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Recovery in the News
SMRC aims to ‘change the face of recovery’
New organization will attempt to build bridge between recovery and support
Tanner Kent
The Free Press
June 27, 2010
MANKATO — The very first day the Southern Minnesota Recovery Connection hooked up its phone lines, Greg Bloodgood received a call.
On the other end of the line was a voice, scared and nervous, saying he desperately needed a job now that he was out of treatment. Bloodgood, the director of the newly formed SMRC, referred him to a local work force center and gave him a personal contact at that office.
A few days later, Bloodgood followed up. And this time, the voice on the other end of the line, he said, was full of conviction. The man had been offered a job and was planning to go back to college.
“Now, he’s too busy to talk to me,” Bloodgood said.
Such connections represent the ultimate goal of SMRC, which hosted an open house last week and is funded by a grant from the Minnesota Department of Human Services. It is one of two such organizations in the state being funded on a year-and-a-half basis and monitored as a possible model to be adopted statewide.
The organization is based on the premise that addiction is a chronic condition. That is, that addiction is an illness that must be treated continually over time. Its stated mission is to “mobilize resources within and outside the recovery community to increase long-term recovery from alcohol and drug addictions.”
Traditional treatment options — such as recovery centers and support meetings — have their purpose, Bloodgood said, but recovering addicts need to find further support services in their own communities.
SMRC, he said, will provide trained recovery coaches, as well as service referrals, community outreach events and telephone-based recovery support. He said the organization already is completing a database of area services and will hold its first training for recovery coaches in the coming months.
Organization officials will make monthly presentations at the handful of adult and juvenile recovery centers in the area and plans are in place to develop transportation and child-care programs to help addicts attend support meetings and secure the help they need.
“As more research surfaces, we are finding that treatment is a good beginning,” Bloodgood said, “but it’s only a beginning.
“We want to bridge people from recovery to the community.”
Anne Fletcher, who authored the widely acclaimed “Sober For Good,” which documents more than 200 people who overcame alcohol problems in a variety of ways — some of them without treatment or traditional supports — was among the dozens to attend the SMRC open house.
She said she agreed with SMRC’s premise that treatment is only the beginning of recovery and that often family members and friends mistakenly believe an addict is “fixed” when they return from treatment. Furthermore, she said the wide continuum of drug and alcohol problems — from so-called functioning addicts to the most severe cases — naturally require a wide variety of treatment and support options.
“When someone has a problem,” said Fletcher, who is working on a second book about addiction treatment, “they often feel alone and don’t know where to turn.
“This (organization) might be that first step.”
Bloodgood is himself a recovering addict who left treatment in 1979 to become a licensed drug and alcohol counselor. He has worked with juveniles and adults, and in both outpatient and inpatient recovery centers.
He tells horror stories about those who have become hopelessly depressed by their cyclical struggle with drugs, are left jobless and friendless as they attempt to stay sober, and take their own lives. He knows of far too many addicts who “are in a fog,” spending their lives on the streets or in a jail cell.
Bloodgood said he hopes to build confidence in those who are recovering, and reform the social stigmas that exist with employers and communities about such individuals.
“We want to build strength and resiliency,” he said. “We want to change the face of recovery.”