EDITOR’S NOTE: To protect the identity of their children, the last names of local participants in this anonymous program have been omitted from this article, although members agree about the need to erase the stigma attached to opioid addiction.
The 10 or so people seated around the tables in brightly lit multi-purpose room C-208 at Greenfield Community College could be just another gathering of people for a Tuesday evening class.
This, though, is Learn to Cope’s weekly 7 p.m. meeting of family members and partners of those with opioid addictions. They’re gathered to help each other along the informational and emotional roller coaster of getting services and support.
It’s no secret that opioid abuse has increased dramatically in recent years with overdoses in Franklin and Hampshire counties rising 280 percent since 2011. The number of deaths in 2011 has gone from 13 to 46 in 2013 and the first three months of 2014.
On a personal level, though, the people here turn out week after week for help in making sense of their lives, which have been turned upside down.
“It’s been a nightmare,” says Cynthia of Greenfield, who’s attended the group’s weekly sessions to help her son battle addiction over the past five or six years. The staggering ordeal of endless twists and turns, ups and downs — including an estimated 30 to 40 detoxification and rehabilitation programs he’s been through over four years — has had her reeling, with this group a godsend.
“We’re always there for each other,” says Cynthia, who, like other members, facilitates the group from time to time. “Sometimes we just need to get grounded and just talk, and to be a group that can relate to each other without judgment.”
Cynthia helped found the Greenfield group by first attending a Holyoke Learn to Cope group for about six months — one that had been created by Marcy Julian after confronting her own child’s addiction in Wilbraham.
Julian, in turn, had found her way to weekly meetings in Worcester, because she could not find any in western Massachusetts at the time. Becoming a regional manager for the peer-led support network — starting a Holyoke group three years ago, as well as one in Pittsfield — she drew on the pioneering work of a Taunton woman who launched Learn to Cope in 2004 as a group meeting on her porch to help deal with her son’s addiction.
“She quickly learned there was no place to turn for support, for information, for resources and guidance,” says Julian. With funding from the state Department of Public Health, the nonprofit organization, now based in Taunton, has 25 chapters.
The only requirement for attending the peer-to-peer network, with confidentiality at meetings a core principle, is that you’re affected by a loved one’s addiction.
Open discussions in the meetings alternate with guest speakers — some of whom have themselves recovered from addiction — as a way of offering additional information in the ever-changing field. That, and hope.
“It’s extremely important and empowering for families to learn,” says Julian. “When you find out that one of your kids is struggling with addiction, the first thing you do is question what you did wrong as a parent. There’s a lot of guilt, shame, fear, anger — and lots and lots of emotions. As we come to terms with that, and can get past that, we get healthy.”
Members, who come from around Franklin County to attend the meetings, say they know of other families in the area suffering with opioid addictions, but that they’re afraid to attend because of the stigma attached to addiction.
“There are still powerful social pressures to put down people who have this disease,” adds Jerry of Leyden, who — in trying to deal with his daughter’s nine-year addiction to heroin as well as other opioid drugs and alcohol — has attended the program since August 2015 .
Parents, grandparents and spouses find their way to the group in desperation and find a place of refuge where they come to see that their own emotional recovery is also complex and needs to mirror the recovery of the addict, say members.
In addition to what seems like an entirely new world of the addiction recovery system’s workings, “there are things you can learn from each other, from those who have gone through this longer,” says Jerry. “The family’s working on its own recovery, even as they try to offer all the support they can …” So when the troubled family member walks through the door at the end of the long process, “the family has already worked through stuff, so you can reunite in the middle as a family. It will be a different family. … It’s a very fraught process.” Others agree.
“The goal is to restore the family’s health and balance and hopefully be there when a loved one achieves recovery, so you’re strong, whole, and healthy,” says Julian. “I can honestly say that’s what it does for people, what it’s done for me and my family.”
Some of those affected may have developed an opioid addiction after being prescribed pain medication, but for others, the path has been more of one toward recreational drug use.
And say family members, it’s often a hellish path for those trying to help, as well.
Once she found out that her son’s Percocet addiction had turned to heroin, Cynthia recalled, “I basically said, ‘You’ve got to go to rehab or you’ve got to leave the house,’ I was very ignorant. I had no idea what I was in for. … It’s a cycle. He got kicked out of a lot of places. He was homeless for a while. It’s been a rough road for the family.”
Cynthia’s son returned from one halfway house last March with a girlfriend, who they later learned was pregnant, and both relapsed to their addictions. The girlfriend, with medically assisted treatment, gave birth, and now mother and baby are together in a halfway house. “Learning to Cope has been one of my saving graces. It’s a blessing to have this group,” Cynthia says.
Unlike Nar-anon or Al-anon 12-step programs, which emphasize submitting to a higher power, Learn to Cope allows an open discussion and, says Julian, “It’s about the individual.”
Philip of Deerfield, who’s been attending meetings for four years — when his 15-year-old daughter began using heroin — calls the group “a family we never wanted to join,” adding “I’m here to serve.”
Philip, who, like Cynthia helps facilitate the group and also has volunteered for the Franklin County Opioid Task Force, says, “The hardest thing four years ago was to find resources,” and Learn to Cope was where he learned how to file in court for a Section 35 petition for his daughter’s involuntary commitment to receive treatment.
“It’s really being there for each other,” he says of the group. “It’s taught me to have hope.”
Jerry adds, “That’s the key to keeping on.”
On the Web: Learn2cope.org
You can reach Richie Davis at rdavis@recorder.com