When it comes to alcohol and drug abuse recovery, a major roadblock to recovery is access. Emporia has some offerings to help people overcome that obstacle.
Teresa Walters, community consultant for Regional Prevention Center of the Flint Hills said some of the other barriers include financial issues and feelings of despair.
“If they’ve been doing this for a while, they may be feeling hopeless,” she said. The prevention center will work with individuals to find solutions to these hindrances.
September is drug and alcohol abuse recovery month which focuses on the treatment side of the issue and promotes the benefits of alcohol and drug use treatment.
The shockwave of addiction touches not only the individual, but those around them.
“They don’t realize how addiction impacts essentially the whole community,” Walters said. “It does impact a lot of people.”
Walters, who is affiliated with the Mental Health Center of East Central Kansas said there are outpatient options at the center. Services offered include group and individual treatment and alcohol and drug information schools are offered in English and Spanish on a regular basis for DUI offenders.
According to mental health center’s web site, as part of the Alcohol and Drug Services program, the Regional Prevention Center of the Flint Hills offers consultation, technical assistance, workshops, and educational information to individuals and groups, with the primary goal to help and support communities to develop a comprehensive prevention plan.
Mike McEchron, executive director of Corner House, a treatment program in Emporia, said there are two primary programs at Corner House. The reintegration program is for men and is designed for people who need a little bit more support. The program gives people a place to stay as well as giving them extended treatment options.
“We provide 10 hours a week of structured counseling,” McEchron said. “Most of that is group but everyone also gets some individual counseling.”
In the outpatient treatment program, Corner House recently adopted the Matrix curriculum. The curriculum was originally developed for cocaine addicts, but works well for all types of addictions, McEchron said.
“We started using that a year and a half ago and it has been a success,” he said. “It includes relapse prevention, early recovery and a family education piece.”
McEchron said Corner House is located in two buildings and is holding a capitol campaign that will allow them to do everything that they do now and almost double the residential capacity in one building. The center has 14 beds for residential stays.
“There are only six programs like ours in the state,” McEchron said. “We get referrals across the state.”
Corner House also is working on a two challenge grants. One is from the Mabee Foundation and one is from the Jones Trust totaling $400,000.
“We’re looking to meet those challenge grants now,” McEchron said. “We have until July of next year to meet the challenge grants but we’d like to close the grants by the end of the year.”
McEchron said the grants are a big deal, especially the one from the Mabee Foundation.
“To get a challenge grant from Mabee it’s quite a feather in our cap because it brings money in from out of state,” McEchron said.
Newman Regional Health also offers addiction recovery programs. During a recent board meeting, Jim Costello, department director for Recovery Road at Newman, said out of the three programs Emporia offers, it’s the only program that doesn’t receive state funds.
Recovery Road operates under two primary focus areas: An alternative sentencing program for chronic drug offenders and a DUI offender program.
Recovery Road has an average of 40 percent successful completion rate, Costello said.
“About four out of 10 will complete our program sober,” he said.
Costello added that Recovery Road also works with AA and NA groups in Emporia.
Costello said the most difficult thing to deal with is addictions coupled with mental health challenges. McEchron agreed.
“We see in our program a lot of dual-diagnosis clients,” he said. “Clients in addition to substance disorders may also have psychiatric disorders like depression and anxiety disorders. It presents a more difficult case.”
Physical conditions also pose a challenge.
“We see quite a few people that have serious physical conditions such a hepatitis and diabetes that requires pretty significant attention and monitoring,” McEchron said.
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