Newsletters

POSTED: June 18th, 2018
POSTED IN: EPIC - The Official Newsletter of MOCEP, May/June 2018,

My name is Jeffrey K. Maness and I am a person in long-term recovery.  To me, that means that I have not used any form of mind or mood-altering drugs, including alcohol and prescription opioids since May 11, 2014, which makes my “clean date” May 12, 2014.  That date means more to me than any day, including my biological birthday.  It is my true birthday; a day of re-birth. 

I used every drug that was offered to me from age 14 to 28.  It wasn’t until I was homeless and living in my car that I was blessed with the gift of desperation.  I still vividly remember my last day living in that parking lot.  I awoke in my car, covered in sweat, searching my floor for any scrap of any drug to pack in a pipe and take me out of the reality I found too painful to take part in.  I didn’t know I was going to get clean that day.  Thank God for my sister.  She simply said, “Why don’t you go back to treatment?” 

For some reason, this simple notion had eluded my brain.  The drug-induced psychosis was still prevalent, however.  The thought of detoxing was definitely one of the things I avoided most and probably what kept me away from treatment for so long.  Withdrawing from opioids, alcohol, and K-2 was something I was familiar with and wanted to avoid at all costs.  This is, after all, a driving force to the desperate and socially unacceptable acts committed by drug addicts on a daily basis.  I was not motivated by getting high.  I was motivated to avoid the agonizing sickness brought about by withdrawal.  I had never even heard of Buprenorphine (or any of its brand names) at this time and it certainly wasn’t offered to me at any of my previous treatments and this one would prove to be no different in that regard.  The pain was excruciating for the first week and the post-acute withdrawal symptoms lasted for months after.  I always wonder if I would’ve been willing to go to that last treatment sooner if I had known about a withdrawal aide like Buprenorphine.  I wonder how much misery I would have avoided.

Luckily, I made it through that last treatment stint without the help of any medication to ease my suffering.  I thank God for my mom.  She was there for me when I finally reached out for help once again.  This is the same mother that lovingly kicked me out of her house for repeatedly using in it.  I can still hear her say, “I’m not kicking you out because I don’t love you.  I’m kicking you out because I DO love you.”  She was tired of my lifestyle and I was now tired.  Sick and tired of being sick and tired.  I wanted relief and thought I could fill an intangible void within me with something tangible. 

It took 14 years to realize that impossibility.  You can’t outrun your past.  As an addict in active addiction, I became what I like to call an “emotional hoarder.”  I did not deal with feelings and emotions.  I’d place them in the back of my mind, hoping to forget them.  They always resurfaced when the drugs wore off.  My entire life revolved around getting and using drugs, and finding ways and means to get more.  That is all.  Everything I did centered in drugs in one form or another.  I did a lot of regrettable things in the past.  Things that are typically perpetrated by people under the influence of a high-jacked frontal lobe   I’m truly blessed to be able to do what I do for a career today.  I make amends to myself, my family, and society on a daily basis.  After all, a daily reprieve calls for daily maintenance. 

I began working in the treatment field with only 10 months of recovery under my belt.  I was still living in a sober house in St. Louis, trying to live my life with the idea that if I continue to do the next right thing for the right reason, things will get better.  Things got better.  Things continue to get better in my life every day.  In December of 2016 my boss at Preferred Family Healthcare offered me an opportunity.  I remember him saying something at a staff meeting about how this project was the future of treatment.  We would have a team of representatives from treatment agencies around the Metro East engaging with overdose survivors at hospital Emergency Departments with the idea that we could somehow bridge the gap between E.R. and Substance Use Treatment Providers, while beginning medically assisted treatment induction at the E.R. right then and there.  Needless to say, this would prove to be a daunting task.  It was then called the Opioid Overdose Project.  (Fitting, but highly stigmatic)  We’ve since changed the name to EPICC Outreach (Engaging Patients in Care Coordination). 

Working with other addicts has been the most rewarding experience of my recovery, especially with the EPICC project.  The vast majority of hospital staff is thrilled to collaborate with us.  I always hear the social workers say, “Where have you all been?!”  Nurses, physician’s aides, and doctors have all given me praise and respect and are always telling me how much they like the other recovery coaches.   It is a truly wonderful feeling.  EPICC, like many new initiatives, got off to a slow start, but once the hospitals began to see the positive outcomes, the referrals began to exponentially increase.  What initially took six months is now being achieved monthly in reference to referral volume.  The momentum and influential disposition of EPICC in hospital emergency departments is undeniable. 

EPICC is proving the essential role of peer specialists in hospital emergency rooms.  The therapeutic value of one addict helping another is without parallel.  I say this with the utmost respect to all hospital workers that have spoken these words to me.  They say, “You all are able to relate to them in a way that we simply can’t.”  Another crucial aspect of Peers is the alternative resources that we have more direct access to, such as the SUD providers we already work for and the connections with transitional living houses that some of us still live in. 

Very simply, people that have just survived an overdose are more receptive to hearing from someone that has walked in their shoes.  Once they know I’m an addict, they open up.  This isn’t to discredit any intellectuals/professionals in the field that may not share this lived experience.  They can help these people in ways that a Peer simply can’t.  However, in regards to initial contact immediately following overdose, a recovering addict is who these folks want to talk to, however displaced their notion of judgement may be.  They can’t tell me that I don’t know what it’s like, because I do.  They can’t tell me that it is impossible to overcome addiction, because I haven’t taken a substance in over four years.  A lot of excuses go out the window when they’re sitting face-to-face with an addict in recovery.  I tell them, “I’m no different than you.  I’m not trying to sell you anything.  I just want to know what you want to do about your problem and how I can help.”  If there is one thing I could tell you EPICC has taught me, it is this:  People change.  It happens all the time.  I see it everyday.