Addressing substance use disorder recovery following community criticism

Mar. 22—Organizations in Beckley that aid people in recovery from substance use disorder say they were stunned by the negative response coming from parts of the community to a new recovery initiative called Inclusive Recovery City.

Jay Phillips, the executive director of Seed Sower, a recovery housing program, said many of the opposing views were based on false assumptions influenced by the harmful stigmas surrounding addiction, treatment and recovery.

In looking to address these concerns, The Register-Herald sat down with Phillips, who championed bringing the Inclusive Recovery City concept to Beckley, and spoke via video conference with David Best, a psychologist in England who specializes in addiction recovery and helped conceive the model for the Inclusive Recovery City program.

Best is a professor of Addiction Recovery at Leeds Trinity University in the U.K. and president of the Recovery Research Institute in Florida. He has more than 200 peer-reviewed publications, many of which involve substance use disorder and recovery, and has a master's in criminology.

Best said the basis for Inclusive Recovery City came from the understanding that recovery does not occur in a vacuum.

"We know that when somebody goes into recovery, it has an effect on their partner, their parents, their children, and it was really important we captured that," Best said. "So we started thinking about the long-term beneficial effects of recovery as a kind of group inclusive concept."

With the aid of other colleagues with a background in the field, Best published a paper in 2018 in an academic journal that highlighted the positive and negative impacts that a community can have on a person in recovery.

It also touched on the potential benefits a city could see should it choose to create an environment that supports people in active recovery from substance use disorder.

This concept was used as the basis for the Inclusive Recovery City program.

As stated in the article, "The central idea in an Inclusive City, is that no one should walk the recovery path alone. Several members of the city — the city council, public and private organisations, employers, landlords and neighbours — work together with the recovering individuals to promote their recovery process. The general aim of Inclusive Cities is to make recovery visible, to celebrate it and to create a safe environment supportive to recovery."

It went on to state that this inclusive environment gives those in recovery the desire and incentive to reciprocate that community support through active employment which boosts the local economy and participation in community public service events.

"This isn't just about people overcoming their own demons and challenges," Best said. "This is about ensuring that recovery becomes a force for good in communities and a force for strength."

Thus far, 26 cities across Europe, the Balkans, South Africa, New Zealand, and Australia have signed charters committing to supporting and carrying out the Inclusive Recovery City initiative.

Beckley was to have been the first Inclusive Recovery City in the U.S.

Best said the negative response expressed by some in Beckley to the Inclusive Recovery City model was surprising considering all the programs in the area that already operated with these ideas in mind.

----One of the concerns expressed by those opposing Beckley's involvement in the program was that it would attract more people with substance use disorder to the area.

Best said this is not the aim of Inclusive Recovery Cities, nor has it ever happened.

"I was really surprised to hear that because in not one of the other places that we've set up Inclusive Recovery Cities has that ever been expressed as a concern, nor has it ever happened ... no one's ever come back to us and said, 'Suddenly we've had an influx of people with addiction problems suddenly streaming into our cities for recovery housing or recovering communities'," he said. "It's such an unlikely thing to happen."

He added that the Inclusive Recovery City model is not designed to draw outside people but to support those already in the community.

"The whole idea of a recovery community is people would get well, and in the community they got ill in, and then give back to those communities as part of their recovery journey," Best said. "We wouldn't be expecting, we wouldn't want, we wouldn't encourage migration as part of the recovery process."

Phillips said the Inclusive Recovery City program was not about introducing something wholly new or radical but instead celebrating and highlighting the existing programs in the city within the field of recovery.

"The designation was really just to publicly acknowledge and celebrate work that has already been going on through multiple partners in this community across a broad spectrum, and that work is going to continue," he said.

----Phillips said community partners are an integral part of services provided to residents staying in recovery housing through Seed Sower.

One of its most recognizable partners is Fruits of Labor, which provides a culinary training program to people in recovery at one of its many locations, including downtown Beckley.

Participants in Fruits of Labor's training program receive a set wage paid for through a federally funded program distributed by WorkForce West Virginia, which Phillips said is yet another long-standing community partner in recovery in the area.

Phillips said it was "absolutely heartbreaking" to watch members of the public oppose an initiative that, at its core, was already being implemented in Beckley.

He said the issue of Beckley being named an Inclusive Recovery City was "unnecessarily contentious" and "floored all of our partners in the initiative."

"Everyone that I speak with, and all of the partners that we have engaged with — educational institutions, the criminal justice system right here in Beckley, grassroots organizations, other organizations we partner with — nobody was concerned about this," Phillips said.

"Everyone thought this was a no-brainer. And I think a fundamental misunderstanding of what it was meant to be created a firestorm that largely got just kind of spun out of control and caught us completely off guard."

He added that the Inclusive Recovery City program is meant to prevent the stigmatization of people in recovery through education and community engagement events, but unfortunately, those very stigmas were the reason the program received opposition.

----It's well-known that the opioid epidemic has heavily impacted West Virginia for many years.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported more than 100,000 drug overdose deaths in 2021, with West Virginia leading the nation in the rate of drug overdose deaths with roughly 1,500 drug overdoses.

The counties with the highest number of drug overdose deaths in West Virginia in 2021 were Kanawha, Cabell and Raleigh.

Despite an apparent problem, Best said he believes some of the pushback to the program was derived from fear and misinformation, which is not unique to West Virginia or the United States.

According to a survey of several U.K. households conducted by the UK Drug Policy Commission in 2010, which Best references in his Inclusive City article, people recognize the importance of community support in recovery programs but do not necessarily want to have to live beside someone in recovery.

Best said it's that kind of mindset that becomes a barrier to people in recovery because it incorrectly promotes the belief that treatment doesn't work and that people can't change.

He said this can cause people to avoid treatment and recovery services because they become embarrassed to seek help for fear of shame and judgment.

"That's what this initiative is about, to make the pathways out visible, and to do so requires some kind of level of public engagement, some kind of overcoming of that sense of 'Don't live next door to me, don't work beside me' because otherwise, no matter what endeavors the person themselves make, societies and communities block them," Best said.

"We know, for instance, that if people can manage five years of continuous sobriety, roughly 75% of them will be in full-time employment, and roughly 79% will be actively contributing to the local community. In other words, they are not just no longer a burden to the community, they actively contribute to it."

----Given the negative response from some community members regarding Beckley's potential involvement in the Inclusive Recovery City initiative, which the city is no longer pursuing, Phillips said it's clear there is a need for more awareness and community engagement on the topic of recovery.

"We're going to plan more community outreach events, not in the hopes of trying to convince people to accept a label or to sign a charter, but to have meaningful conversations to raise awareness about addiction and recovery and the positive benefits of getting the community involved," Phillips said. "No one's coming to save us from this issue.

"The solution to addiction is at the community level. It's in the neighborhoods, in the homes, and the families and the organizations that help people discover a life they can bear to be present in."

Phillips said he would like to plan community events in the future but wants to wait until some of the tension and anger surrounding the issue has subsided.

In the meantime, he said many in the community, on either side of the issue, have reached out to him directly asking questions about his organization and others involved in the field of substance use disorder and recovery.

Phillips said anyone with questions or concerns can reach him at jay@seedsowerinc.org.

Email: jmoore@register-herald.com