Indiana’s opioid crisis: From desperation to healing

By Alexa Shrake & Isaac Gleitz

TheStatehouseFile.com

INDIANAPOLIS—After 10 years of drug addiction, Amber Poe was desperate for a normal life. 

One day she collapsed to the floor in front of her probation officer and pleaded for help. This was her first step to recovery.

“From that point onward, I developed this willingness that I need to do something different—that my life is chaotic, unmanageable—I’m broken, I’m hopeless, I’m sick and tired,” Poe said. 

While growing up in Marengo, an Indiana town 30 minutes from Louisville, everyone around her used drugs. 

She started getting high on medications from her doctor when she was 25. 

“I went to jail two or three different times and just could not stay sober, and I didn’t know what was wrong with me,” Poe said. 

When Poe was released from jail in 2017, she sought treatment from The Break Away Recovery in New Albany. She later became program director at the Grace House, which served women addicted to drugs in her hometown until its closing. 

Poe is now director of the Genesis House in Corydon, a living space for people fighting substance abuse, and a peer recovery coach with the THRIVE addiction recovery program of Scott County, an area that fell victim to an HIV outbreak in 2015 resulting from widespread injection drug use. 

She remembers vividly what addiction was like. She made it through the withdrawals and the stigma. 

“It’s bondage,” Poe said. “You’re a slave to it.” 

In the past several years, many Indiana lawmakers have tried to help people escape their dependence on drugs. The fight continues, with Rep. Robin Shackleford, D-Indianapolis, authoring House Bill 1153 this session to fight the stigma surrounding people like Poe and provide them with medical support.

House Bill 1153 seeks to improve mental health conditions and combat addiction among Hoosiers who have been incarcerated or hospitalized. It requires that treatment centers provide a plan for continuing care when a patient is released. It also requires the Division of Mental Health and Addiction to annually inspect opioid treatment programs to ensure federal and state law are being upheld. Finally, it calls for DMHA to establish a mental health and addiction program that reduces the stigma surrounding the disease of addiction. 

“We want to make sure that the division of mental health and addiction actually puts together an anti-stigma program statewide that lets people know it is OK if you want to get help. There is help out there,” Shackleford said. 

The bill was referred to the House Public Health Committee, chaired by Rep. Brad Barrett, R-Richmond. The hearing has not been scheduled at this time. 

The Indiana State Department of Health that over 15,000 Hoosiers have died from drug addiction since 1999. According to the American Civil Liberties Union, about 24% of the people who served time in Indiana prisons in 2019 were there for drug offenses. Indiana hospitals’ emergency departments tallied nearly 15,000 visits related to substance abuse in 2019.

Anthony Crecilius, who was formerly addicted to heroin, said the effects of drug use linger even in recovery.

“People judge you,” Crecilius said. “Some can’t look past your drug use.”

Crecilius is director of House of New Beginnings in Corydon, which is only about a mile away from Genesis House. The house can hold up to 30 residents, who commit to a six-month program in which they work, pay rent and abstain from drug use. 

He grew up in rural Crawford County between Milltown and Marengo, an isolated place where there wasn’t much to do. He started smoking marijuana at age 13 and later took some pain pills from his mom when she was injured in a car accident. At the time, he thought this was no big deal. He was using oxycontin by age 15, soon followed by heroin. 

“That’s when my whole life changed,” Crecilius said. 

He was arrested and sent to the Harrison County Justice Center in Corydon. When he was released he became a resident at House of New Beginnings and later spent time at Serenity House of Clarksville. Looking back, he realizes that drug use took control of his life. 

“You’re powerless,” Crecilius said. “I stole from my family.”

Crecilius’s house residents join self-help groups like Alcoholics Anonymous and are encouraged to fight addiction with their own resolve. But when one of them is overcome by drug withdrawals, he doesn’t hesitate to send them to a treatment center like the Healing Place. Located across the Ohio River in Louisville,this facility will accept almost anyone. 

Shannon Gray is the manager of programs for the Healing Place. He is also a certified alcohol and drug counselor who hosts family interventions. At his treatment center, residents spend six to nine months building their self-confidence and growing as people after detoxing from drug addiction.

Gray first came to the Healing Place when he was a homeless drug addict. He completed a program there in 2001 and refrained from drug use when he left. Although only 14% of the center’s clients report illegal drug use at follow-up appointments, drugs maintain a strong presence in his community.

“Addiction is all over,” Gray said. “Overdoses have significantly increased.”

Gray said that meth and alcohol use are a bit more common among his residents, but opiates are a close competitor. In the 2020 men’s program, 25% of residents reported to be recovering opiate addicts. That figure was slightly higher in their women’s facility. 

This level of drug use devastates families and communities, Gray said. 

“People are losing people—family members,” Gray said. “You have more arrests, you have obviously families breaking up, kids not being raised—all sorts of societal effects.”

The Healing Place talks to local youth because that’s where the problem often starts, Gray said. For adults, help is currently available. 

“We have open beds,” Gray said. “Addiction may be on the rise but the addiction centers in the state of Kentucky are not full. My guess is it’s probably the same in Indiana,” Gray said. 

Indiana is home to dozens of treatment centers of its own. To name a few, southern residents can find the Southern Indiana Comprehensive Treatment Center in Charlestown and Groups Recover Together centers in Jasper, Salem, Evansville and other cities. Central Indiana is home to the Tara Treatment Center in Franklin, WIN recovery in Terre Haute, and the NuVitas Group in Indianapolis. Farther north, Kokomo hosts the Center for Opiate Recovery and the Gilead House. 

Treatment centers aren’t the only groups that are addressing the issue. In February of last year, the Indiana State Museum created an exhibit about opiate addiction. 

“Our CEO Cathy Ferree identified a need in our community,” Indiana State Museum and Historic Sites exhibit developer Cathy Donnelly said. “The opioid crisis has really affected all aspects of our community.”

The exhibit, FIX: Heartbreak and Hope Inside Our Opioid Crisis, provides education on appropriate language surrounding opiate use and ways to find help. It also covers the science behind the opioid use disorder and dispels its myths and misconceptions. The exhibit runs through Aug. 1. 

“It is a chronic disease,” Donnelly said. “It is not a choice.”

While much work is being done to combat opiate use and the stigma that surrounds it, Crecilius and Poe both said there is no end in sight when it comes to drug use in Southern Indiana communities. Corydon is a forgiving town that tries to help people with substance abuse problems, but the issue is too large. 

“Our whole generation is being killed,” Crecilius said. “We’re doing it to ourselves.”

“This problem isn’t going anywhere,” Poe said. 

Isaac Gleitz and Alexa Shrake are reporters for TheStatehouseFile.com, a news website powered by Franklin College journalism students.