September is recovery month. We sat down with a CHCSEK patient going through addiction treatment along with two members of the addiction treatment team, to get an insight into her journey.
Summer has always been someone to help others, starting when she was a child assisting her family in taking care of her sister who has cerebral palsy. As an adult, she works as a direct service worker for a man who is quadriplegic. She helps with his daily needs, cooks for him, and even helps his daughters as needed.
She sees Peer Support Specialist Melba Marsh and Licensed Addiction Counselor Holly Engelbrecht. Both are also in recovery. To be a peer support specialist, you must be in recovery.
“Because I’m just like them, the only difference between me and the client sitting in my office maybe is the last time that we used something or drank something,” Melba says. “I haven’t had anything for 10 years and they might’ve used yesterday or the day before or last week or whenever. But I let them know that I’m still just like them. That’s the only difference between us.”
For Melba, being a peer support specialist isn’t just a job.
“You know when they say when you have a job you love you never work another day in your life, that’s where I’m at. People helped me to get to where I am in recovery, and I want to help someone else get to where I am in their recovery,” she says.
And Holly, she went to become an addiction counselor years after she began recovery. She has been in recovery for 35 years.
“Part of recovery no matter what part you take, it’s important to give back to other people who are struggling with addiction,” Holly says. “I am grateful every day, even if I can just help one person find their way and find a better life than they’ve had in their addiction then I feel like I have been successful. I think one of the things that people need to understand about addiction is that it’s not a straight path. Let people know they are not bad; they have an addiction and disease and that it takes daily work to grow in your recovery.”
In addition to having peer support and a counselor, Summer participates in Medication Assisted Treatment (MAT), which provides medication to reduce the physical symptoms of detoxification.
Summer has had several life challenges, and she’s shared them with Melba and Holly. Life got particularly difficult following her mother’s diagnosis of cancer. Summer became her mother’s caretaker, then she too later became ill.
“I was taking care of her, but I was also working for my client, helping him do his daily stuff and then I have to come home and do my mom’s,” Summer says. “I ended up getting deathly ill and had a near-death experience and emergency that took me out of work and being able to care for my mom for a long time. And that’s when things started getting out of hand. And then she passed, and it was even worse after that. I was ready to get the help, and I knew I needed the help. It’s just something that’s really hard for people to admit and I think that I am my own worst critic and own worst enemy at times, and I recognize that. And so, I was like ya I gotta do something and I’m glad I did.”
Screening tools are used to determine what level of treatment the patient qualifies for.
“Once I’ve established with a patient, my job is to make a treatment plan with them, set goals, interventions for them to be successful in their recovery,” Holly says. “It looks different for every patient.”
Overdoses in the southeast Kansas area have increased significantly, with Cherokee and Crawford Counties being the highest counties for potential overdose.
“When I was going to school 12-13 years ago, meth was referred to as an epidemic which hadn’t really occurred in the addiction field for a while and it still continues to be 10-15 years later a huge problem in this area,” Holly says, adding, “Teenage vaping has increased significantly, so that’s a concern that we have in this field. We also have marijuana use, which has always been, in my opinion as a counselor, something that has been hard to deal with patients because of how it is viewed so differently from all of the other chemicals people can use. That has only been impeded by it becoming legalized in a lot of the surrounding states which has caused it to increase in our state. That’s given us another barrier for us to work through.”
The members of the addiction treatment program are working toward de-stigmatizing addiction treatment and helping remove some of the barriers for patients, such as transportation by utilizing telehealth.
“It’s been a little over two years. And I’m doing really well,” Summer says. “I’ve met all of my goals counseling, living on my own, having a car, having a full-time job, all of that I was able to get all of that back and I wouldn’t change it for anything. And I have grandchildren so now that’s a lot of fun. A lot of fun with the grandkids. So ya, my life’s good now.”