BELLOWS FALLS — Jeff Potter, moderator: I would like to have all four of you give us a brief overview of who you are and, essentially, where you fit into this large jigsaw puzzle of the problem that we're discussing.
Mickey Wiles: Burlington Labs is a clinical toxicology drug testing lab.
Our tagline is “We understand treatment.” We really understand what substance abuse is about, the compassion that's needed, that it is a disease, and that anybody can be treated and get better if they have the desire and the will to get better.
In our hiring process, we make sure obviously that employees fit the role in terms of their skill set, but we also really focus on who they are and what they think about substance abuse and where they are in their own personal growth.
We hire people who need second chances - and that starts right at the top. Our CEO Michael Casarico and I are both in recovery.
We have our own stories. Addictive behavior landed me in prison for a couple years, and I had to start all over. I was a very successful business person in the financial world and got into some serious troubles.
As a result, I had to start over and I was fortunate enough that I had a good support system, the wherewithal, and the means to find a path to recovery.
I was able to largely restore myself just by starting at the bottom. I started working in an ice-cream shop because at one time I was CFO of Ben & Jerry's.
I volunteered with the newly opened Turning Point Center in Burlington for a while and ended up becoming director for a couple years. From there, I found my way back.
I met Michael in the recovery world, and we started talking and becoming friends. Soon, he discovered that I had business experience and could help him and, lo and behold, I joined as the 10th employee of Burlington Labs. Four years later, we have this incredible company.
We're talking about heroin and opiate addiction, but it's not just about opiates: it's about helping people who have all sorts of other addictions as well. We also have hired people who are in treatment for mental-health issues, and we have been able to hire them and give them another chance.
We have a woman whose boyfriend was head of the largest cocaine ring that was broken up in Vermont. She was an accountant who got sucked into his whole thing and was doing the money laundering for his cocaine ring. She now works in our accounting department and is doing fantastic.
So even though our company is involved in the substance-abuse community, that really doesn't have anything to do with the fact that we're hiring people who need or deserve a second chance. These people can come back into the workforce and do an incredible job because they have seen some really bad sides of life and they have had that moment of clarity and see that there is a way out for themselves.
We as business leaders can bring these people into our companies, and they end up being incredibly loyal and dedicated employees - they are grateful, really grateful. Helping people find jobs - that's a major part of recovery. If you can't get a job, then how do you feel about yourself and how can you progress without that job? It's really, really, difficult, so it's important for us to do that.
Mike Johnson: Mickey had mentioned that he was at a Turning Point, too; we have 11 in the state, soon to be 12. We play a very important, vital role because we do have recovery coaches available, and we provide them the atmosphere to have meetings and recovery meetings of all different types.
We are expanding with the different meetings and meetings for families. It's also important to include the family members of people in recovery, and we offer a safe place for people to go.
My assistant is in recovery, too, and she understands it well. My network of friends are all in recovery. My medicated-assisted recovery person, Larry, and I grew up together in Springfield in the '70s and '80s. If you asked anybody back then, they'd say we're the last two people who you would think would be doing what we're doing today.
The world of recovery has been amazing. A lot of hard-working, good people out there make great employees. They just need to have the support and ways of maintaining their recovery, and I think that if employers are able to understand that and help support that and make opportunities for them.
Brookie Sherwood: I don't have anything to do with the business community directly, but I work in opiate addiction every day. We have about 50 patients in medically assisted therapy, which in our world is suboxone.
I have a lot of love for the people I work with, and I have a lot of love for the subject and I have a lot of passion for things improving.
I do think that work is the missing element in recovery. I have the privilege of watching people who are really sick. I think work is one of those critical elements that determine whether some people get sicker again and other people get better.
I am the wife of a recovering addict. He has been clean 28 years, and he will tell you work saved his life. He would be dead if he hadn't worked. I am also the proud mom of a heroin addict in recovery. The program she's in required her to be working full time within two weeks of arriving there.
I think it's really a critical element, but in the huge Florida community my daughter lives in, so many people are in recovery there. I'll bet you that 75 percent of the staff in her workplace is in recovery. So there's all these wonderful assumptions made about who you are and what you need.
I just want to say that in general that anybody who wants to call me for anything can. I get calls all the time from addicts, from parents, from children, or from police. This problem really needs a team approach. Anybody who ever wants to pick my brain or share their brain with mine is more than welcome to do that.
Jedidiah Popp: I could be the voice of any addict in this community. Anybody could be sitting in this chair, giving the same story. I have been in recovery for 2{1/2} years.
I have seen many, many aspects of the addict's world and the recovery world. I have been on the side of stigma with employers and would-be employers.
I have a vision of Vermont taking a step forward in this epidemic - I call it an epidemic, too - and realizing that there's things to change. It has to be a community effort. Compassion, and empathy, and education go a long way for a person-in-recovery's world. It's great to see there's people in the community here who care.
Moderator: Mickey, do you run into situations still where people need third chances?
Wiles: Oh, sure. Relapse is really a large part of recovery - there is no doubt about that. Because I have been in recovery for a long time, I have seen a lot of different circumstances and situations, and it is a really tough disease to overcome.
Just because somebody has reached the end and really wants to do something about it, it's just not always that easy. Then when you put the drug down, you're facing all of life's challenges without the crutch that you had before. Some of those life challenges are really difficult to handle, and it's learning how to live again in many cases. Sometimes it takes two, three, four, five - as many as it takes - chances. None of us should give up giving those chances.
Moderator: With that in mind, what would you advise a business who takes to heart what you said, that people in recovery have seen and have overcome incredible things? What sort of support will they need from a work environment, and what would you recommend to businesses who are just getting into saying, “I want to give people a chance”?
Wiles: I think the key is to educate yourselves. To really learn and understand what this is, not be afraid of it, not buy into any of the preconceived notions of what addiction is about. By doing that and having some people on staff or your HR organization who can really sit down and talk to people and who can really understand.
Is the prospective employee in recovery? Are they looking for the job just because they have to get the job and they really haven't taken the steps? Do they have an action plan? Are they working on themselves? What's their support system look like? What are they going to do when they get into trouble?
A company that keeps it in the open recognizes that people are going to have rough days, so our doors are open to allow employees to talk. There are people in our company who come to me regularly, and that has nothing to do with the fact that they're having a problem with their job. They're having a problem with their life, and if employers can educate themselves and not be afraid to offer that support, then we can help people in addition to just providing them a job.
Moderator: Now can businesses hire somebody contingent on, say, their being actively in recovery? Does that cross any sort of legal or ethical lines?
Wiles: So the decision to hire somebody is based on a whole bunch of factors. If somebody is not in a position that they are emotionally sound, then they're not qualified for the job.
So a person who is in recovery and is in a program gets to the point that they are of sound mind and are going to meet the qualifications of the job. That is what it comes down to.
I am not suggesting that businesses should be taking somebody who has decided that they want to give up their addiction and show up at an Narcotics Anonymous meeting one day and the next day they come in and say, “I'm ready, and I'm better.”
What I am suggesting is that we're hiring people who have done some work and have found a path into recovery. I am not a lawyer, but I know that we have been able to hire many people through this means. I have never run into a legal problem.
Further, we have turned people down from work because we didn't think they were ready. We are not going to sit there and say to them, “You're a drug addict, and we're not going to hire you.” That's just not the way you do it.
Moderator: Jed, what would you most like business owners to know, that you think that they don't, about all of these issues?
Popp: Stigmas, I believe, are hearsay. Mickey touched on education. It's really on education and paying attention to the person. It takes just a little bit of an extra effort just to do these things, but there are excellent people in recovery.
I had a job interview one time at this restaurant in Brattleboro, and it was going great. Then I brought up the fact that I was in recovery, and you could just see the reaction in his face. That hurt a lot.
People deserve second chances. You can tell what the person is doing and you know, just give that second chance and give just a little bit of empathy. You know, empathy.
Johnson: When someone is invested in their recovery, you can tell by their actions and how they respond and how they work. Usually, they're the best workers you've got.
It's important to know what the signs of addiction are and for employers to learn what to look for and how to help people and redirect them, too, because they might have a great employee who's just waiting to get treated.
Moderator: We've mentioned the role of family in people's recovery and how critical that is. What would you recommend for people in recovery who don't have that crucial benefit, who don't have supportive families?
Sherwood: There's actually data showing that people in recovery who have family support do better. By family support, I don't mean, “Oh, here, Jed, you need 50 bucks - sure.” I mean, “I believe in you, you can do this” and “ Yes I will be there for you emotionally” - that kind of support.
I actually work with a lot of addicts who are second-generation, and sometimes third-generation addicts - anybody who lives in Bellows Falls knows that that happens here. It's pretty hard when you're trying to get clean and your mom's hitting you up for dope. So, for sure, family support and involving families is crucial.
I work in the medical world, so there's all this confidentiality and HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) business, but families can work together with me.
I had a young man, newly in our program, last week who's despairing because his girlfriend doesn't understand his addiction. I said, “If she'll come, bring her someday, we'll sit down for an hour and we'll talk, and I bet she could learn a lot.” I also recommend Al-Anon if you love someone who has a substance-abuse problem. I really believe in Al-Anon.
Johnson: The families themselves who are struggling with the person who's still addicted, they need the support, too. Sometimes they don't know the right thing to do. The families-in-recovery group is a shorter-term thing, but the Al-Anon is the constant and I think it gives them the opportunity to know when they're stepping over the line, when they can actually do harm
It's important that they know the responsibility still is on the addict, but the families need the support, too.
Wiles: There is an incredible recovery community in these Turning Point Centers. They are places where you can go create a family environment, and develop the relationships and the support systems by getting involved in any of the programs. The recovery community is so strong in Vermont - it's incredible. It can be a family environment as strong as, if not stronger than, an actual family that you're related to.
Johnson: A lot of the people who come to our center do so because that's where they feel they belong. That's their safe world, and that's where they need to be. It's great to see them show up every day.
Moderator: So, Brooke, you mentioned the environment in Florida being more supportive or more open. Is that a fair interpretation of what you were saying?
Sherwood: When I visited my daughter last in August, I went to some of her meetings, which are held in a building with four separate rooms. There are meetings there every hour, on the hour, from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. That's really hard to find here. There's not a regular Al-Anon meeting in this town, of all towns. If I wasn't working 10 gazillion hours in addiction already, I would start one.
It just seemed like the recovery culture there just kind of built on itself, so more people are doing well. She introduced me at a meeting, and 60 people said, “Hey, Mom.”
A lot of the business owners are in recovery and their employees are in recovery and the community just is sort of built on itself. I don't know what we could get from that. We'll never be Florida, God forbid, but it was pretty interesting.
Moderator: So do you think that the drug abuse problems are more pervasive there or that they're just more open and candid about them?
Sherwood: Opiate addiction is much higher in New England than it is in Florida. But I do think that there's a great benefit in getting away from the place where you built your addictive life. Most of the people that I met while I was in Florida were not from Florida; they went there to work on their recovery.
Wiles: Florida also has a huge number of treatment centers, but for Vermonters there's a socio-economic issue. The treatment centers there are private and cost a lot of money. Vermont has more affordable treatment solutions than Florida has.
Popp: I have a question for Mickey. Have you thought about modeling your hiring process for other employers to take into their own company?
Wiles: I think the answer is yes. We would love to become leaders in this. We are definitely ready and willing to help other companies understand that and the education process.
Popp: That's fantastic.
Chad Simmons (audience): Substance addiction is a very serious issue, but it is only one of many issues Vermonters are facing. How are we going to apply this model to the other issues? Because at the core of this approach is compassion and empathy. How can we use this model of using the employer-based compassionate approach to hunger, poverty, and the other afflictions that we're kind of all struggling with in our communities?
Johnson: One of the community issues that question brings to mind is transportation. We have so many people who are trying to get treatment, but for them to receive suboxone, or anything like that, they have to go way up north, or they have to go way south. There's nothing available right in town.
Transportation and housing are really the two biggest issues for us. That would help solve and support a lot of the recovery stuff.
Wiles: We just hired a young man who was an immigrant from one of the eastern European countries. He's struggled with a lot of issues around discrimination. He had a lot of issues and developed a lot of anger problems as a result. A ropes program at the University of Vermont actually helped him turn his attitude around, and he got into a technical school. He graduated with an IT degree and couldn't get a job. He ended up working on a production line at Green Mountain Coffee for the K-Cup production line.
We posted a job and he came in and told us his story. We just have a lot of passion for the young man and said, “This is the place for you. We think we can help you, and do that.”
It's not just addiction issues, it's life issues - that, we can do.
Employers are not going to be 100 precent of the solution because they have to be able to hire people who can actually do the jobs. There have to be job training programs to prepare people for employment. But we can help workers with their development and growth.
Sherwood: Most of the people I work with, you would never hire them right now. That doesn't mean that they're not capable. That just means that right now there's a lot for them to learn before they're in a position to get a job. And lots of my patients have lost their driver's licenses.
I have this great sense that many need to be parented all over again because nobody's ever taught them how to manage simple money issues or how to do all kinds of things that some people take for granted.
I wonder if some employers might consider some kind of cooperative program that people in recovery could have somebody mentoring them into the next phase.
I think of my husband all the time. I wish the state of Vermont would pay my husband to take 20 young men under his wing. Boy, he would get some people ready for your employment, to teach them how you do a good day's work.
Wiles: I would like to put another plug for the Turning Point Centers; one of the things that happens there is that they're volunteer run. You're given a shift at a Turning Point Center to work and manage in the center. There's very few paid staff and the volunteer opportunities for someone who's early in recovery is gaining back some of those job skills.
Johnson: We have a transition house for people who are coming out of treatment and trying to work themselves back into the community. Some people come out of there with the skills they didn't have when they got there.
Popp: You have connections between the Department of Labor, connections between medically assisted treatment places and trainings and all these things, and Turning Point. But you know one thing that I have noticed coming up from homelessness is that we can use more connections.
Johnson: One of the things that we try to do is utilize the resources that are available in the community. The Vermont Association of Business, Industry and Rehabilitation (VABIR) has been a great asset for us as far as giving us job listings. I get two or three a day and I say, 'Look, guys and gals, see what's available there.'
We try to use the Department of Labor and we also use VOCRehab and some of the work programs from the mental-health services that are there. People need the help to get to those resources - there's people wandering around just wondering where can they get help to find food today. We have the family center, but it's just a matter of making the connection possible for everybody.
It takes the whole community to do that. So we have to continue to push to do that.
Moderator: And I would also say that getting the word out to the business community is really essential. VABIR called our newspaper and said, “Hey, we've got a wonderful person. Do you use volunteers or interns?” Heck, yeah. So we are a participating business in a young person's recovery, and that feels good. It's been a real asset to the paper. But it wasn't on our radar to proactively go out, so I would encourage other agencies to network. I think that would make a huge difference to getting that out there.
Brandy (audience member): I am a brand new family support outreach worker for SEVCA. When I am hearing this conversation about community connections and where people can go to get support, especially in Springfield and all of the places that SEVCA is, I can see a cooperation, especially between Turning Point and other community organizations working because part of what I'm going to be doing is sitting down with people and seeing what their needs are.
The life skills piece is a big part of what SEVCA does. So I am seeing an opportunity here that needs to be mentioned because I personally went through a situation recently where I needed support services for myself and my two children and I didn't know where to go. SEVCA wasn't even at the top of my list because I went to each agency independently to figure out what to do.
So in terms of having one organization where people can get help and resources while they're trying to reintegrate, and move forward in their lives, I could see that being a good resource.
Deb Witkus (audience member): I am with Greater Falls Connections. I was just thinking that it's really important to mention that what's hard about this is location, location, location.
I don't want Bellows Falls to feel bad because we have heard about all these resources and what they're doing in Brattleboro and what they're doing in Springfield. This is part of living in a rural community where fewer resources get to you, because you can't have centers all over rural communities - I just don't want Bellows Falls to be the ugly stepsister again. This is a great community, and we just need to pull together and make all those connections and come up with some creative solutions.
Along those lines, I am just wondering, Mike, if you have any recovery coaches in your work center and do you think that that is something that can be feasible in the future?
Johnson: Anything is possible. I think that reaching out with recovery coaching is a great way to get people within their communities the support they need: with jobs, with going to interviews and with a lot of those things that are hard to do on their own.
We could use more coaches - and, of course, that takes funding - but someday we'll have them, and we'll start with what we've got. We're just going to keep going and I think we have a start with a connection with Bellows Falls.
Witkus: I have been thinking a lot about trauma and the role that it plays and understanding addiction through the lens of early trauma has helped me personally become more compassionate when I meet a heroin-addicted mom. Brooke, do you hear stories about early, adverse, childhood experiences with trauma and how much is that a theme in the people that you're treating?
Sherwood: Oh, of course. And you know, let me just backtrack one tiny little bit: as I am sitting here, I am thinking of one of the problems that I face in my own daily work. I do the intakes for our program, and one of the questions I ask is, “Do you work, have you worked?”
Many people will tell me, “No, I am on disability.”
“Why are you on disability?”
A lot of people don't know. Or they will say things like, “Well, I have carpal tunnel, or one leg is shorter than the other or something.”
I think, “Okay, how do I help people get from this mindset where they believe they can't, to a mindset where meaningful work could change the way they see themselves as a member of our community?”
That would do more than anything I can ever do for them.
So I am sitting there mulling over that, just putting that out there.
I have so many ideas it's a little bit ridiculous. One idea is a project in high schools talking to young women, because if I had a dime for every young woman who tells me, “My boyfriend said you should really try this shit, it's really good stuff,” I would be a millionaire.
Not that men are responsible for the opiate epidemic, but that shows us the vulnerability of the young women in our community.
It becomes tricky because my own child is a heroin addict and the traumas that she had in her own life are the traumas that we all had: disappointment, self-esteem, you know. She wasn't beaten. She wasn't raped. So I am always aware, particularly aware.
I don't talk about this in my work, by the way. I am fine talking about it here, but I don't tell my patients that my daughter is an addict - not because I am ashamed of her, but because it's about them, and very seldom is it helpful for me to start going on about my life.
But I am always really aware - talk about stigma - that people see drug addicts as tattooed, pierced, “scumbags,” that they're not educated, that they're dirty. There are people with trauma, there are people who for whatever reason, when they tried an opiate, they went, “This is it, this is the thing that was missing.” And for a lot of people, it happens really fast.
So, it's definitely an issue, and we need really good licensed drug and alcohol counselors. If you look in Brattleboro, Bellows Falls, Springfield, Chester, for a therapist, I can give you a list as long as my arm, but if you look for a licensed therapist who is also called a licensed drug and alcohol counselor (LDAC), there's very few, and of those people, not all of them are good at what they do.
And then we need people to address trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder and other mental health issues. Show me an addict who doesn't have some PTSD, depression, and anxiety - that's just not a thing that happens.
Popp: How do you get the person to get off disability? To me that's how do you look at a glass of water: is it half-full or half-empty? And in my experience, the difference is hope.
So how do you give somebody hope? To me it's listening and empathy. That takes time. When I was a coachee, my recovery coach had stage-four lung cancer, and he was the happiest man I had ever known. Looking back two years later, I see that what he did for me, it gave me hope.
And I understand the need for the LDACs. I loved my therapist, I think he's done so much for me, but a lot of addicts are scared of that certificate on the wall, so that's where peer-support recovery comes in.
Sherwood: I actually totally agree and think that peer- support mentoring is the crucial ingredient. I think an addict can support and help and mentor a fellow addict in ways that I will never understand or be able to do.
Wiles: We're looking at the problem, but we also have come an incredible way. Four years ago, recovery coaching didn't even exist here. Today, we have a formal process of being able to connect people who need that peer support through recovery coaching. We have made progress. It doesn't mean we stop now - there's so much more we can do. Going back to your comment of hope: that gives us so much hope, the fact that we have made progress and we continue to make progress.
Suzy Walker (audience member): I am the director of the Brattleboro Turning Point. In addition to our volunteers and recovery coaches, we have very strong connections with our probation and parole department, with the Health Care Rehabilitation Services (HCRS) in Brattleboro, and with the Brattleboro Retreat, a wonderful partner.
We recently started going into the Retreat. We don't just do a presentation about peer recovery in the center, we let people experience what peer recovery is about so that when they are released they already know what it is and we'll have already broken the ice.
Housing issues, job issues, transportation issues, family issues, and all of these things that create a lot of pain and turmoil in life - if they're not handled, they can lead people back to relapse.
So we let them know that they are part of the community that cares, because often they come from places where at least temporarily, they have those broken relationships and they have to learn how to get past all of that.
And people all the time come in and say that it feels like family and it feels like home.
What we see so often in our center, is when people first do get the courage to come in, they almost don't make eye contact at all. They first sort of listen and are kind of on the periphery, then they slowly move into the group and they start to get more confident.
So a lot of times people have to be kind of socialized to just talk and learn appropriate language and appropriate attire and all those kinds of things. We can say, “Um, wearing that Budweiser T-shirt here is maybe not the greatest idea” - you know, on kind of a casual and also kind of intimate level among people who are in recovery.
I am a person in long-term recovery and for me that means that I haven't had a drink in 16{1/2} years. The first time I ever talked to a person in recovery how gave me that hope that Jed was talking about, I could see in their eyes that they knew the pain and confusion, but I could also see the light in their eyes that they had hope and there was a way.
So I think we should as a community come together and help make one another whole, and we can do that by all working together to support people.
Emily (audience member): My mom is currently working with the RISE (Recovery In a Sober Environment) program and it's right here in Bellows Falls, it's over on 11 Underhill Ave. It's the housing, they send you to four groups a week, and there are two case managers you would be working with, so they will help you get to where you need to be. It's a totally anonymous program - I know there's a lot of drug addicts, often if they're recovering who are like, “I don't want people to judge me for this.”
Moderator: Some of those life skills were talked about earlier. Thank you for the recommendation.
Robin Rieske (audience member): I work for the Vermont Department of Health Division of Alcohol and Drug Abuse Programs (ADAP) as a prevention specialist, but another hat I've worn in the last couple of weeks was doing an intervention on two family members for their prescribed overdose of oxys, so now I have two family members who are two weeks clean with suboxone. So I am very familiar with all of these issues.
I've worked in adolescent treatment for six years and with ADAP for 20. I just want to make a plug for the prevention piece for businesses to consider.
Everything that has been said tonight is awesome, and prevention is another partner at the table, so I just want to throw out a couple of other ideas for businesses.
One is for businesses to support policies like if the town is doing something around reducing secondhand smoke or reducing alcohol density, or increasing criteria for licensees to come in.
We have to see all drugs as connected. That early onset of alcohol, tobacco, marijuana use - are all related to why people then start seeking prescription drugs. And we also have the highest rate of cocaine use of 18-to-25-year-olds in the country, but we don't talk about that.
So how do businesses get to know your community, get to know the people that are on the street? You go up and ask them what they need. I know in Brattleboro we're talking about creating some things, some resources, that store owners can go to people blocking their doorway and say, “Do you know about these other places you can be?”
When you have business parties, consider having them be free of alcohol and letting employees who are in recovery be comfortable there.
Collaborate with the prevention coalitions, the treatment centers, the recovery centers. Make yourself available when they're doing activities. Put up posters in your businesses, continue to get educated about the stigma, and support employees' assistance programs and wellness programs.
Every little environmental change we make around smoking laws, or alcohol, all of it adds up in the long run. We're in the social movement here, and we're just carrying the banner right now, through our time that we're here.
But this work has been going on a long time, it happened well before the governor's State of the State address and it will continue long after opiate abuse is not on the political agenda anymore.
You know, Vermont is 41st in the country for heroin use. We're not the heroin capital. So it's just important that when we use words like “epidemic” that we understand the power of those words. “Epidemic” can imply that everybody's using these substances, and they're not.
Laura Schairbaum (Audience member): So, this has been a wonderful and amazing discussion and this is really what our organization, Greater Falls Connections, is really energized by.
We really hope to create dialogue and conversation and compassion toward people who are struggling in many aspects of their lives, because in terms of risk factors, vulnerable populations include people who are in recovery, families who are in recovery, and children who grow up in families who are in recovery or struggling with addiction. And anybody in our community could be affected by drug and alcohol addiction.
I have worked in several different communities and doing community change work, and I think that it really is amazing to connect with folks who are doing it and energized by it, who are really inspiring to one another and every day do the little things that can make a difference in connecting with youth who might not have a good family home, an environment where somebody cares about them and tells them every day that they're worthwhile, that who they are in this world is important to somebody.
Two-thirds of families are impacted by addiction, and we all have a stake in making sure that we build a community that we want for a safe and prosperous future.