ONDCP Blog

A Story of Recovery and a Message of Father’s Day Thanks

Editor’s Note: In honor of Father's Day, we'll be posting three messages about fatherhood, family, and recovery. This first post comes from Jackson Wiese, who is in recovery and is interning at the National Youth Recovery Foundation. Check back Sunday for a post from Bob, Amy, and Kristy Curry.

I gagged as I threw up again and again. The alcohol was killing me. I was lying on the bathroom floor in my own vomit, unable to move, completely paralyzed. I heard my dogs run to the front door. The door opened and I heard my Dad’s voice. “Move, Boo!  Bad dog!” he screamed. I sighed with relief that someone was there to help me.

 This is what my relationship with my father was like: avoidance, punctuated by moments of trauma. He is no stranger to addiction, but the two decades he spent beating his own disease could not prepare him for a tremendous guilt he felt—the guilt of watching me die from the same disease he was convinced his father had given him. He never said it to me, but I knew. He blamed himself for my descent to rock bottom.  

My dad didn’t say a word as he picked me up and carried me to the couch. He was cracking; my sickness was making him sick, too. The pain in his eyes, the dark circles underneath them, and the drained look on his face told me something that I could not see before. He, like me, was getting dragged into the darkness—this time not by his addiction, but by mine.

The next day after another violent binge, I awoke to my dad crying beside me. “I’m watching you drown in the ocean. And I can’t swim,” is all he said. I was rotting away physically, but I was killing my dad emotionally.

That was then. Now, I’m just shy of four months clean, and I think about how things used to be. I smile a bit, knowing I have made it out of the depths of hell. I smile because I’m beginning to repair a bridge with my father— one which I thought had been burned to ashes.

I am overwhelmed as I try to write a few paragraphs that explain the change in my dad since I entered recovery. As I sat down to write this, I received a text message from him. It was a picture of him on the summit of a mountain with the words “Mt. Quandary. 14,000 ft.”

 At my desk, I took a moment to study the picture, and I was struck by its beauty. Four months ago, my dad wasn’t able to go to work because he was staying at home to watch me, preparing for that moment when he found me dead from an overdose. Now he is climbing mountains—refreshing his soul.

In the photo, his arms are in the air, celebrating the ascent of Mount Quandary. He looks like a new person, bright-eyed and unworried.  He is smiling for the first time in a long time. It’s the picture of a father freed from the fear of losing a son. It’s the picture of a father able to live his own life again.

I made it back to the shore, Dad. We can now walk on the beach together. Happy Father’s Day.

No Shortage of Good Ideas at New Mexico Town Hall Meeting on Combating Substance Use

Yesterday, ONDCP Director Gil Kerlikowske visited Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he participated in a town hall meeting with Rep. Ben Ray Luján, who represents that state’s 3^rd District and serves as 2^nd Vice Chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. The meeting brought together law enforcement officials, youth, treatment providers, prevention specialists, and tribal leaders to discuss the threat of substance abuse and their shared task to confront it.

Participating in the roundtable discussion, which was moderated by  Former Family Court Judge Margaret Kegal, were members of the Santa Fe community, including Dr. Nancy Sanchez from the U.S. Attorney’s Office; Lawrence Medina, Executive Director of the Rio Grande Alcoholism Treatment Program; Lt. Eric Garcia of the New Mexico State Police; former Pueblo Governor Gil Vigil of the Santa Fe Indian School; Jonathan Hale, Chair of the Navajo Nation Health, Education, and Human Service Committee; Moneka Stevens, Program Director for the NM Youth Alliance/NM Forum for Youth Community; and Farmington City Councilman Dan Darnell.

Members of this broad coalition were of one mind on the importance of working together to pursue a public health approach to substance use that ensures timely and adequate care for families, neighbors, military veterans, and children. Participants also emphasized the need to provide opportunities for young people as well as positive anti-drug messaging to counter the steady stream of pro-drug messages in the media.

Insights gained through conversations with people across the spectrum of American society help shape development of the National Drug Control Strategy,the blueprint for drug policy in the United States. Through this continuing dialog, the Strategy becomes truly a national document – reflecting the thoughts, ideas, and hopes of Americans from coast-to-coast, revealing the full scope of our country’s drug threat, and setting a clear course for government action.

Lifting Stigma and Celebrating Recovery at Betty Ford Center

Today I had the privilege of speaking at the Betty Ford Center in Rancho Mirage, California, to treatment and recovery specialists from around the country about the Obama Administration’s support for the vital work they do. I cannot overstate my admiration and appreciation for the efforts of these dedicated professionals to help people in recovery from substance use disorders.

Their work, in fact, aligns precisely with the Obama Administration’s approach to drug policy – a balanced, 21st century strategy that views substance use not as purely a law enforcement matter, but as a complex public health and public safety issue that must be addressed as such. The Administration’s inaugural National Drug Control Strategy, released in 2010, changed the way the Federal Government perceives and responds to the drug problem. In the past, the debate about drug control lurched back and forth as if between two incompatible extremes—drug legalization on one hand and heavy law enforcement on the other. Lost in the argument was the immense value of a policy guided by science and the tenets of mental and behavioral health care. Also neglected in that old-school “either-or” debate were the hundreds of thousands of people in treatment and recovery who are working hard to break free from the grips of substance use and reclaim their lives.

The 2010 Strategy captured the nuances between those stark extremes and, for the first time, brought recovery to the center of national drug control policy. As a further measure of the Administration’s new direction and commitment, it also called for creation of a special team within ONDCP devoted exclusively to recovery issues.

Over the past three years, we have continued on the course set in that first Strategy, tightening our focus on recovery and setting forth clear recovery-oriented goals. These goals include expanding access to recovery support services; identifying and addressing barriers to recovery in the community, and fostering the development of recovery-oriented systems and services. In April, my office released the 2012 National Drug Control Strategy, which outlines an array of innovative and evidence-based health and safety approaches to our Nation’s drug problem, supports alternatives to a law-enforcement-centric “war on drugs,” and gives treatment and recovery the attention they deserve.

The new Strategy also defines 113 specific actions to be undertaken throughout the Federal government to reform U.S. drug policy through innovative and evidence-based public health and safety approaches, which include reviewing laws and regulations that impede recovery from addiction, improving access to drug treatment, and expanding community-based recovery support programs.

Central to the new Strategy is a clear understanding of the nature of addiction. Drug use, of course, begins with personal choice and deliberate action. However, research has shown that the addiction that can come as a consequence of drug-using behavior is a chronic disease that, like many diseases, can be treated – even defeated.

The Betty Ford Center, which opened in 1982, provides treatment and recovery services for alcohol and other drug dependencies and boasts more than 90,000 alumni around the world. It grew out of a dream by its founder, an inspirational leader who was not afraid to break taboos and speak out on issues that affect the lives of millions of people who might otherwise be left in the shadows. It is only fitting that the Center that bears her name should be the setting for our discussion about the important role of recovery in our Nation’s struggle against substance use.

Small Business Week: A Safe Haven for Enterprise

“Small businesses are the anchors of our Main Streets…part of the promise of America – the idea that if you’ve got a dream and you’re willing to work hard, you can succeed…It’s this promise that has drawn millions to our shores and made our economy the envy of the world.”

--President Barack Obama

During Small Business Week, we are highlighting a few examples of small businesses working in prevention, treatment or recovery. Today’s post highlights A Safe Haven, a Chicago-based not-for-profit organization that helps people overcome addiction and transition into sober, productive lives.

For more information about Small Business Week, please visit www.nationalsmallbusinessweek.com, and join in the conversation on Twitter using the hashtag #sbw2012.

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Small businesses are frequently, and rightly, recognized as engines of economic prosperity capable of transforming communities. A Safe Haven is a Chicago-based, not-for-profit organization serving more than 4,000 individuals annually, providing housing, substance use and mental health disorder treatment, training, employment readiness and placement services, educational and life-skills training. Since its establishment in 1994, Safe Haven has developed seven independently incorporated for-profit social business enterprises helping to make that dream a reality for many for whom it might otherwise have been unimaginable.

These businesses are managed and staffed by individuals from A Safe Haven’s 16 sites Chicago-area sites, and are incorporated as subsidiaries of the A Safe Haven Foundation.  They provide living-wage employment opportunities for homeless men and women, veterans, and individuals returning to the community from incarceration. Perhaps even more importantly, the enterprises—which include a pest control business, a landscaping business, culinary arts/catering operations, property management services, housekeeping services, customer service and sales professional services,  and a cosmetic nail care line—provide their employees with an opportunity to develop critical work skills, including business management and leadership.

Neli Vazquez-Rowland, who co-founded A Safe Haven with her husband Brian Rowland and who serves as President of A Safe Haven Foundation, sums it up: “We want to show the world that we help people overcome crisis and re-enter the employment market—these individuals are now supporting themselves, taking care of their families, paying taxes, and contributing to their communities. There’s a huge return on investment for helping people in crisis get back on their own two feet.”  Neli and Brian, who both worked in the financial services industry before founding A Safe Haven, make return on investment a primary focus. Their top organizational priority is ensuring that taxpayers, corporate funders, and those they serve achieve a solid return on investment.

Bianca, a 53-year-old A Safe Haven resident, is a perfect example of the organization’s success in combining social service delivery with business development. She started using heroin at age 17, and by the time she found her way to A Safe Haven, she had been arrested more than 120 times and imprisoned seven times.  Through her work with A Safe Haven, Bianca has been able to address her substance use problem, which was at the root of her criminal behavior. That has allowed her to find a living-wage job in one of the A Safe Haven social business enterprises.  She is now a tax-paying member of her community, has reunited with her children and family, and serves as a volunteer helping others overcome addiction. A video of her inspirational story is below:

A Safe Haven provides a solid return on investment for taxpayers, corporate funders, and the individuals, families, and communities it serves, and we’re proud to highlight it as part of National Small Business Week.