Within the neighborhood limits of Roxbury sits a nine-acre campus riddled with Gothic Revival structures each over 100 years old. On a dismal New England day, as light snow flurries threatened to add more accumulation to the totals Boston is most sick of enduring, I walked through the eerie brick gate into what at first glance appeared to be a partial movie set of Shutter Island.
But on the inside it immediately became clear that The Dimock Center is a haven that allows people to discover their inner dedication, determination and desire.
Joining Democratic candidate for governor Joe Avellone and Dimock Center President & CEO Dr. Myechia Minter-Jordan, BostInno intern Beth Teffeisen and I toured the rehabilitation facility to experience first-hand the plight of prescription drug abusers, opiate offenders and heroin addicts.
Drug abuse and overdose is a real epidemic not just in Massachusetts, but across the nation. In Boston in particular, South Boston, the South End and Fenway area are most susceptible to substance abuse deaths, according to the Boston Public Health Commission’s latest neighborhood focus report.
High access to low-cost drugs like Percocet, oxycontin and heroin isn’t contained in these areas. It spills over into abutting neighborhoods, then into surrounding cities and towns. Prior to joining Joe, we were ushered out of the Sewall building to allow a new out-of-city patient some privacy during their voluntary admission to the treatment center, surely a vulnerable experience.
The Dimock Center is a rather unique facility as it accommodates the needs of patients on all ends of the recovery spectrum, from admission to release. Treating detox at every level is not a common endeavor, notes Dr. Minter-Jordan, but it allows for patients to connect the puzzle pieces of recovery without leaving any gaps in between.
Armed with just 300 beds, Dimock sees on average 3,000 patients annually. Program lengths vary per a person’s respective treatment needs, so needless to say capacity issues run rampant. And when we consider that some 25 to 30 percent of patients stem from the criminal justice system, some of whom are 20-years old and have been using since 12, and approximately 30 percent suffer from mental health issues, the immediate needs of Dimock run deeper than so appears on the surface.
“What you’re seeing is a wonderful program here,” said Joe. “But we don’t have enough capacity in the state.”
That’s where Joe Avellone’s gubernatorial plans come into play. Arguably the most vocal candidate when it comes to the growing substance abuse dilemma, he’s released a number of planned initiatives should he be elected to succeed Governor Deval Patrick on Beacon Hill.
Having already conveyed plans to create a cabinet-level position aptly referred to as the Office of Recovery, substance abuse was not initially a campaign platform Joe saw himself advocating for; prescription drug use specifically, he told us, had spiked around 300 percent since 1999. Further, he recalls, this type of misconduct was certainly rarer during his time as a surgeon 30-years ago.
But that’s not to say it wasn’t there. The kinds of drugs available today were much harder to obtain then and less potent, but when Joe was working the operating table he saw his fair share of alcoholics delve into withdrawals – a major medical concern.
Though it wasn’t until he declared his candidacy about a year ago, blazing the campaign trail statewide ever since, that he was really able to understand and even witness the increase in drug use especially in medium-sized industrial cities. Many of those are situated on the South Shore and South Coast of Massachusetts.
“I was on the South Shore, Plymouth County, in smaller towns and people started talking about it all within the same day,” said Joe on when it finally clicked that substance abuse be put on the forefront of his campaign. “You know, we’re not in inner-city Boston and this is the issue they care about. And then I started listening for it otherwise. Last summer hearing about it in these smaller towns, you wouldn’t expect that this be the big issue that they’re worried about, and then Marty Walsh was talking about it.”
Taunton is another city rife with narcotics. Just recently Senator Ed Markey and former Boston Celtic Chris Herren, a recovered addict and spokesperson, ventured down to Taunton to talk about the dangers of opiate use.
But we saw the full authenticity of the problem when we sat down together with a 29-year old South Coast native who voluntarily checked himself into Dimock for Percocet and oxycontin use. His quandary extends slightly further than addiction into the realm of misunderstanding by his peers and, more importantly, his family.
He told us, as he sat there emotionless, that his parents, both upstanding members of society, simply “don’t understand the addiction part. I wish it was that easy, but it’s not.”
He went on, “More people need to be educated on what they’re dealing with. By the time it’s too late, they’re already on the street.”
It’s Joe’s intention to combat the problems of this patient and others like him, by taking a multi-pronged approach to hit drugs from different angles. He first wants to remove the stigma of substance abuse.
“I think a governor with a healthcare background would have the credibility to do it,” he contended. “We need to really use the governor’s office to change all of our beliefs about this and have people all start to think of it as a health problem. I think that makes a lot of other things possible.”
Removing the stigma, increasing capacity, creating an Office of Recovery and also teaming up with the governors of our five brethren New England states is just the beginning for Joe. He announced on our tour that the latter program would address prevention and treatment at a regional level.
Joe’s press office told BostInno that by working as a harmonious region we can “reduce the smuggling of prescription drugs and heroin into New England and become a national leader in prevention and treatment. Interstate highways are becoming heroin pipelines and states need to work together to develop a regional strategy that stops the smuggling.”
After all, this isn’t strictly a Massachusetts problem. Every New England state is suffering from the same crippling instances. By banding together to curtail the interstate movement of contraband, Joe hopes they’ll be able to muster enough clout to take their case directly to the FDA and pharmaceutical industry to create new, safe drugs.
And once we plug up the avenues through which drug pushers distribute their inventory, we can address where they originate from: doctors.
“There’s clearly a lot of misuse of the drugs that are being prescribed. Having a much more aggressive approach to our drug monitoring program to make sure that we find the doctors who are overprescribing,” continued Joe. “What that creates is a large supply that’s sitting around in people’s medicine cabinets and things and then get diverted.”
This isn’t an overnight fix. Joe realizes that. But he’s taking his message to individuals in rehab, who don’t know what the next step in their respective recovery process holds for them but become visually optimistic when the prospect passes through their mind. The patient we spoke to’s face relaxes, a small grin materializes on his face. It’s an uncertain step, sure, but he’s doing it for himself, his girlfriend and his children.
It’s not an overnight fix but it certainly is a battle that can be won. And one that can be expedited with the help of our neighbors and the kind of proactive leadership displayed by Joe on that front.
