Interview with an Advocate
Only through personal advocacy and involvement can we truly make a difference. Luckily, decent, altruistic people work within the current system to effect change. Karen Jolly is an advocate in the Colorado community. She is the founder and a board member of the nonprofit Dismas Houses, a transitional home for recovering addicts located in Colorado Springs. Her voice needs to be heard in our present cultural climate.
Locke: Why did you found Dismas Houses?
Karen: There’s a serious need in Colorado Springs for additional transitional homes for individuals in recovery. However, it wasn’t anything on my radar or anything I had planned to do. I believe I received a calling by my higher power. I worked with other individuals, and before we knew it, our first house was opened.
Locke: What is Dismas Houses, and whom do you serve?
Karen: Dismas Houses is a faith-based transitional home for men in recovery from addiction. We serve alcoholics, addicts, former prisoners, and individuals on parole and probation. We assist our residents with successful reintegration into the community.
Locke: How does Dismas Houses work with the residents at your facility?
Karen: Dismas Houses is first and foremost a faith-based program emphasizing the residents’ relationship with a higher power. Programming includes self-sufficiency training, which may entail furthering their education, life-skills enhancements, employment counseling, and reunification with family members.
Locke: What makes your approach unique?
Karen: It’s faith-based. We believe that spirituality is the foundation for recovery. We combine faith-based philosophies with 12-Step programs such as Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous.
Locke: In your opinion, do the current laws cause residents reestablishing themselves difficulties?
Karen: Laws are in place for the common good. However, there are penalties for those who choose not to follow the law. The consequences may include jail time, education of some sort, therapy, and personal action that may be perceived as obstacles by individuals. The consequences may also be perceived as opportunities for personal growth. It just depends upon the individual.
Locke: What kinds of classes do your residents often take?
Karen: They take classes like Relapse Prevention, Substance Abuse Treatments, Trauma Therapy, Early Recovery Skills, and Family Education. The courses are offered by several agencies in town. Although the requirements may be mandated by individual circumstances, the residents typically can select where they want to go to meet the requirements.
Locke: Do you believe labels affect the public conception of addiction?
Karen: Yes. In general, the word “alcoholic” or “addict” creates the picture of the street addict who lives under the bridge and begs on the corner. There is a broad misconception that addiction is a moral issue that can be resolved with a little will-power.
Addiction is a disease no different from diabetes or cancer. It is not a moral issue. Gone untreated, it is fatal. The disease knows no socio-economic boundaries. There’s little thought of the professional who is abusing prescription drugs or the functioning alcoholic who has a six figure income. These addicts are not visible to the general public, and therefore, not considered.
Locke: These “invisible” addicts go unnoticed, but are they treated?
Karen: Recovery looks different for every individual. The invisible addicts are not the ones who live in transitional housing because they have other resources. Something often happens in their lives, something that forces them to look at their addictive behavior, and they often turn to privately run rehabilitation facilities. They are treated, but it just looks different.
Locke: Do you believe addiction is caused by society?
Karen: It’s not a societal cause. Again, addiction is a disease, not a moral issue. Society doesn’t cause the disease, but it may perpetuate it because of the stigma associated with it.
Locke: Do you think we can address and prevent addiction in the population at large?
Karen: I don’t believe that addiction is preventable because it’s a disease. You either have it or you don’t. However, early education and addressing stressors in lifestyle can certainly impact the disease. If youth and young adults are taught different coping mechanisms for dealing with discomfort, they are less likely to fall into cycles of self-medication to block undesirable feelings, reducing the probability of full-blown addiction.
Locke: Since addiction can be dealt with by mental awareness and training, how can such training be implemented into our current system?
Karen: Early education is partially the answer. We need to educate middle and high school students about a different way of thinking. We need to teach kids about the twelve steps and how they can apply those steps to their lives without the presence of alcohol or any other substance (food, sex, spending, gambling, drugs, videogames, etc.) to which they may become addicted.
We need to teach our young people how to address their feelings without masking them through substance abuse. We need to teach them about a relationship with a higher power and the unconditional love that the higher power has for each individual. The higher power could be Mother Earth, Buddha, the Christian God, a Hindu god, Allah, or any other personally meaningful concept.
We ask our higher power to restore our sanity, but we have to be willing to turn our lives and our will over to that higher power.
Locke: At this point in the interview, Karen pulled out her copy of Alcoholics Anonymous, her copy of the Big Book. She quoted from Chapter 5, “How it Works.”
Karen’s quote from the text: “Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path. Those who do not recover are people who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program, usually men and women who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves. There are such unfortunates. They are not at fault; they seem to have been born that way. They are naturally incapable of grasping and developing a manner of living which demands rigorous honesty.”
Karen: This is a simple program, but no one said it was easy.
Locke: We live in a society that promotes instant gratification. Do you believe that consumerism contributes to the prevalence of addiction in our society at large?
Karen: It’s not consumerism as much as it is escapism. As human beings, we don’t like feeling discomfort or pain, and we will go to any lengths to avoid it. However, those who suffer from untreated addiction have no effective method for dealing with the pain.
Our society teaches us that we can instantly remove all discomfort with the click of a button, a shot of whiskey, or a pill. Nothing lasts forever, and that includes pain or discomfort. When we learn to sit in the moment and be with the pain, the pain eventually passes, and the result is growth. We have to be patient and wait for the discomfort to pass. While it’s often easier to escape the pain rather than experience it, personal growth seldom comes from escape. The reward for patience is much greater than the reward for instant gratification.
Here’s the bottom line: acceptance is the answer to all issues for all individuals, addiction or no addiction. Those who do not suffer from addiction just get to acceptance more quickly.
Locke: What do you think the community at large can do to assist the goals of Dismas Houses and similar facilities?
Karen: The perception of addiction as a moral issue must be addressed. Addiction is a disease. The individuals who suffer from addiction didn’t ask for it any more than a cancer patient would ask for cancer. Increased general education about addiction will assist in changing the perception of addiction. I encourage all members of society to get involved with the recovery community whether it is through direct service, donations, or education. The more open and welcoming the community is toward these people suffering from addiction, the more likely the addict will be to get into recovery and stay in recovery.
To learn more about Dismas Houses, please visit http://www.dismashouses.org
Sober houses are far from actual reality for most addicts because most don’t recover. These types of programs are an option available to very few. At best an addict comes to terms with the addiction and “slows down,” switching from hard liquor to beer, from shooting every day to going clean for intermittent months at a time, etc. Or they just continue using until something falls apart. No one can stop them. It’s a battle with the self.
That being said, I think the Dismas House really has the right idea. When people are ready to will themselves towards recovery, it’s important to have someone there to back them. The program’s emphasis on teaching the clients how to be self-reliant and cope with adulthood are key components to sobriety. I have read a few articles that argue the higher power thing may seem applicable to those willing to accept this system of beliefs. But the effects of believing in a higher power can wear off quickly if this isn’t a system that someone’s used to. In other words, if someone feels alone in life, he or she should learn how to recover alone. For the effects to be permanent, that is. Depending on someone’s culture and background experience, it may be more important to focus on being self reliant. A client’s road to recovery could depend upon it. What works for one doesn’t work for all.
I completely agree. You cannot help people who do not help themselves, so candidates are few and far between.
On the other hand, I’m riding the fence on what to think regarding the value or lack thereof of a higher power. As a non-believer, I agree that it could be a temporary fix and in some cases even a deterrant. Still, when people are hitting rock bottom, sometimes having faith in something greater can be the key to salvation.
Being an alcoholic myself, I can appreciate the struggles and tribulations that Karen and her clients must endure while seeking a transition to a substance and addiction-free life. In 2008 I received two DUIs back-to-back, and navigating through the court system was an overwhelming and daunting challenge.
Funding and time constraints opened a window of opportunity, and in addition to Drivers’ Education and DUI Therapy I participated in Relapse Prevention, Early Recovery Skills, Feeling Management and Life Skills at the agency I had decided to work with in order to satisfy the court and DMV requirements. After completing my court-ordered obligations, I moved to Denver where my addiction to alcohol was waiting for me, and it was this (final) bout with alcohol nearly killed me, and my parents were gracious enough to allow me back in their home with the understanding that I would move into a sober-living house ASAP.
To establish credibility and demonstrate my commitment to sobriety, I returned to that same agency and again participated in the aforementioned classes, albeit at my own volition. Unemployed, I was able to secure funding from the Access To Recovery (ATR) grant to pay for a sober-living residence for 90 days. I then called the sober-living houses in the area and disclosed this source of funding, and judging from their resonses I was compelled to believe they all had experience dealing with the grant and the necessary steps to take in order to secure funding on my behalf.
I advised the intake-coordinators at these homes that I was currently taking medication (including insulin) for diabetic and diabetic-related issues along with meds for other minor maladies, but was advised I could not move into a sober-living residence, as all those medications might serve as a “trigger” to other recovering addicts. I tried to convince them that I could leave my meds at my parents’ house, but this did not persuade them. I didn’t put two-and-two together until I heard from several of my co-”addicts,” most of whom had received the same grant that I did.
Dealing with the federal government is a long, drawn out process, and apparently these sober houses had an excruciating wait for the funds to be disbursed, and in the meantime, if a potential client showed up on the doorstep with cash, a client who relied on the grant would be dismissed from the house. I applaud Karen’s dedication but am now aware that money is a motivating factor for several sober-houses rather than the welfare of their clients.
Karen’s observation that addiction is not about “consumerism as much as it is escapism” struck me as being especially perceptive. Surely, coping with pain avoidance is at the heart of addiction, but would this then imply that addiction might not be a disease? Could it merely be the consequence of fear and a low pain threshold? I wonder how she would respond to this.
Warren, I would like to comment on your interpretation of Karen’s observation that addiction is not about “consumerism as much as it is escapism” and the implication that addiction may not be a disease. The statement is not only correct and valid, but covers a broad spectrum in that any addiction would qualify for classification by the statement, but it may need clarification to be understood in its true context. That clarification is very simple: the start of any addiction may have its roots in consumerism, in fact that may be the norm rather than the exception. At some point, the body of an addict goes throught a physical transformation and being a “consumerist” morphs into being an addict as his body now requires the substance in order to function normally. It is very important that the addict’s loved ones be involved in with their recovery, but that is effective only if the loved ones understand the disease of addiction. The AMA definition of addiction can be found here: http://www.ama-assn.org/resources/doc/alcohol/alcoholism_treatable.pdf.
Just a thought-Where is the line between entertainment and addition? Anything (and I mean anything!) can be addictive-Food, exercise, drugs, the internet, sex, sugar, anything. But why is it that for some, a substance (chocolate, Marijuana) is a harmless, recreational activity with no bearing on their life other than occasional enjoyment, while for others that substance or activity takes over, becoming self-destructive and difficult to escape. Certainly some ‘hard drugs’ are physically addictive (like tobacco), but what about cycling, or that third Big Mac? Why are they potentially addictive, and where is the line drawn between healthy consumption, and unhealthy, self-destructive obsessions?
I’d propose it becomes an addiction when the desire becomes mentally or physically uncomfortable. When the desire becomes extremely difficult to resist. Of course, the question here would again be “where is THIS line drawn?” I’d say if your actions are negatively affecting your life, or if your immediate happiness depends on that specific desire. When something optional feels like a need.
As Karen mentions in this interview, people are born with different propensities to addiction. So this is more a matter of understanding yourself, your limits, your condition in general. Understand where to draw your own lines.
I would be interested in hearing Karen’s opinion as someone who works closley with addicts on what she thinks about the legalization of marijuanna.
The perception of addiction as moral is definitely trouble. Some people are just more predisposed to becoming addicted to certain substances or activities. For example, the large majority of my dad’s side of the family smokes. And my uncle on my dad’s side described every cigarette he smoked as heavenly. He and many others on that side of the family started smoking at around age 12 or 13. They truly like smoking on that side, whereas when I tried it a few times, I didn’t see the appeal at all. That must have come from my mother’s side, which hardly smokes at all.