end this and, and we don't know how to fix it right now, but these are the things that we're doing to make this better as we go through this process.

[Terry] We have to change the mindset of those hard core folks who feel that substance use disorder is a choice.

[Arielle] I would just ask you if you think if... if you really think that people, you know, growing up say to themselves, you know, when I grow up, I want to get arrested and you know, I want to have my kids taken from me, or I want to steal from the people that I love, you know, that love me. I want to hurt everybody around me. I mean, I would ask if that's something that you think people make the choice to do, to be like that.

Embracing Recovery: Ricky's Story

[Ricky] Horrible is an understatement.

[Moderator] He called himself the benevolent dealer, a mask Ricky hid behind for years, justifying his own drug use by convincing himself that he could protect others from their pain by providing them with drugs. It was a deception that crashed at 3 a.m. one morning when U.S. Marshals came calling.

[Ricky] I answered the door and when they did, they stuck guns to my head and said, "We got a warrant for your arrest." At that point, alarm went off in my head. I said, "man, what are you doing?"

[Moderator] Ricky took a plea and awaited prison. Out on bond before his incarceration, he attended a group therapy session at the request of his girlfriend, Missy. At the session, Missy apologized to him for all the pain her own chaotic drug use had caused them both. Her honesty transformed him. Ricky became enthusiastic about recovery. Upon returning from prison, he noticed that Martinsville had almost no recovery services. His solution was an unorthodox one. He started his own not-for-profit.

[Ricky] I got motivated to, one, I carried a message to that the addicts still suffers.

[Moderator] But where Missy had helped save Ricky's life, he could not save hers.

[Ricky] What, she called me 24 hours before she overdosed and she said, "Ricky, how do you do it?" and I had to look, I had to tell her on the phone, I say, "Because I love who I am today."

[Moderator] Ricky's life began to improve steadily. He got married and had a family. Sadly, Ricky remains no stranger to heartbreak, for on the day before this interview was taped, Ricky lost his stepson to an overdose.

[Ricky] [deep sigh] I just pray one day that all the ministers in the world -- all the better people who think, you can just walk away from the disease of addiction, get a better understanding about what the disease is all about.

The Legal System.

[Moderator] Part of learning how to cope with the effects of substance use disorder is learning how to navigate the legal system designed to control it.

[Tammy] I was terrified. I was scared. I remember just feeling so alone and thinking "what am I going to do" -- like I have nobody to help me out of the system.

[Moderator] Tammy was no stranger to the legal system, taking prescription painkillers because she had been injured in an accident. She became hooked on them. Her chaotic drug use meant that she had find ways to finance her need. Tammy began stealing from friends and family and shoplifting from local stores.

[Tammy] And you think the whole time, like, I can fix this before they know and then before you know it, you've got 20 items that you've stole from them and there's replacing them, but you keep telling yourself that it's going to be okay. You convince yourself... your addicition convinces you that it's all going to be okay but in the end it's not.

[Moderator] Sitting in jail after she was arrested for running up thousands of dollars in stolen credit cards, Tammy, like Ricky before her, had her own wake-up call.

[Tammy] I went to course and my attorney told me, he said, "you're going to do your time. You're not going home." And, I said, no, I want to talk to the judge because I'm going to tell her. He was like, "It's not going to any good because she's sick of hearing what you have to say because it's just you tell her one thing. You don't do it." And I said, "if you're tired imagine how tired I am."

[Moderator] But Tammy caught a break when a sympathetic judge mixed the rules with compassion.

[Tammy] She said, "it's against my better judgement. You guys are going are going to think I'm crazy, but I'm going to her one more chance." And, I ran with that chance.

[Greg May] There are other communities, you know, who believe that they can arrest their way out of substance use issues. If we've done nothing to help address the issue that led them to have that law enforcement encounter that led them to that period of incarcertation, they're returning to this community. And they will go back to the same place that they were.

[Tammy] You can't change things overnight, especially whenever you've been digging yourself into a hole for many years. You have to have time to undig yourself.

Finding a Job.

[Moderator] Navigating the legal system is one thing. Finding a job is another. Growing up in Florida, Arielle, admits that connecting with others had always been difficult and that she found her escape from depression by using drugs. That escape led her to many encounters with the law. Each one more serious than the one before it until she faced a sentence of 15 years in prison, but that didn't happen and she began the long road to recovery. It was time to pick up the pieces but, how.

[Arielle] How do you move forward, um, when every step you take essentially, there's this big, you know, kind of elephant in the room.

[Moderator] Her job search had become an endless series of background checks, unreturned calls and discarded resumes, then she got a call from a city nearly a thousand miles away -- Bloomington, Indiana.

[Arielle] I just told them, like, I had made a lot of bad decisions. I've cleaned up my act and I've, I've done my time, essentially. I've completely changed my life. They were just like, you know, we appreciate you being open with us and we think that, you know, you're an honest person and you have integrity, and we need people like you to work here, and it was just like, [whew], wow, you know, like, no one had ever talked to me that way.

Turning the Tide.

[Tammy]  I think that our community is in a better place now. A lot of people are coming together and realizing like, let's work with people, let's try to help them get jobs, let's try to help them get homes, let's help build their lives.

[Greg May] The tide is turning so the number of overdoes deaths are decreasing. People appear to have more access to treatment or at least know what treatment options are available and folks with substance use disorders appear to be having an easier time gaining employment.

[Moderator] August 14th of this year, Jim Carroll, the head of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, visited Indiana to talk with state leaders about the opioid crisis. Carroll highlighted that Indiana saw a 12 percent decline in drug overdoes deaths. That's almost three times the national decline of 4.2 percent. Several factors can be attributed to the decline including access to naloxone and other medications designed to reverse opioid overdose, reduced number of prescriptions, better coordination with doctors, and, of course, more access to treatment.

[Greg May] I think that we've made great stride and we keep adding partners to coalitions, to advisory groups that really just help us advance the work that we do. Now, is it perfect every time and are we meeting the need of every person? Absolutely not. Do I think that we we will ever be able to do that? I hope so.

[Moderator] There is still much work to be done in ending the epidemic of substance use disorder and the life-threatening consequences that go with it. Work that will involve everyone in this room. There will be successes and there will be setbacks, but the epidemic will end because when a community works as one, there is always hope.

[Arielle] Without support and without resources, like, I would be in prison right now and, but I'm not, and I'm a functioning member of society.

[Terry] Love them. Help them. Let them know that they are worth saving and that no matter how many times they fall, if they get back up, you'll be there.

[Ricky] Let them know that I feel their pain, and what they're going through, and tehy're not alone.

[Tammy] I'm proof that you get chances, like, I wasn't anybody, you know what I'm saying -- a drug addict with a really bad record and a lot of shots of gwetting sober and wouldn't do it, but you know what, people gave me a chance, and I changed my life.

Let's Continue the Fight