November 3, 2009

Recovery efforts gain acceptance

By Elroy King
The Chronicle

     The Dalles has made some significant gains in the way it deals with its drug problems, but it still has a long way to go.
That was the consensus of a panel representing various segments of the community that deal with that drug and poverty problem in a discussion Thursday night as part of Mid-Columbia Medical Center’s Pastoral Care week observation.
Some members of the panel have been on the receiving end of drug recovery programs themselves, while others are on the other end, working with people with drug addictions.
On the panel were Twila Kegley, representing Freedom House; Angie Goodknight, representing Oxford House; Clyde Keizur, representing Grace House, Mercy House and the jail chaplaincy; Rex Lyons, representing the recovery community; Mike Miller, representing Grace House; Troy Thompson, representing the CLIC program, and Carol Yakish, the treatment coordinator for the Seventh Judicial District.
Lyons and Miller gave the most graphic examples on the successes (and needs) of the recovery programs in The Dalles.
Lyons said that when he started down that road, there was not much available for those seeking to break out of addiction. He had been around the recovery community for a long time, he said, and is now involved in some way with many of the programs represented by other panelists.
Before these groups came along it was really hard for those in recovery to be accepted back into community, Lyons said. That has improved dramatically and getting through recovery comes faster than it used to.
Lyons, as well as other panelists, said what the community really needs is a detoxification facility. He thinks there will eventually be one. He said the success rate for those trying to break addictions has gone up dramatically in past 15 years.
Miller was equally candid about his own experiences, telling the small crowd “if you don’t think miracles still happen, you are looking at one.”
He said he was addicted for 25 years and was in NORCOR when he first heard about Grace House. When he got out of jail, he was driving aimlessly around town and ended up at Ninth and Court, where he saw Lyons standing in the parking lot. Grace House was holding a Bible study that very night and Miller ended up attending one and later lived there. He feels that God directed him there.
He briefly described the program at Grace House, which is a residential treatment for men in recovery.
He said the main thing people there need is to love and be loved. He lamented that “so many people out there have no one that loves them.” He said that without the love and acceptance he had received in the local recovery programs and the belief that God loves him, “I’d be dead now.”
Miller also spoke of the need for the detox center, inpatient treatment programs and more facilities like Grace House, Mercy House (for women) and Freedom House for women and their children.
Keizur talked about his involvement in local ministries, first at Mid-Columbia Medical Center and later at NORCOR. He feels in the latter ministry he has impacted well over 350 inmates.
He said more than 300 men and 60 women have been through the program at Grace House and Mercy House respectively, and there is more community acceptance for the need for such facilities than there was when Grace House was first started. The landlord got so many complaints about his renters that he ended up selling the place and Grace and Mercy House board bought it.
Kegley, who is director of Freedom House, is a retired high school chemistry teacher, and knew nothing about recovery programs when she came to The Dalles. She visited a similar facility in Salem before getting involved with the one here.
Freedom House recently became a one-year program (it had been a two-year commitment) and can house seven women and their children. Three women have graduated from the program. She said Freedom House residents learn to be accountable.
Thompson said CLIC (Changing Lives in Christ) helps to restore families through the grace of God and works mostly with women (but some men as well) who have lost custody of their children, with a focus on spiritually. It provides parenting classes, job searches and support for each other in court proceedings, and encourages participation in AA and 12-step programs.
CLIC was started by group of women who had children taken from them and felt a need for a support group. CLIC will celebrate its second anniversary this month..
It is one of the ministries at First Christian Church, as are Grace and Mercy Houses. Freedom house is located at Solid Rock Church of God. They, like Oxford House, are all faith-based programs.
Goodnight said Oxford House in a residential program for those in recovery, but it is run by those living in the residence. The local focus right now in on housing for women, but there has been a problem finding a house in town that will meet the requirements for such a facility. Plans to start such a house are on hold at present.
Goodnight also talked about the need for low-income housing in the area. She noted that the heating assistance program offered through CAP begins Dec. 1. She said that program helped more than 3,000 people with a cost of more than $1 million through CAP and there should be even more funding available this year.
Yakish said the judicial system now is realizing that there has to be more than punishment for drug offenders in the process of recovery, they need treatment and other help. She said other agencies and programs represented by panel members is what makes Drug Court and Family Dependency courts work.
“We have to tell people they can recover,” Yakish said, and “we need to convince people to convince themselves they can make it.”
She said the three circuit court judges in the district are supportive of drug court and family dependency court.
There have been 48 graduates in the two local recovery programs and they have a 96 percent success rate; i.e. no new arrests within the first year of graduation.
When asked about the cost of a detoxification center and other needs in the fight against the drug problem, none of the panel members had figures. Lyons, however, was able to give some of the costs of not having one, about 10 deaths a year in the area due to addiction and Miller noted the cost of people going back into the same environments and making the same mistakes and going back into the jails and courts.
Lyons said the Pendleton area has a good example of what is needed here. It was noted that Oregon ranks 48th among states in spending on drug treatment but still has one of the highest rates for methamphetamine use. He said there are two kinds of these centers, medical and non-medical (the one in Pendleton is non-medical) but the latter still needs an RN of the staff.
Keizur noted that the community does have a detoxification center, “it is called NORCOR,” but observed “participation is involuntary and not the voluntary kinds we need.”
Thompson spoke of the need for more transitional housing and the needs for more employers who will hire someone with a felony on their record.
Keizur said most of those on the panel are here for those who want to quit. They get caught up in the circle of homelessness and then get into drugs or they are into drugs and then lose their homes. Goodknight said that not all of the homelessness is due to drugs, the economy is also a factor.
Lyons said there is more public acceptance for treatment houses than there was a few years ago.
Meth is not the only drug problem in the community, Keizur noted, adding that illegal use of opiates is a growing problem and probably causes more deaths than meth,
One person in the audience estimated there are 1,500 to 1,600 in the recovery community in The Dalles.
Keizur noted that the backbone of any successful drug or alcohol recovery is a strong relationship with a higher power, and “we have one (that relationship) and we don’t mind sharing it.”