Sober Houses on the Horizon for Addict Recovery

November 22, 2012

Homes in Ashtabula County and central Geauga County are being considered as possible “sober houses” for recovering drug addicts, most who are trying to kick their addiction to heroin.

Chardon Municipal Court Judge Terri Stupica announced the idea during last Thursday’s Geauga County Opiate Task Force meeting.

Pending the signing of financial documents, a sober house for 16 women recovering from drug addiction will be located in Jefferson and will house women from Lake, Geauga and Ashtabula counties.

Stupica asked that the location of the possible Geauga County sober house not be revealed until she and other members of the task force — a group of public officials and residents created to combat the growth of local drug addiction — meet with township officials on Nov. 26 to discuss zoning restrictions.

“We need to convince them that this is necessary and is a way the community can get involved to help people get back to normalcy,” the judge said.

Once addicts leave the Geauga County Safety Center or a rehabilitation program, many return home or to the same environment, said Dennis Michelson, jail treatment manager for the Lake-Geauga Recovery Centers.

As a result, many fall back into addiction if they cannot find a place to continue their recovery and learn how to function in the community, get a job and start being a productive citizen again, he said.

Unfortunately, Geauga County does not offer any type of sober house, which is a safe environment where addicts can continue their recovery as long they follow strict rules to make sure they don’t lapse back into drug use, Michelson said.

Most addicts initially become hooked on prescription painkillers (opiates) before moving onto heroin for a greater high, he said.

Forty-nine people have died from heroin addiction — which is growing in Geauga County — up from 40 deaths last year, Michelson said.

Two have died since Nov. 1, a man and woman, each under 25 years old.

“This is insidious and there is no end in sight,” said Michelson, who called for community awareness and help in dealing with the growth in addiction.

During the meeting, Stupica, who serves as the task force chairperson, said she sees an increasing number of addicts in her court who have committed thefts and crimes to support their addictions.

Each is sentenced to the county safety center where they can get treatment and counseling with Michelson, she said.

Another task force goal is producing a video to educate people about the horrors of drug addiction.

Sheriff Dan McClelland and the Fairmount Minerals Corp. have each donated $5,000 while the Geauga Children’s Alliance has donated $1,000 for the production of a half hour video costing $11,000.

The sheriff’s donation was made possible by a grant from a state Law Enforcement Trust Fund, which is money collected from the sale of property seized or forfeited because of criminal activity, said sheriff’s Lt. John Hiscox.

The grant stipulates law enforcement officers must be included in a portion of the video, Michelson said.

WKYC (Channel 3) will film the video and Monica Robins, the TV station’s health reporter, will narrated it.

Segments of Geauga County’s video will be shown in conjunction with a one-hour news special on drug addiction throughout Northeast Ohio, Michelson said.

“I can’t stress enough that this is not going to be something like you saw in health class years ago,” he said. “This is going to be very professionally done.”

The local video, possibly entitled “A Deadly Seduction,” will answer three major questions the public and families ask drug addicts:

• How and why people become addicted?

This will include anonymous interviews with local addicts whose faces will not be revealed to protect their identities, Michelson said.

Police officers, judges and drug treatment specialists will also be interviewed, he said.

“We want this to be the kind of thing you can give to a parent who has found a (syringe) needle in the house and has no know idea what to do,” he said.

• Why addicts cannot stop using heroin or another addictive illegal drug?

This will explain the neurological affects of drug addiction and the difficulty people have in kicking their addiction, Michelson said.

• What can be done to stop addiction?

This will deal with treatment, prevention and community education on drug addiction, Michelson said.

Free copies of the video will be made available to the public through county libraries and on various public and private websites, he said.

As part of community efforts on drug education, Dr. Bob Faehnle, executive director of Leadership Geauga, announced a forum on opiate and heroin addiction, and its effects in Geauga County.

The event will be held at 7 p.m. Nov. 28 at Newbury High School, 14775 Auburn Rd.

Robins will moderate the forum, which will feature a panel of speakers including Stupica, McClelland, Michelson, Geauga County Coroner-elect Robert Coleman, West Geauga High School Principal David Toth and a recovering addict.

Information distributed during the task force meeting said the increasing number of people who die from drug overdoses are young suburbanites, including females.

In addition, drug overdoses now kill more people in Ohio than auto accidents do, with heroin and medications in its pharmacological family — such as oxycodone, hydrocodone, methadone and morphine, leading the way.

They account for more than 750 of the nearly 1,400 drug deaths in 2009, according to the Ohio Department of Health.

As the more potent painkillers have flooded Northeast Ohio, they have become easier than beer for some suburban teenagers to obtain.

In addition, the demand for purer heroin has also boomed, causing drug poisoning deaths to swell by more than 350 percent statewide since 1999, according to the state health department.