Cloverdale hosts leadership symposium addressing opioid use

Monday, August 6, 2018

CLOVERDALE -- In the last of four meetings which addressed the ongoing opioid epidemic in rural Indiana, health professionals from across the state converged in the C-Bar-C Expo Center in Cloverdale to discuss how to confront it.

Hosted by the Indiana Rural Health Association (IRHA) and AgrIIstitute, the Opioid Symposium was focused on “illumination” about opioid use, and how to inspire serious discussions and solutions in small communities.

Two symposiums were recently hosted in Wabash and Daviess counties. A third was previously scheduled in White County, but was canceled.

The symposium in Cloverdale invited officials and community leaders at both the state and local levels to share perspectives about how opioid addiction impacts the local economy and the safety of Hoosiers.

Kevin Moore, director of the Division of Mental Health and Addiction for the State of Indiana, gave an overview of the opioid epidemic in the state.

“The opioid crisis is felt by many,” Moore began, “in all ages and backgrounds, regardless of race, orientation or gender.”

Kevin Moore

Moore, himself a Cloverdale native, provided that drug overdoses, including but not limited to opioid use, account as the leading cause of death for those under 50 years old. Adding to that, rural areas in general are much more impacted by opioid use than urban ones.

He then began to expand upon the root causes of the epidemic, which has been a growing issue since the 1990s.

“The crisis as we understand it today began with the over-prescription of pain medications,” Moore said. As those prescribed medications became more difficult to obtain, more and more individuals began looking for substitutes.

According to Moore, the epidemic swept into southern Indiana in a wave from the Appalachia region of the eastern United States, which connotes how opioids have especially prevailed in rural communities.

Moore then laid down a key theme of the symposium, which is that addiction is where the fight against the crisis lies.

“We have to address addiction across the spectrum,” he said. “There are many factors that go into how a person becomes addicted to opioids, and no one process works for everyone.”

Moore further explained that half of employers in the state report issues with productivity and safety to the Indiana Chamber of Commerce due to employees becoming addicted.

He also provided a sobering statistic, stating that 100 percent of people who abused drugs like opioids reported trying to commit suicide in the last year.

Moore ended by emphasizing the importance of medication like Naloxone to treat narcotic overdoses, as well as contributing to initiatives to support recovering addicts. He also acknowledged that more had to be done to emphasize prevention efforts, especially in schools.

Similar points were encouraged by Rochelle Owen, who is director of community programs for the Indiana Rural Development agency under the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).

She began her presentation by introducing the concept of “Skittles parties,” where teenagers get together to “taste” random prescription drugs taken from their own medicine cabinets.

Owen said that this trend is an example of how pervasive drug abuse has become in the culture of American teenagers, and how important efforts are to discourage drug abuse in school programs. With that, she also reiterated that the stigma surrounding drug addiction has to be mitigated.

Rochelle Owen

“We can’t arrest or treat our way out,” she said.

Owen’s perspective in community development encompassed promoting recovery from drug addiction. She said that there has to be commitment to help recovering addicts safely integrate into the community.

Owen emphasized a need for recovery residences, similar to what is proposed in converting the former Ivy Trace assisted living facility into a drug and alcohol treatment center. She expanded this need further into creating “recovery residence districts.” These would be similar to fire districts which are responsible for their specific service area, and which would depend on support from the community.

Owen acknowledged that these initiatives would require monetary as well as developmental support. She provided that the USDA is open to renovating unused or abandoned buildings to house those who are recovering from addiction.

“Do you want them inside recovery or outside where they can abuse?,” Owen asked the audience.

That question would segue into the perspective given by Larry Blue, president of the Indiana Affiliation of Recovery Residences (INARR).

Blue, who said that his own drug addiction led to nine arrests and four felony convictions, believed that the status quo addressing drug addiction needs to change.

“Addiction is not about the drug,” Blue said. “It’s really about the recovery process to abate that addiction.”

Blue described the process of addiction, incarceration and hoped-for recovery as a “rinse-and-repeat” process, where he says it is obvious that the same program does not work for everyone.

“The same box is the one we’re putting people in the ground with,” he said. “It’s a process of rubber stamps. You put a rubber stamp on this program, you have a relapse; and it goes on.”

Blue also addressed the stigma around drug addiction, and took issue with the idea that addiction is a choice, and then a moral failing on the individual’s part.

“It’s a choice at the beginning,” Blue adamantly said, “but once it becomes addiction, it becomes a deep physiological issue that needs rigorous and continued support.”

Blue emphasized that he is a recovering addict who has been clean for the last 17 years. He has appeared on programs like the “700 Club” and told how his addiction was fed by abuse, and how a renewed faith in God helped him keep his focus on recovery.

Larry Blue

He has used that focus to advocate for establishing recovery residences in communities across Indiana, and to ensure that standards for accountability and safety are met.

Blue finally provided that successful recovery residences need three elements to make a difference. He said that completely drug and alcohol-free environments, time and community support go a long way when integrated together.

“Again, would you rather have them getting help inside or abusing outside,” Blue reiterated.

Speaking more to the rural element of the opioid epidemic, Beth Archer, executive director of AgrIInstitute, which focuses on leadership in agricultural communities, said farmers are especially impacted.

“It is a mental health issue,” Archer said. “74 percent of farmers are affected by this issue, whether it be because of a loss in productivity or because of stress.”

To that, Archer alluded that opioid addiction is connected with the difficulties and uncertainty that farmers face to maintain their livelihoods. The problem, she suggested, becomes a bigger economic question, as well as a greater political one.

This suggests that the opioid crisis is a complex issue that demands cooperation between government and community leaders, as well as understanding and transparency with regard to the issue of recovery.

Respond to this story

Posting a comment requires free registration: