- Covid-19 has made a global impact on the world.

As America tries to get back to some sense of normalcy, we're faced with the results of a pandemic that has shut down vital services to the American population who struggle with addiction.

A recent report stated that the pandemic has ushered in stress, isolation and economic upheaval, all known triggers for addiction and relapse while robbing many people of treatment options and support such as NA, AA, and CA.

Many people who suffered with addiction were left to fend for themselves.

However, many organizations continued serving during the pandemic through transitional housing for men and for women, assisting people in getting in to rehab so that they could find the necessary support.

Hi, I'm Phillip Davis and welcome to Courageous Conversations.

Joining me to talk about Covid-19, addictions, and the work that they're doing to combat the disease of addiction are Pastor Miriam Rodriguez, the founder and director of Nehemiah Wall, a transitional home for women in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, Andrea McEwen-Henderson, the founder and director of Trinity House and the director of Nehemiah House located in Easton, Pennsylvania.

Damon McCaulley.

He's the business development officer at Footprints to Recovery Program.

Thank you all for taking the time to join me on the show today.

This is a very, very, very important topic.

Andrea, I want to start with you.

Can you tell me what is Trinity House and what exactly do you do with your ministry there in Allentown?

- Sure, thank you and thank you for having me on this morning.

Trinity House for Women is a transitional home in Allentown that was started in 2013 to provide a safe place for women coming out of treatment programs, coming out of prison, that they can have a safe and loving home while they build their foundation in recovery.

So during Covid-19, we remain full.

But you mentioned a couple of things.

The stress, the isolation.

And we certainly experienced that at Trinity House for Women, there has been relapse because of that, the isolation, not being being able to visit family, to visit children and just have to be careful during this time.

So that's what we do in Allentown.

- And tell us about Nehemiah House as well in Easton.

- And Nehemiah House is a transitional home for women sponsored by Greater Shiloh Church and had the honor of carrying the vision to completion and opened in 2010.

And even there we, experienced the same thing, the isolation, being separated from loved ones, not being able to go to meetings, which is a critical part to the recovery process.

Recovery is definitely a "we" program.

It's we help each other.

We help each other through learning, through sharing the shared experience, the triumphs, the valley experiences and not being able to do that.

And so these type of programs had the pivot to Zoom.

And so just trying to keep the recovering addict engaged on a new platform, we're grateful that we survived it.

And we had a platform such as Zoom and any other virtual platforms to keep everyone kind of connected.

But everyone is ready to kind of get back to that pre-pandemic level where they can fellowship because the fellowship is so important.

- So, so, so true.

So now, Miriam, you have a similar house, but it's called the Nehemiah Wall, and it is in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

You're the founder and the and the director of Nehemiah Wall.

Tell us a little bit about what Nehemiah Wall is and then tell us your experience during Covid-19 and how it has impacted the women.

- Well, thank you also for having me on.

The Nehemiah Wall was established 2008.

We began with the idea of opening the home for women coming out of the prison system and quickly realized that there were many other type of needs for women in general with life-controlling problems.

And so we were taking many referrals from other agencies.

And so we tap into the agencies of the community to meet the needs of every person, the woman, the women are able to come in with children.

So the home is is prepared for women and children.

And so during the pandemic was a very difficult time.

And as my sister Andrea was saying that the virtual meetings were taking place.

We did have a full house the whole time, 2020.

But it was very depressing.

And a couple of our ladies were experimenting thoughts of suicide and much, much depression was going on.

We did lose a lot of ladies to back into addiction, but some of them came back, and the good news is that through that time, we did have three different ladies that finished strong that whole year that stayed with us and through Narcotics Anonymous and AA and CA and all the virtual help that was out there and the counselors that stayed on virtually with our ladies and everyone that that had their hands to the plow, so to speak, with the women, helped them through.

- Well, that's great, Miriam.

And I mean, just being able to to manage, and Andrea as well, being able to manage a house with with people who are kind of living on top of one another in some ways had to be very, very, very challenging.

Now Damon, you know, you you are working directly with the addictions community specifically as it relates to folks being able to get into rehab.

What was your experience during Covid?

Of course, Covid is still going on, but what was your experience and what did you see?

Were there even enough beds, right, for for the folks who were in need and were rehabs able to take them in?

I know it's multiple questions, but I know you have a wealth of information that you can share with us.

- First of all, thank you for giving me the opportunity to be on Courageous Conversations, and certainly we're having a courageous conversation about something that's very important, that's affecting our communities and families all over.

Particularly, I represent Footprints to Recovery.

I've actually been working on the space to help people access levels of care for the last seven years having been in long-term recovery for 25.

So what we have seen as far as a treatment perspective is when Covid hit, it was very challenging.

First of all, in order for people to get into treatment, we had to get up to speed with protocols for safety with Covid and things of that nature.

I will say that for the most part, we were in position and prepared to be able to help people through telehealth.

So initially, although people couldn't necessarily access care due to some challenges of being able to even get into care, insurance issues and things of that nature, for the most part providers...

I'm the PLA co-chair, which is a organization that oversees marketers and business development people throughout the northeastern region.

So one thing that we did is begin to collaborate and communicate with each other.

So if they couldn't get into our facility, we were able to transition them to another facility, different levels of care.

So the detox, inpatient partial hospitalization, ILP, and outpatient level of care, depending on the assessment, would determine what level of care they went to.

But it's certainly been very challenging.

- Yeah, did you see did you see the numbers spike and and how was that as it relates to being able to place people?

And I heard some reports about fentanyl and these other drugs that really began to increase.

Overdoses began to increase as well.

What were you seeing with it from your perspective?

- Well, what we were seeing is that it didn't spike immediately, but as time passed it did spike.

People were just trying to get into care.

One of the things that helped stabilize those is medication-assisted treatment, which is a journey some take often, particularly, with the opiate epidemic that's upon us that has been for the last five years.

Getting people in care, just, for instance, when a person at the emergency room to be assessed, because oftentimes that's the point of contact where they come, to the emergency room.

So the emergency room are just overwhelmed.

They're overwhelmed with being able to do assessments, particularly to the Lehigh Valley, which has a program called the HOST Program, where they dispatch assessors to all the local hospitals to assess level of care at the site, and that's able to find a bed and get them placed.

- Wow.

That had to be that had to be very challenging.

We run a homeless shelter at the church, an emergency homeless shelter during the winter.

And this was the first year that we really had to shut it down.

And we partner with the county to help place people who could not find housing.

And it's really crazy when you think about how the folks in the addictions community really had to fend for themselves and many of the services were minimized.

Now, Andrea, you run meetings and sponsor multiple people as well as direct houses.

What has been your experience with folks struggling with addictions as it relates to the meetings and then the houses that you run?

- Well, I think there's a few things.

One, the houses, Trinity House stayed full throughout Coivd.

Nehemiah House was definitely three quarters or better full the entire Covid.

So one of the first things we had to do was implement protocols, right?

We had the temperature checks and the washing your hands and all of those type of things, masking, really kind of almost stay-at-home order when Covid first hit.

And that was very, very challenging.

As it relates to meetings, again, they're so used to going out in fellowship, being in, meeting serves a number of purposes.

You know, not only is it fellowship, it's accountability.

You know, when you miss, somebody is not showing up, they're being missed and people are wondering what's going on with them.

So for Trinity House specifically, we did, some women did go out and use again.

Pastor Miriam talked about it.

The depression was on the rise because they couldn't be with family, you know, being able to tell people they couldn't go home for Christmas.

Because the numbers were high in that particular county.

So I was constantly looking at the numbers to navigate how open and what women and women and men could do at both houses.

So I'm grateful that we didn't lose more because it certainly was, we certainly could have.

But we didn't and we're grateful for that.

And so now as we're beginning to open up, I'm still watching the numbers.

Meetings are beginning to come back.

But even as we're opening meetings, we have to be careful.

So there's protocols that meetings have to have in order to open safely.

That's social distancing.

How many can be in a room at the same time?

And that's whether it's NA, CA whatever the case may be as well as God Will Change Your Life.

We have shut down for a year.

We've been meeting through Zoom.

- Yeah, they say necessity is the mother of invention, right?

So I think the even the addictions community had to reinvent themselves to be able to to serve and minister to the needs of the individuals that, you know, are in their facilities.

You know, it's amazing when you think about relapsing, right, and that the process, it's already difficult enough to maintain sobriety in a normal environment.

But when you now add Covid and, you know, the lack of supportive services, the lack of personal interaction, that has to be extremely, extremely challenging because suicide is up, depression is up.

You know, the finances are down.

And many times folks in the addiction community are essential workers.

So it's not like they had the capacity or the ability to stay home.

Damon, let me let me come back to you.

So as as someone who's been in the addictions community and I know you sponsor a lot of people, what were you hearing from the people that you were actually interacting with and that you were sponsoring?

- Well, again, you know, addiction loosens its grip on an individual due to in the light of exposure.

And so the light of exposure oftentimes happens through interaction with other people, sponsorship and meetings.

What I've seen is at some level, we have actually come closer together through different platforms through Zoom and some other platforms because we were able to connect and do some things that ordinarily we wouldn't have been able to do.

And so at some level, there was a connection there, although we were able to sustain a connection with each other through this platform, which isn't ideal, but it enabled us to connect not only with with addicts locally, but abroad, people that were in the sponsorship chain that we ordinarily would not see in Jersey, in New York and Chicago.

We were able to kind of gain some strength to be able to connect with each other through this platform that ordinarily we would not have been able to.

I will say that the Valley with the different recovery centers that are opening in Lehigh and Northampton County, they're dialoging and connecting with folks.

And now that's a place where they can hold some meetings where previously the hospitals and churches where we previously were were kind of shut down.

But now there are some things opening up.

- Yeah, that's true.

We run the God Will Change Your Life program, its addictions recovery program, right at our church facility.

And we had to close the doors from a safety perspective.

Mentioning the church, Pastor Miriam, I want to come to you.

So you're not only the creator and founder of Nehemiah Wall, but you're also a pastor.

And so how important for you is introducing God to the women that come into that community?

And what type of impacts have you seen, you know, this introduction to faith have on the women who are in the program?

- So one of the things that we started from its inception is we have every morning being a faith based organization, we have a devotions given to the ladies.

And so we used to be there 6:30 in the morning, we had Pastor Sharon Scott, who would rotate with me, Pastor Michelle Betances.

And so we would rotate to come and give devotions to the ladies in the mornings.

And so because of the Covid we began to do that through Zoom, so they still had devotions in the mornings.

And then we would also visit two or three times a week.

And just really spaced out everyone with their masks so that I would we we would be able to hear the ladies and hear how they're feeling.

I think one of the greatest attacks was the fact that they a lot of them lost employment and they couldn't go out and get employment.

They were kind of stuck.

And only the caregivers were the ones that had employment, were able to leave the house and then come back.

So so that took a toll on many women.

I remember during the summer we made it our business to do a lot of cookouts and and just come down and just spend time doing the social distancing.

But just spending the time, which is one of the things that they were really missing, was the fellowship and being with family and friends and not being able to visit and stay over and and family to come and visit them there.

So they we didn't have the... We weren't going to the church, but we had Bible study Thursday evenings.

We had also services on Sunday afternoons.

And so that was a way of them being able to cope with...

Through faith.

- That's good.

That's good.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Well, Andrea, Minister Andrea, you actually are a minister of the gospel as well.

How so, when you think about the impact of faith on those who are struggling in the addictions community, what have you seen that impact be over the years?

And how important is it to give people hope in the sense of having faith?

- I think faith is the cornerstone, really, of recovery, and so one of the things that we being a minister of the gospel and being in this space is being sensitive to who I'm speaking to and people coming out of addiction, I have found they have all kinds of perceptions of God.

They perceive God as an angry God.

They feel that God may be a punishing God.

They haven't come into a relationship with God for themselves.

So one of the things that I try to stress at Trinity and at Nehemiah House is let us be the example.

Let us be the example of the love of God in their lives and I think through loving them and supporting them and encouraging them, they are able to develop a relationship with God for themselves.

And that's one of the things that I've seen, especially with the women that they have drawn a closer relationship with God through this Covid experience.

And just in talking with them, their walk seems stronger.

They've had to put their faith in God because at some times, they feel so alone but they know they're not alone and they've been leaning on God.

So it's been very encouraging for me to hear them talk more about God, to hear them talk about, "My faith in God "has gotten stronger.

I just rely upon him."

And that's a wonderful thing, and through the journey of recovery and through the 12 step process, you are going to need God in your journey.

But a lot of times we come in with this concept of religion and equating religion with God, and they haven't tapped into that.

It's a personal relationship with God.

And so one of the things that I really stress to them is they know a lot about recovery and the principles of the recovery process are really the same thing with our Christian walk.

- Are you talking about, the 12 steps?

I mean, is there is there a Christian 12 steps or a spiritual 12 steps?

- This is how I look at it.

-Yeah.

- Their first introduction in recovery to submit to the authority, it's going to be under their sponsor.

But if we go to church, we're submitting them to spiritual authority under our pastor.

We tell them to go to meetings and that's for the fellowship and we learn together.

Well, when we go to church, it's in fellowship with the saints.

And then we tell them to work the 12 steps and write on the steps.

Well, we're supposed to be disciples.

We're supposed to read the word, we're supposed to study the word.

And then at the end of the day, it's not about us.

We are about service.

We are serving one another.

And one of the things that starts their recovery is service work because that's what we do in the church.

- So you draw this really cool parallel, right, between faith and recovery.

And I know one of the steps is finding your higher power.

So so how do you connect in that space and realize that it's bigger than you?

That's that's that's pretty amazing.

Pastor Miriam, as as a pastor, as a leader, what was it hard to discipline folks who or is it hard to discipline folks who may relapse and are in the community or in your house?

And how do you how do you do that?

How do you navigate that and still kind of operate in love?

- I think one of the greatest things I learned in 2020 was grace.

Grace.

The grace of God with these women, it has been above and beyond what we could even imagine.

We experienced so many things and and so many women.

And I got to say, kudos to my sister Andrea, because it's it is that way you parallel one with the other.

And so when they when they realized that without God, they can't do anything, you just can't you just can't without without God, you can't do anything.

And so this is what we teach them there.

But if there's a relapse, we don't hesitate.

And the greatest one of the greatest things that we have is that we have great connections.

For instance, if I call my sister Andrea, "Do you got a bed?

Because I can't "take this lady back," or she'll call me or we'll call sister Carol up there for at the Blumhouse or we'll call whoever.

And so whatever they need, if we can't deal with it, we do have a good space where we can call one another and different different homes in different places where we can call one another, be a support for one another, teach one another.

I'll call my sister Andrea and say, "Hey, listen, "I got the situation.

Can you help me with this?"

- So y'all work together?

- We work together as a family, as a community for the for the betterment of the addict, of the of the ladies that that have these great needs where we may not be able to lead, and and we'll call Andrea and we'll say, "Hey, listen, I followed your advice "and that was good."

So we do that for each other.

It's a great, great network.

And tapping into the agencies of the community that have known us already and been able to help the ladies out through other areas in their life, be it physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually, financially whatever the case may be.

It's been it's been great, the networking.

- Yeah, it's a real it's a real holistic approach.

Brother Damon, you know, this this Covid bill rescue bill was just passed.

And, you know, they're supposed to be funding and financing coming down.

Do you think that there will be more support for folks in the addictions community and will there be more resources in the community?

And where would someone who's struggling with addictions go to find that support?

- Well, I certainly think the legislation has been on the table for a variety of different funding options to help people access care.

It's gone back and forth and continues to be somewhat of a tug of war.

But I do see light at the end of the tunnel.

I certainly see that access to care, I think, is going to become more viable for people to be able to get in care, whether they're insured or uninsured, whether they have insurance or don't have insurance, whether they're homeless or not homeless.

Those are some of the obstacles that are always apparent for people to get into care.

In order to, oftentimes what happens is people don't know which way to go and they show up at the emergency room.

So it depends on what region you're in.

I will speak to the Lehigh Valley that has really at one point years ago, operated in silos and kind of didn't talk to each other.

And I'm seeing that that's not the case like it once was.

So I speak to what Pastor Miriam and Minister Andrea said, speaking of really being able to work together to help people have the information and resources that they need.

I will say that one thing that has also happened as a result of the Covid is pre-existing conditions that have become apparent because of Covid.

So those pre-existing conditions that have been there, folks are beginning to starting to take a closer look at addressing those pre-existing conditions that some time has precipitated a relapse or their addiction.

And so those things have been beneficial.

- In one minute, speak to someone, each of you who's out there, who may be struggling with addiction and looking for some help.

Pastor Miriam, I'm going to start with you.

- Call me at any time.

God loves you and I love you.

- That's great.

That's great.

- And we need more homes!

- Damon?

- Again, I feel like I need to give my number as well!

Call me 24/7!

Absolutely 24/7.

God loves you.

It's never too late, never too late.

No matter how old you are, where you've been, where you come from, there's always hope at the end of the tunnel.

- Wow.

That's amazing.

And Andrea?

- And I'm going to give my number, too... And I just want to say one thing.

This morning, I was able to get someone into treatment.

They'll be leaving today.

And kudos to the Lehigh Valley, really, because it was easy to get that person help today, whereas Philadelphia County, it was a nightmare last night trying to get someone help who really needs the help.

So I'm grateful for the collaboration.

I'm grateful for the networking.

And I'm going to echo what everyone else said.

If no one told you they loved you today, I love you and God does, too.

- You know, to hear you all offer your personal phone numbers on a television station for people who may you have never met before, really says something about you as individuals, but also the care and love that is available for people who are struggling with some level of addiction.

Because so often we feel isolated, so often we feel cut off.

We feel like there's no hope and no one cares.

You know, we're bad people.

There's guilt, there's shame that go along with that.

But what you all just demonstrated was something very beautiful in that if you're struggling with addictions and you may be out there right now and you're struggling with addiction, you can reach out to these folks that are on the line because, you know, there are networks and there is support.

And I love what they said.

There is hope for you to be able to find a brighter future and find the help and support that you need.

So you are not alone.

And we're going to give an opportunity for you to reach out because we want you to know that there is support and there is hope for you.

I want to say to my guests today, thank you for taking the time to join me.

You all have demonstrated such great love and such great support for our community.

Please keep doing what you're doing because we need the work that you do.

You know, there's many people in the Lehigh Valley doing courageous work to engage, enhance the lives of others, and we would like to put them in the spotlight.

So all you have to do, if you would like us to highlight them, is go to... and let us know and we will definitely hear your suggestions and get them on the screen.

Listen, make sure you stick around for Counter Culture with Grover Silcox.

His show is straight ahead.

I'm Pastor Phillip Davis and on behalf of everyone here at PBS39, thanks for watching.

Make sure to tune in Tuesday night at 6:30pm right here on PBS39.