Like in many communities across the United States, drug abuse threatens the lives of residents of the Verde Valley.
According to Merilee Fowler, the executive director of MATForce, a nonprofit that addresses substance abuse education, there were 18 deaths from opioid overdoses in Yavapai County in 2017. Throughout the country, that number was 42,200 in 2016, a rate of 116 people every day.
For the third year in a row, Steps to Recovery Homes, a Cottonwoodbased halfway house, is holding its Erase the Stigma event at the Cottonwood Recreation Center on Saturday, June 30, with the intention of tackling the drug use epidemic head-on by changing people’s attitudes in addressing it, and providing resources to those in need.
“There’s such a stigma involved with mental health and addiction. It’s not like with other problems,” said Scott Fischer, a Steps to Recovery employee who is helping to organize the event. “People don’t look at a handicapped person and say they’re a pain in the butt, but for people with drug problems, people just call them addicts and dismiss them.”
The event is focused on changing that view of addiction, and helping addicts realize that there is a support system ready to help them. The event features free food and drinks, provides free rec center passes for some of the attendees and has five guest speakers, each focused on a different addiction-related issue.
John Schuderer from the Yavapai County Suicide Prevention Coalition will be speaking on suicide prevention and awareness; Shawna Bowen of the group Zero Relapse will discuss hypoglycemia and relapse prevention; Mo Michael of the Compass Recovery Center will speak on gambling addiction; Mike Edwards, a private practitioner in Tempe, will discuss adverse childhood experience; and Brian Silverdale of the Yavapai County Detention Center will lead a talk on lowering recidivism rates for criminals.
Similar to the theme of Erase the Stigma, Silverdale said the county’s law enforcement community has made significant changes in recent years in how it treats drug addiction and related problems, focusing less on punishment and more on treatment.
“It starts at arrest,” Silverdale said. “We have trained officers at arrest who do their best to identify if somebody is in crisis, whether that crisis is due to mental health, or substance abuse, or adverse childhood experiences. If they can detect something at first contact, then they will attempt to divert them into care of somebody who might help.”
Last year, the event had 175 people with 35 booths for local organizations and businesses. The organizers said they hope that a similar amount will attend this year, in the hopes of spreading their message as far as possible.
“This is something that was on my heart for a long time,” said Damien Browning, Steps to Recovery’s co-founder. A former addict himself, Browning said an essential step to helping people improve is providing those in crisis with the knowledge of what support is available to them.
“When people don’t understand what addiction is, they avoid it,” Browning said. “What happens when you avoid a situation like that is instead of having an understanding, it isolates the crisis and makes it stronger.”
Jon Hecht can be reached at 634-8551, or email jhecht@larsonnewspapers.com
