First two of three Town Hall meetings held in Spink County hone in on the importance of accountability in fighting addiction
By Shiloh Appel
On Monday, March 12th and Tuesday, March 13th, 2018, thousands of dollars in grant money were put to good use as the first two of three Town Hall meetings, organized by the Spink County Coalition, took place in Spink County. The importance of accountability was a reoccurring message among speakers.
The first Town Hall meeting of the year confronting methamphetamine, opioids and underage drinking was held at the N.W. United Methodist Church in Mellette (on March 12th). A crowd of 80 filled the building as citizens listened to the personal testimonies of Steph and Elby (surnames omitted to protect privacy) and a message by Dawn Oakley of the CMH Clinic in Redfield. A video presentation of an underage drinking party scenario created by Redfield Students Against Destructive Decisions was also shown to those in attendance. Hailie Stuck, Jackson Mielke and Samantha Ruth gave an oratory at the close of the video presentation, calling on all parents to help stop underage drinking. Shane Croeni and Kathy Adams rounded out the meeting with stories on what they have seen concerning drug and opioid use in Spink County. They also shared statistics and signs to watch out for. The evening came to a close with a time for questions and answers.
In the Redfield Town Hall meeting held on March 13th at Our Savior's Lutheran Church, 100 members of the community were present. Although attendance was down from last year's 140, community members seemed very attentive to the speakers' presentations.
This year, Deb (surname omitted to protect privacy) gave a presentation on how her son's drug use has affected her. She highlighted what she has learned.
"My desire, more than anything, is to convey the importance of community, what addiction does, and people and parents caring enough to seek help," said Deb."…I may be simplistic in my thinking or extremely old-fashioned, but we as a community living in the same place also have a 'particular characteristic in common' and that, I believe, is the care and welfare of our young people and secondly, for the general concern of all people. It is when we lose either of these that we cease to be a community."
Deb went on to tell her personal story. Her journey began when she had to make a choice after finding a pipe in her son's pocket while he was in high school.
"I ended up taking [him] to court, getting him put on CHINS (Child in Need of Supervision) and having a court appointed counselor come into our home," she said. "At first, it wasn't pretty…but as a single parent, I appreciated all the support. It was a comfort to have a team of people from law enforcement, to the judge, to the supervision ladies, to the court appointed counselor, et cetra. It was reassuring to have other people involved in [his] life that cared and that [he] could see cared."
Even after high school, Deb said that it was a long road. Today, her son has just completed a 30-day treatment program and is at an extended program in another state that involves farm work, essentially raising crops and livestock to help feed thousands of homeless and those in need. She talked highly of the importance of accountability.
"Accountability and responsibility are tough subjects these days. I think this is hard because to have accountability and responsibility involving others will definitely impede on one's privacy," said Deb. "…I didn't have generational pressures to deal with, but if I did, I would hope I still would have chosen to give up whatever fears I had in order to get help for my child."
Josh, a founder of Narcotics Anonymous in Redfield (surname omitted to protect privacy), shared his own journey from addiction to sobriety and also reiterated the importance of accountability. After growing up surrounded by family members involved in lifestyles of addiction, Josh went through his elementary and high school years determined to never drink or do drugs. He was a four-star athlete and a model student.
"I got to college and that is where things kind of took a turn for me. I started drinking consistently. Recreation drugs. You name it, I probably did it. And right after that, things spiraled out of control pretty quick," said Josh. "I have got an addictive personality, so anything I do I do one hundred and ten percent. Wether it is work, wether it is donuts. You name it. That is what I want. I want to go the fullest, the hardest. I want to be successful, so I push hard for everything."
While Josh devoted more and more of his time to alcohol and drugs, he said that deaths and suicides occurred in his family. He dropped out of college. He depended on drinking and abusing drugs to dull the sting of reality.
"It wears on a person…for whatever reason, when you are in that state of mind, it grasps you and puts you in that mindset that that is what is going to make you feel better. It is an oxymoron," said Josh. "So I hung on to that for five or six years. The last two years before I decided to get sober, in my middle-20's, I tried cocaine, methamphetamine..recreationally, to start with. I am one of the lucky and thankful that I wasn't arrested. I wasn't dealing. And that didn't make it any better or worse.What happened was, I was newly married and I had a son and I decided that I didn't want him to be raised the way I was. So, call it an epiphany, call it what you will — I decided to go out and seek treatment for myself. And, luckily, I am one of the five out of the 45... because every single person that I went to treatment with is not sober today. This May I will be sober 11 years."
Josh said that quitting the lifestyle required work and paying attention to the details of his day.
"I have to make sure I am watching what I eat and knowing when I go to sleep. All of these little things. That might be analytical, but your personality, your mood and all of those things play a part in that," he said. "I found a gentleman that was 72 years old in the program for 44 years and I clung onto him. He was a really nice guy. He made you work for it. He made you know that you were important, but he kept you accountable. That was the big thing. Accountability. 'Where are you, what are you doing?' [He would say] 'You are going to go volunteer at the food shelf, you are going to do all of these things'… He told me if I did [everything] he told me to do, I would stay sober. And I did."
Josh said that the Redfield Narcotics Anonymous group seeks to be a place where those caught in addiction can talk freely and walk through life lessons with others.
"A lot of that is just a therapy session with others to get things off their chest so it doesn't bother them or drive them to use again. That is the simplest way I can put it," he said. "The most important thing is that it is to hold each other accountable. I think that one of the many things we can do [to help those caught in the lifestyle] is to try to get people to realize that there is a place out there for them. There is somewhere where they can go and be welcomed and not be shamed or looked down on because they are an addict or an alcoholic. We need to get the word out. We need to get more people involved. We need to get them to come and show up and share and see that it is not to call someone out or to go find out who their dealer is or who their acquaintances were and things like that….To see the results coming from it, that has been really rewarding."
Shane Croeni, Kathy Adams and Dawn Oakley also spoke at the Redfield Town Hall meeting and the Redfield SADD students again presented the underage drinking video. Redfield SADD members Marcus Johnson, Mercedes Yada, Trinity Higer and Macy Fliehe petitioned parents to help stop underage drinking at the end of their video.
