{"id":32696,"date":"2015-12-21T09:02:10","date_gmt":"2015-12-21T17:02:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/juneau-sherpas-help-guide-addicts-into-treatment-recovery\/"},"modified":"2015-12-21T09:02:10","modified_gmt":"2015-12-21T17:02:10","slug":"juneau-sherpas-help-guide-addicts-into-treatment-recovery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/juneau-sherpas-help-guide-addicts-into-treatment-recovery\/","title":{"rendered":"Juneau ‘Sherpas’ help guide addicts into treatment, recovery"},"content":{"rendered":"

Editor\u2019s Note: This is the second part of a series that examines why it\u2019s so hard for heroin and drug addicts to get into treatment in Juneau, and what some in the community are doing about it. To read Part One, click here<\/a>, and to read Part Three, click here<\/a>, and to read Part Four, click here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Kara Nelson, the executive director of Juneau\u2019s Haven House<\/a>, and Christina Love, an advocate for AWARE, were at work last Wednesday afternoon when their phones rang.<\/p>\n

A friend of theirs had called with an emergency situation: A woman in her 20s, who had shot up heroin every day for the past six months after being released from Hiland Mountain Correctional Center in Eagle River, had just arrived at the Juneau airport from Anchorage. She was a stranger to Juneau, and her friend said to come to the capital city to receive substance abuse treatment.<\/p>\n

So she did. But she arrived to Juneau without money or paperwork to get treatment. Nothing had been arranged, and her friend, who had called Nelson and Love, was on probation and wasn\u2019t in a position to help. The woman had nowhere to go, and no one to help her.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey honestly thought that they could get off the plane, and she could go straight into treatment,\u201d Love said. \u201cThey didn\u2019t know until somebody told them \u2026 that\u2019s not the case.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nelson and Love dropped what they were doing and did all they could for the next two days to get the woman into treatment quickly. With their help, she was admitted to Rainforest Recovery Center, Juneau\u2019s only residential drug treatment facility, just two days after arriving.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt literally has taken less than 48 hours, which is unheard of,\u201d Nelson said.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Help no matter what<\/strong><\/p>\n

Nelson and Love receive phone calls similar to the one above a couple times a month. Those calling for help are usually women who have heard about them through word of mouth.<\/p>\n

The pleas vary, but Nelson\u2019s and Love\u2019s response is always the same.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur policy is that everybody walks away with something, that we help them no matter what,\u201d Love said.<\/p>\n

Nelson and Love, both of whom are addicts in long-term recovery and who have become pillars in Juneau\u2019s recovery community, became certified recovery coaches about a year and half ago.<\/p>\n

Recovery coaches are people with an established foundation in recovery who can help other active and recovering substance users in their journey to recovery. The idea behind the peer-to-peer partnership is that the \u201ccoaches\u201d have walked down the same path before and can help others do the same.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re going to climb Mount Everest, then you want a Sherpa, and we see ourselves as the Sherpas,\u201d Love said. \u201cWe\u2019ve been up this hill many times.\u201d<\/p>\n

Recovery coaches are supposed to have first-hand experience and expertise, and Nelson and Love have that in spades.<\/p>\n

Both have been addicted to drugs, including heroin. Both have overdosed. Both have detoxed. Both have been diagnosed with mental health disorders. Both have been kicked out of treatment. Both have been arrested.<\/p>\n

\u201cBetween Christina and I and some of the other ladies who are really great mentors, we\u2019ve pretty much been through everything,\u201d Nelson said. \u201cYou\u2019re not going to one-up us on much.\u201d<\/p>\n

As recovery coaches \u2014 they\u2019re two of just a handful in Juneau right now, though they envision many more \u2014 they do everything in their power to help substance users on their path to recovery.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll get calls at all hours of the night, and then we go and meet people where they\u2019re at,\u201d Love said. \u201cDepending on what stage they\u2019re at \u2014 maybe they can\u2019t stop using and they need treatment, so we walk them through that process. Or, maybe they\u2019re on medically assisted treatment. So depending on where they\u2019re at in their recovery walk, then we meet them and get an idea of where they\u2019re at, and then empower them, and we give them the options.\u201d<\/p>\n

Most of the time, though, the people who call Nelson and Love want the same thing: help with detoxing and getting into treatment.<\/p>\n

In the past, Nelson and Love have opened up their homes to people had a place to detox. But they both have children at home, and they\u2019re not always available to watch someone 24\/7.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve had things like, I had a girl drink my hand sanitizer, or things that even somebody as versed as I am can\u2019t anticipate,\u201d Love said during a recent joint interview with Nelson at AWARE. \u201cSo it\u2019s urgent to get systems in place.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cRight now, we need to have a place to detox,\u201d Nelson said. \u201cRight now, we need a \u2018right now.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople need to have a place to go, other than our couch,\u201d Love added.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Detox<\/strong><\/p>\n

The two places you would think an addict would be able to go to detox \u2014 Rainforest and Bartlett Regional Hospital\u2019s emergency room \u2014 usually won\u2019t accept them.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s insane how many people we\u2019ve sent to the E.R. or to Rainforest that get turned away,\u201d Love said.<\/p>\n

Rainforest right now is only set up to help people who are already clients and enrolled in the 28-day in-patient program.<\/p>\n

And emergency room doctors can\u2019t help them unless there\u2019s another medical matter at hand that a doctor believes is life-threatening.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s because BRH does not consider opiate detox medically dangerous, even though it\u2019s excruciating for addicts. In contrast, withdrawal from alcohol and barbiturates like Benzodiazepine is considered medically dangerous.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost detoxes, 90 percent, are not going to require physician oversight, and they\u2019re not going to require a 24-hour nursing supervision,\u201d Dr. Jenna Hiestand, the medical director of behavioral health in charge of overseeing the clinical care of BRH\u2019s mental health and detox patients. \u201cSo the things that are concerning are people that have alcohol withdrawal seizures, people that have delirium tremors \u2014 very severe, life-threatening withdrawal that does require them to be in a hospital setting.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOpiate withdrawal is miserable \u2014 you want to die \u2014 but it\u2019s actually not medically that dangerous,\u201d said Dr. Carl Heine, a Bartlett E.R. physician, in a recent interview. \u201cPeople don\u2019t die from opiate withdrawal, but you wish you were going to die.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those going through heroin withdrawal experience diarrhea, nausea and vomiting. There\u2019s also general pain and achiness, anxiety and jitteriness, and increased heart rate and blood pressure.<\/p>\n

\u201cHave you ever seen the move Trainspotting?\u201d Heine asked, referring to the \u201890s cult classic that famously features a scene wherein Ewan McGregor is coming off of heroin and hallucinating that his friend\u2019s dead baby is crawling on the ceiling. Heine said that was probably the most accurate depiction of what it\u2019s like.\u201d<\/p>\n

Unless there\u2019s a mental health issue involved (such as someone who is suicidal) that can land them in one of the 12 beds in BRH\u2019s mental health unit, the hospital\u2019s E.R. doctors dole out medications to ease the opiate withdrawal symptoms (usually Clonidine to lower blood pressure, and Ibuprofen for the nausea and vomiting) and send them on their way.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The suicide card<\/strong><\/p>\n

Without a place to go, a lot of addicts who are desperate for help play the \u201csuicide card\u201d in order to get a bed in BRH\u2019s mental health unit. It\u2019s a common belief that it gets them into Rainforest faster.<\/p>\n

Technically, it can help accelerate the process because it gets an agency involved \u2014 Juneau Alliance for Mental Health Inc., (JAMHI), will step in and do an assessment \u2014and an agency\u2019s referral is necessary to get into one of Rainforest\u2019s 16 beds.<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s just as fast, or as slow, as going to JAMHI directly for the referral, or any number of agencies in town from Gastineau Human Services to AWARE.<\/p>\n

The only people who are allowed to skip ahead of other people in line for a bed at Rainforest are women who are pregnant and IV drug users, per the state grant that funds Rainforest and dictates what Rainforest can or can\u2019t do.<\/p>\n

Richard Nault, Rainforest\u2019s interim director, said there\u2019s good reason for the \u201call intakes are considered equal\u201d rule.<\/p>\n

Rainforest accepts applications based on when they are submitted, and if they tell someone, say in Ketchikan, that they can have a bed on a certain date, it\u2019s not fair if it\u2019s not available on that date because they accepted someone else instead.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we got a client referred from the hospital and all the beds are tied up, that emergency would not bump someone who\u2019s ready to come in,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s obviously not really cool.\u201d<\/p>\n

And if Rainforest were to bend the rules it would get in trouble for breaking the conditions of its grant.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s one of the no-no\u2019s,\u201d Nault said.<\/p>\n

So how did Stacie Arnold, the 24-year-old Juneau resident who played the suicide card and got into Rainforest the next day, get in? Probably good timing. It likely just so happened Rainforest had a bed available. (For more on Arnold, see part one of this series.)<\/p>\n

Nault said he couldn\u2019t discuss specific cases or clients, but that in general, the waiting list at Rainforest varies greatly. Sometimes, there\u2019s bed available immediately. Sometimes, it\u2019s weeks or more.<\/p>\n

But it takes more than just good luck or timing to get into a bed at Rainforest.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Editor\u2019s Note: This is the second part of a series that examines why it\u2019s so hard for heroin and drug addicts to get into treatment in Juneau, and what some in the community are doing about it. To read Part One, click here, and to read Part Three, click here, and to read Part Four, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":430,"featured_media":32697,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[75],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-32696","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32696","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/430"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32696"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32696\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32697"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32696"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=32696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}