- State of recovery was made possible by financial support from-- - We resolve to do more, to listen, understand, and act, and to see that you get the care you need.

Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina, we resolve to make health care better.

- We are in the midst of a crisis.

- I tried it, and best feeling I ever had in my life.

- The drug culture has changed.

- It's not the plan you had for your child, to become a drug addict.

- The opioid epidemic, you can't hide it.

It's everywhere.

- The first time I tried it, I really liked it.

But it was a complete downhill spiral.

- Where can we get the help that we need?

- Let's treat the addiction.

- Please don't ever say, "not my child."

[music playing] - How long have y'all been married?

- We've been together almost 20 years.

Yes.

Hard to believe.

Yeah.

No.

[inaudible] get that.

We were, what you would think of, a normal family.

And we went on vacations together.

We had dinner together when we could.

Carrson was a happy child, your normal kid.

- Kind of had focusing problems at an early age.

I was on Adderall since first grade.

And that weirded me out once I got to high school, was I was the kid taking the pill every day to make me normal.

By the time I was a freshman, my friends began smoking weed.

And I wanted to try it because I wanted to fit in.

I've never done anything before in my life.

I tried it in my garage at my parents' house.

I don't think I got high for the first time.

I don't know.

By my sophomore year, I started going to parties.

I thought I was part of the popular squad at this time.

I started skipping school a lot, started smoking weed every day.

My mom would drop me off at school.

Near the tennis courts, we had these woods.

And all the kids would smoke weed back there.

- We found out he was smoking marijuana.

- I think we were a little unaware or just kind of blinded by that somewhat.

- For that first time, really didn't give consequences.

We thought it was over.

I mean, we thought you tried it.

You got it out of your system.

OK, We're done.

But we just noticed there was a difference in his behavior.

There seemed to be something else.

- These kids we're talking about are these pills called hydros or whatever.

And I was like-- I didn't really know-- I remember my dad.

I saw my dad on the couch one night.

And he had something wrong with his teeth.

- My husband had had dental surgery.

And we kept our medicine under the kitchen sink.

- I find hydro sub .5's, Oxy 5's, Oxy 10's.

I'm finding all of these pills.

I felt like I hit the jackpot.

I just wanted to have fun.

- I noticed there was quite a lot of pain medicine that was missing.

It was not even clicking in my brain.

But it did kind of make us question, going, or could he?

Did he?

- Saw them on Snapchat.

And my childhood friend asked me, you want to go get heroin?

I was like, let's do this.

And he whips out some needles and some stamper bags, which is packaged in heroin.

And he was like, do you want to do this?

And I was like, yeah.

I was like, give me a line.

He was like, you're not snorting it.

I was like, what do you mean?

He was like, if you do it, you're going to inject it.

So I gave him my arm, I looked away, and that feeling hit me.

Best feeling I've ever had in my life.

And that night was also the worst night of my life.

My addiction went from here to here.

- Please don't ever say, "not my child."

Because it can very well be your child.

- My senior year came.

I was really bad on the drugs at this point.

Molly, acid.

Any drug you can think of, I was doing.

My parents did not trust me at all because I had thrown parties at their house and stuff.

I've had people over when I'm not supposed to, blah, blah, blah.

But I just wanted to have fun.

The heavier I got into it, the more of F you.

I don't care about you.

I don't care what you think about me.

I just-- I didn't care what anybody had to think about me.

- I was angry at the disease.

I was always I love you.

I love you.

You need help.

Let us help you.

But of course, the ones you love the most are the ones you hurt the most.

And so he was very hurtful to me.

- My relationship with my parents got really bad.

I literally lived with them, but I did not talk to them.

- The desperation that a parent feels to help their child, and you can't.

And addiction is the only disease that I know of that people aren't showing up giving you casseroles.

People aren't showing up giving you support.

We felt alone.

No one wants to be dealing with this.

No one chooses addiction.

- Progressively, as I got worse, my friends-- I got worse friends.

My friends who were there for me weren't there for me because they were tired of preaching to me, tired of telling me the same thing over and over again, and I wouldn't listen.

I couldn't stop.

I kept doing it every single day.

- His senior year, he was expelled from senior year in high school.

As we sat there and told the principal, we understand protecting the kids here, but what do we do?

Now he's going to be home alone.

And it was basically, I'm sorry.

So with both of us working full time, that's exactly what happened.

He was home alone.

And that was absolutely the worst place for him to be.

- My daily routine is wake up in the morning, do a shot of heroin.

Lunch break, I'd be withdrawing, do another shot of heroin.

After work, I'd be withdrawing, and do another shot.

And then right before bed, I'd do another shot.

So-- every single day.

And got to the point where I was going through $100-, $150-a-day habit.

It was awful.

I couldn't move.

My bones hurt.

Everything hurt.

I pissed myself.

It was awful.

So I told mom, I was like, get me to a rehab right now.

- We didn't know of any adolescent services, and we weren't told about any adolescent services here unless they were out of state or beyond what we could afford financially.

Affordable care is needed, adolescent resources.

And when you look, there's tons of options for help 18 or above.

But in this area, it's very limited.

- We have to refer them either to the mountains, as we call it, to the actual area where there are-- we sometimes have to refer them outside the state.

So there's a shortage of residential adolescent detoxification programs.

If somebody has an adolescent with addiction problems, the biggest thing I see is people are calling all around.

What should I do?

- It would be great if there was this handbook of when your daughter is 16 and the school calls that there's this concern that she's getting high, it'd be great to reference what page to go to and what to do.

And you just don't know.

Dealing with teenagers and young adults, I mean, they're not the easiest population to deal with, and especially if they're using drugs and alcohol.

It's not like they're going to come up front and be honest about it.

- Most addictions don't start at 25, 30, 35 years old.

They start when you're a teenager.

So why are we more accepted to 18-year-olds, 19, 20, 21-year-olds and so on than when it first starts off?

- So through that experience, continuing to educate myself about the disease of addiction, continuing to hear other stories, be around other families that were going through similar things, it was actually laid on my heart to start a recovery high school.

So a recovery high school is where students who struggle with substance use, they're able to go to a high school together.

They're all in recovery together.

Had our son had that, then his addiction, I feel, would not have developed the way it did.

- If me and my peers were all going through the same stuff, I would've listened to them.

I wouldn't have felt like an outcast like I'm doing this by myself.

So I think it definitely would have been beneficial for me.

- Come out.

Come out.

Come on.

Wake Monarch Academy will be the Triangle area's first recovery high school and second only in the state of North Carolina and South Carolina as well.

There's approximately 43 recovery high schools nationwide.

And there's approximately 1.5 to 2 million adolescents who struggle with substance use disorder.

So when you think about 43 recovery high schools nationwide, that doesn't even touch the need that's out there.

This recovery high school needed to happen yesterday, you know?

So it's just trying to make sure it has a strong foundation, work on sustainability, and reaching out to people that are the experts, you know?

I'm not an expert nonprofit leader.

It's a job.

It's a job.

But it's like my passion's my payment right now.

- I met Leah Wright with Wake Monarch Academy a year, year and a half ago.

The success rates of recovery high schools, they do really well.

I mean, it's mind-blowing.

I think one of the things with-- especially with Wake Monarch that's different is there's really a focus on the educational component.

Once they're in sober, they're in long-term recovery, the concept and idea is, I want to go back to school.

They do need to graduate.

- Recovery high schools are not your typical hundreds and hundreds of kids at high school.

They're really small in number because your focus is on recovery.

It's not just education.

- I don't know if I want to put someone back who's doing really well three, six, nine months later, have them return to the environment.

That's where a lot of their issues may have started.

- When students are coming back from treatment and they're going back to the same high school where they more than likely used, there's a 70% chance of return to use within six months.

However, students who go to treatment, coming back, and go a recovery high school is about 30% chance of return to use.

[music playing] So we're going to go see Maggie Kane, who's the executive director of A Place at the Table.

And she has been really a kind of like a mentor for me.

It was really interesting.

When we first started talking about this, we thought we'd be centrally located somewhere, Raleigh, Cary, wherever.

I had reached out to her.

She had heard about what we were doing.

Being close to transportation, it just made sense.

- Yep.

- It just made sense, because a recovery high school is not like a regular high school where there's a cafeteria where they come in.

It's not.

So we also needed to be close to multiple eateries within walking distance.

So it just made sense.

The people that she's connected me to have a very important meeting this week.

So without that connection with Maggie, I wouldn't have this important meeting coming up.

Tomorrow, we have a very, very big meeting about our location.

So I'm very, very excited.

- Yay!

- So I cannot wait and tell you recently-- because we should within the next week or two.

- I support this project.

I support this recovery high school because I just believe in it.

We see a ton of people coming into A Place at the Table that are in recovery.

And it is crucial to support all of these folks who are part of our community.

- Finding the right location for these kids-- we want them to be in an area where it's downtown, where they have access to transportation.

And it's very important for not only these kids in recovery to learn how to stay and sustain recovery, but also developing to be good community-- a good citizen.

So what does that look like?

So being able to be close to different community partners for them to give back to the community.

It's important to be close to an area where we can do that.

We're very hopeful.

Our first year, we'll have 10 students.

We want to make sure that we do those students really, really well.

And then we will increase enrollment after that.

We are doing something so much bigger than I think we all can realize.

And we are very grateful because our journey has come out on a positive side.

Without our journey, without my personal journey, without my personal recovery, there would be no Wake Monarch Academy.

Even if we just save one life, just one life, it'll make a difference.

- The drug culture has changed from 10 years ago, 15 years ago.

First of all, drugs are way more prevalent.

Nowadays in society nowadays, I think a teenager's perspective is that a lot of people do get high.

It's normal.

It's been normalized over the last couple years.

So I think it is very hard for them to realize, oh, I'm the one with a problem, or I'm the one that's going to have to stop.

- In the 1990s, we saw what's called the "prescription opioid epidemic."

And this was related largely to prescription of opioids for pain.

That was the first wave we saw.

- A little more than 20 years ago, the drug companies aggressively started marketing to prescribers, to doctors that opioids were the most effective way to treat pain, and they were not addictive.

And it turns out neither of those things are true.

The CDC took an important step in 2016 when they came up with new prescribing guidelines for opioids.

In America, we were prescribing 10 pills more per capita than in Japan, four to five times more pills prescribed here in the US than in Europe.

And we do not have 5 to 10 times more pain in the United States.

- Prescription opioids can be really helpful medications.

Anybody who's had an acute injury or an operation where opioids was part of their pain management strategy, often they're very appreciative of the kind of relief you get.

So opioids can be used by many people without the development of addiction.

But they are very addictive drugs.

Clinicians who prescribe opioids need to be aware of the possibility that a patient could develop an opioid use disorder.

And it's thought that about 8% to 12% of individuals on chronic opioid therapy actually meet the criteria for opioid use disorder.

- We must treat pain.

If you undertreat pain, it leads to addiction just as you overtreat it.

By that, I mean if somebody has real pain, and the health care community doesn't treat them, they will go on the street and treat themselves.

And that's a problem.

- The opioid crisis has changed quite a bit since it really first got identified as a problem.

- In 2010, we saw that wave change into heroin wave.

People who were addicted to prescription opioids shifted to heroin.

And the most concerning wave was in 2013 and is still ongoing.

And that's called the synthetic opioids, or the fentanyl wave.

In North Carolina, 78% of the opiate overdose deaths have fentanyl or synthetic analogs.

And that [inaudible] increase in opiate overdose deaths which we see today.

- We think there are 90,000, 100,000 people who are dependent on these pills on a daily basis.

So it's a huge number.

About 1,700 died of an opioid overdose last year.

This is a very distributed crisis, meaning that it's in every county in North Carolina, and it's in every community in North Carolina.

[music playing] - My name is Gary Quick.

I'm a lieutenant with the Craven County Sheriff's Office.

I work investigations.

I oversee our criminal division and our narcotics division.

So about six to eight years ago, it started with the pills in Craven County.

And there was an overabundance of pills being brought into the county in the area.

So we try to grasp a hold on this by stopping it coming into the county through interdiction or traffic stops.

We do undercover buys, take it off the streets.

These are items that are seized by our deputies, whether it be narcotics patrol, canine, or crime suppress unit.

These are weapons that have been taken off the streets.

This is money from a traffic stop, also some drugs from other traffic stops.

- All right.

Do have your driver's license on you?

- No, I actually don't.

- So the traffic stop she just made, there were some indicators to her that she thought maybe narcotics were present.

So they're stopped on a traffic stop, they're arrested.

They go to the court system, and the court system will mandate an option for treatment because the goal is to get people off of the drugs and not just incarcerate them.

- On the enforcement side, we are aggressively going after the drug traffickers and drug distributors.

But we also have to sort of change the way we approach.

If somebody's crime is because of their addiction, let's treat the addiction.

Let's get them out of the criminal justice system and in the health care system where they can get healthy and well.

- So it's a multi-front on this.

You have to do enforcement.

We're not going to arrest our way out of this problem.

The community has to be involved, community leaders, the churches, organizations.

It's a multi-tier approach to this.

- Literally, there is something that every single person in North Carolina can do to fight this.

One thing you can do is just go check your medicine cabinet.

40% of all pills came from dentists for wisdom teeth removals.

Or they get them-- the extra leftover at their parents, or their grandmother, or their aunt and uncle's medicine cabinet.

So we're trying to get all those leftover pills out of people's medicine cabinets.

Athletes are especially prone to this.

A high school athlete gets prescribed medication for some injury.

They want to power through it and get back on the field or get back on the court as quickly as possible.

We want to make sure that the parents, the athletic directors, the coaches all understand the real risks of opioids.

Make sure that there are no leftover pain pills there, because you would not leave a loaded gun in your medicine cabinet.

You should not leave these pills in your medicine cabinet.

- So this is our pill drop operation.

We have one here at the sheriff's office.

We do these every few months in the community.

This is stuff that keep drugs out of the community.

They're in law enforcement places.

We go to the community with our boxes every few months, and have a gathering, and pick them up ourselves.

It's going to take law enforcement to work together on this.

And it's because drug dealers don't have boundaries, or county lines, city lines.

They go wherever.

So for this to work, law enforcement's going to have to work together to make this happen.

- I would say the most critical next step, in addition to continuing to push forward on the law enforcement moving people out of criminal justice into treatment, we have to do a better job treating people who are sick with opioid use disorder.

- We are pretty much a normal family.

Amber and Joy went to school.

She and Joy are friends.

And she got in later to drill team.

She was pretty active.

Amber, I'd say, around 25 is where all this started taking place.

- My prescription medication became a problem.

I noticed it was being overused once I was reliant on it.

- The big wake-up call for me as to what was going on with her was when she had that first accident on the bridge.

She had hit the barrier where the lane veers off to the right.

She was standing in the road looking for her cell phone, not even realizing that her child, her young son, was in the backseat of the car.

She was ordered to get involved in a drug rehabilitation program.

The program helped her.

This lasted a year.

- I was completely clean and-- you know what I'm saying?

Doing good.

I had made that choice to do that.

But I feel like once you're an addict, you're always an addict.

And you struggle with that through your life.

- I think where things flipped up is when she found this doctor that was willing to write prescriptions without even checking to see if she was red flagged on the computer.

She had a problem with the pills.

You don't even realize that you're addicted when you're addicted.

When I saw the signs the second time, she wasn't the same Amber.

And Amber loved her children.

- She was the perfect child from birth.

She never cried.

She was amazing.

She was my princess.

She was the epitome of a perfect child.

- Well, we had Christmas 2012.

- A makeup thing!

Amber didn't come home.

I talked with her on the phone, explained to her it was Christmas.

You need to be here.

Of course, she never showed up.

- I got the barbie!

- We were able to have a good successful Christmas for them.

They had so many things that a lot of them still weren't open when the accident happened.

And the accident happened February 22 at 4:00 PM, 2013.

And the chain of events that took place led up to that.

She got the prescription.

She got the drugs.

She had another accident.

And we had a child perish because of it.

- Liberty 385, Code 6.

- I just got home from work.

She asked me if I had heard about the accident.

I says no.

What's going on?

She goes, well, Amber's been in a bad accident.

- [inaudible] - I said, what about little Blaze?

Is he OK?

And she said, well, he's been transported to Craven Regional.

He seems to be OK, but they want to check him out.

And I asked about Alanna.

And they said, well, she's nonresponsive.

It's like the worst nightmare that could possibly ever happen to anybody, any family, losing a child.

She was so numb from her addiction, it didn't even seem like she was sorry for what had happened.

And I realized what the drugs do to people.

But she just was numb like she was waking up from a bad dream, like she never even realized what had happened.

- Waking up at first, it was completely surreal.

I was in a psychotic stage of denial, didn't even feel like my life was real.

- But basically, we went from five people to two.

Amber's in the prison system, the Raleigh Women's Center.

Her term was 12 years.

She's on year seven.

- It took a lot of time.

But since then, I've had to try to accept the fact and accept responsibility for anything.

Whenever I get out, I can't imagine going backwards, specifically if for no other reason than what I've lost.

What my choices and past addiction has taken from me I feel like is a crucial price to pay for an extensive lesson.

- Her son's staying with her aunt.

And of course, Alanna, she's just down the road a little bit.

We go see her all the time.

The biggest concern that I have and everybody out there would have is where can we get the help that we need?

- Since being here, of course being in an institution, whether you intend to or not, you basically, of course, get clean.

However, someone who is trying to utilize any resources, there are basically none here.

- It's easy to say, well, they need to be in a program.

There is two things wrong with them.

One, they were ineffective.

And the second, would cost a fortune.

And there's still no guarantee.

The programs that we need in place have to be intense.

Amber has got a long way to go.

But she's eager and ready to try and put her life back together.

- And I'm going to have to do a lot of catching up, make up a lot.

It has impacted my family.

Not only my accent, but me being gone as well.

It's basically just taking everything away from my entire family.

But if I now could say anything to her, I would tell her thank you for teaching me everything that she taught me and making me-- or for helping me grow into the person that I am today.

- I still have a lot of fear.

We all that have dealt with this have a fear of her returning.

I just have my guard up.

I want her-- like any parent, I want her to be restored.

I want to see her smile again.

I want her to get past what has happened and become all that she can become.

[music playing] - Welcome, everyone.

And this is the Family Support Group of Healing Transitions.

Our purpose is to share our experience, strength, and hope with each other as we focus on our own recovery process on the long journey of healing our families and our relationships from the effects of the disease of addiction.

- It's very much a family disease.

Everybody's affected.

If you just take one person and focus on it, the whole system's not fixed.

And if they don't get help, it's a less chance of the loved one getting help.

- I was able to find a family support group at Healing Transitions.

I like coming in just because it's kind of good for your soul kind of deal, you know?

It's also important to share stories.

- In some ways, that had become so normal to me, that I was like, no, this is how he always looks.

He looks like this all the time.

And he did look like that all the time because he was high all the time.

- So when a person first comes to the support group, they're very traumatized.

They're in a lot of pain.

They're in a state of mind of, well, I'm going to get a phone call any minute that my loved one's going to die.

And that's how they live their life every day all day.

So it's a lot for them to unravel, but it's a place they can go.

- And I remember the first couple of meetings, I could not talk.

I balled.

- It's very isolating.

You tend to not want to tell anybody.

There's a lot of shame.

There's a lot of guilt.

Parents blame themselves.

And it's absolutely not their fault.

- First of all, we didn't cause this problem.

You can't control it either.

And you for sure can't cure it.

I mean, that's ridiculous.

- We have to help a parent realize that they can't dictate the path for their child.

And they kind of can let go of that.

- I remember one time in particular-- Carrson was an adult at this time-- and it had gotten to the point where we had to kick him out of the house.

The behavior went out of control where we gave him an ultimatum that you're going back to treatment.

You can't continue this behavior.

And he refused to do it.

I says, well, if you refuse to go to treatment, you're not going to stay here.

So we gave him the option.

So you can-- here's a bag.

You can go pack your clothes and go back, do what you got to do.

But you're not going live in this house.

And so that began the worst part of my life because I remember seeing my son walk down the road with nothing on his back but his clothes.

And that was the darkest time in my entire life.

- And I'm like, bro, I just got kicked out of my crib.

I just got drunk the entire week, don't remember anything to this day, missed out on my whole exams, got kicked out of all my classes.

I called my parents up, and I told them that this is not the lifestyle I want to live.

I want to be home.

- I look back now and think, thank goodness I had that family support for them to give me the strength to keep going because I'm not sure I would've been able to do it by myself.

- I just wish family people would get more help earlier and not feel like they did something wrong.

They didn't do anything wrong.

It is not their fault.

And get some help for yourself.

Don't stay in hiding.

- It took me a while to realize that I can always love him.

I will always love him.

But right now, I have to love him at a distance.

I have to love him at a distance so he can find that recovery.

[music playing] So Carrson was 19 at this time.

We really thought that he was doing great.

He was really following the rules of the house.

So this one particular weekend, he had said, hey, I would love to go over to a friend's house.

Can I spend the night?

- It was around Thanksgiving time.

I haven't done heroin in three months now, four months.

And I go straight to this girl.

I'm like, hey, I'll buy you heroin if you can get me some right now.

So we started doing it, and it is the worst stuff.

So I load up mine.

Only two bags, I did.

And mine was almost black.

It looked like tar.

It looked nasty.

And I just did it and just went out.

- 2 o'clock in the afternoon, we got a call from the hospital.

And I never will forget that phone call.

- I woke up on side of I-95.

I had overdosed three times before this.

But this is by far the worst one.

I definitely got a hot bag.

And I had no tolerance so I just went straight out.

I think they used four batches on me.

And they started hitting me with IV, Narcan.

- Naloxone is commonly known as Narcan.

It is a very safe antidote to opioid overdose.

The prescription version is given as a nasal spray.

Typically one spray will reverse most opioids.

It lasts about 90 minutes.

It would allow them to resume normal breathing.

It would help bring up their blood pressure.

- If you've have ever seen this firsthand, it's actually amazing to watch someone that's basically not alive, shoot this in their nose or Narcan-- EMS uses it-- and they come right back in an instant.

- And then emergency services could be called.

And that person could be taken to the emergency department and given more definitive treatment.

- So last year across the state, there were over 4,000 overdoses.

That's just the ones that are reported.

The main goal is to get people off this, to stop this.

How do we get them in these programs to get them off the streets and get them away from the heroin and the drugs?

- The new year begins with a new law in North Carolina that many are hoping tackles one of the roots of the opioid crisis here in our state.

- The thing that worries me is we're talking a lot about the opioid crisis, and there's been a ton of attention on that.

- Leaders from across the state are here in Raleigh to address the opioid epidemic.

- And I wonder, what are we going to see in the next 10, 15, 20 years from the children who have been impacted by this?

How many children are growing up without a parent because their parent died from an overdose?

- I've been to an OD where a person goes into a gas station bathroom, overdoses, and then come to find out, his child's in the car by himself, his infant child.

- It's pretty easy to look at those parents and have an emotional reaction.

How could they?

Or that's so selfish.

And you're going to look at that kid in the back seat, and you're going to say, my God.

You got a lot of compassion for this kid.

What can I do to help this kid?

What do you think the kid's risk is for ending up in the front seat like the parents?

If a kid has parents with diabetes, the standard of care is that that pediatrician is going to assess for risk factors for diabetes.

If we just change the scenario slightly and say, there's a kid and we know that one of his parents has a history of addiction, we really need to be focusing a lot on the multitude of risk factors for children that have been impacted by this latest crisis.

[music playing] - The next morning, I told my mom, I was like, all right.

Send me to rehab again.

I'm ready for it.

Let's go.

Send me to a good one this time.

My mom was like, all right.

You-- - He had actually had a drug poisoning or overdose before.

So what made this one different?

I think that he got to the point where he just was sick and tired of being sick and tired.

- I don't want to do this anymore.

I'm tired.

I've been living this way for the past four years of my life, honestly since I was 14, 13 years old.

- He's thriving in recovery and seems to be doing really well.

And as much, I think, as any parent would want their child close to them, we are proud of his recovery and want him to concentrate on him.

We're very hopeful but understanding this is a disease.

And there's been many stories who have had years in recovery, and they've had a return to use, which is why we are grateful for each day.

We take one day at a time.

[music playing] - We are very excited to announce we were approved for our location.

Inspections are all clear.

It is a reality.

We will have the Triangle area's first recovery high school at Open Table United Methodist Church downtown Raleigh.

Guys, thank you so much for your support.

We hope you have a blessed wonderful day.

Have a great one.

Thank you so much.

Bye.

So today I'm really excited.

We're meeting with Will Guest.

He sits on our board.

And we're meeting today so I can really talk to him specifically about our recovery program and what that looks like.

So when you think of adolescent recovery, what are some key components that we're going to need to make sure that we have for WMA?

- No, I do think what's going to be really important is that the approach with the school from day one has been not only the educational part, but the recovery aspect.

So I do think the teacher needs to be there for the educational part of the school, but also the relatability, to be able to connect with the students.

But then also, I think, and what's always really, really important is, can the students then relate to the teacher themselves, the staff at the schools?

- Right.

- I can relate to the students that would possibly actually start going to the school or would be going to the school.

Myself, I got sober when I was 18.

So I think there's different types of people who use drugs.

I think there's people who are just never going to do it because it's illegal, it's bad for you.

I think there's the second type of person who is going to try at one time, and it's just not their deal.

There's the third type of person who's going to use drugs and/or alcohol and really like the effects of it.

But if you were to provide them a consequence or give them a good reason to not do it again, they really would follow through.

What's tricky is is there's this fourth type of person who doesn't like getting high.

They absolutely love the feeling that it provides for them.

Then that's my experience.

There are also the people, given a good reason to quit, provided a consequence, they're going to say the same thing as that third person, is I'm going to quit, yes, you're right.

I won't do that again.

I feel really bad.

But they're the person a week later who's going to be using again.

I definitely am not the one to talk about the curriculum or the educational components of it, which is important.

But I think it's, how do you make this all gel and work?

Because those two things, a lot of times, recovery and school, don't mix too well.

But there is a way to do that.

[music playing] A lot of long-term success with people in recovery is finding a positive peer support system.

It's other like-minded people who are doing the same thing that you're doing that you can relate and connect to.

- We have found out that recovery is best in community.

- There's not a lot of success with if I'm trying to get sober, for me to hang out with people who still continue to use to any level, the success rate of me staying sober is not the best.

It's kind of one of these ideas, if I want to get really, really good at basketball, I'm not going to go hang out with the soccer team.

I need to find people I can relate and connect to who are doing the same thing I was doing.

- Ideally, what we want for these kids is they will go to the recovery high school during the day, then they go to their APG in the afternoon, and it continues on the weekend.

So what is happening is those adolescents are constantly in recovery.

- With Wake Monarch, I mean, a big component of the school is going to be involvement in an APG.

So there's going to be weekly meetings that you're attending.

And they're not talking about school.

They're talking about your recovery.

- What we noticed with him is that he will go to an adult AA meeting.

He would look around the room.

And immediately, if he did not see other adolescents close to his age, he would sit in the chair.

He would be there because we were supporting him and saying, you need to go.

But he would totally tune out.

- I am not like these people.

I do not deserve to be here.

And I hear their stories, and I just can't relate to any of them.

I guess I've been through addiction, but not addiction like they have.

I haven't seen consequences they have seen.

- An adult getting treatment, getting sober, they've had maybe decades of use.

And they could see, well, I've lost families, I've lost jobs.

- I was the youngest guy in the program.

I was only 18.

The youngest guy closest to my age was 24.

So I was like, oh, my gosh.

This is not for me.

- One of the great things about most APGs is that everybody has a desire to want to be there.

So everybody has the same goal, is to stay sober.

They can get better.

And people do recover.

And people are getting better all across North Carolina.

- It shouldn't be illegal to be an addict.

It's not always their fault they're an addict.

I mean, yes, you have a choice.

My parents always thought I had a choice.

And no one had a gun to my head that night saying, if you don't put this needle in your arm-- your brain just overrides.

Your brain takes complete just-- you're powerless over your addiction.

- One way people look at it is if you are choosing that, then you can also choose not to use drugs.

That's a very simplistic way people look at this.

And the way to kind of counter that, in my opinion, is to see what the opioids do to the brain.

So the first thing that happens is when you use a drug is you increase the level of a chemical called dopamine, which is a reward chemical in a part of your brain.

Now, when we eat, we watch TV, sexual activity, that all increases that.

So that's a normal reward pathway.

But that gets hijacked by the drugs.

And if that happens, the drug seeking is compulsive.

- There's always a choice.

But at the same time, it gets to that point where it's taken a toll on you.

You can't-- it's hard to say no.

You know what I'm saying?

- So universally, what we see is one of the biggest risk factors for addiction is early use of drugs or alcohol.

One study, for example, looked at if you used drugs before the age of 11, if you followed them into adulthood, there's a 38% higher risk of being addicted.

Now, the front of your brain, that area is responsible for decision-making.

And that's the last to mature, which is in your mid 20s.

So you can imagine in adolescence, when they start experimenting or using drugs at an early age, your frontal part of the brain is not developed.

So they are not able to understand the risks and act more impulsive.

I think when you educate people in that context, some of the stigma about saying, well, everything to do is a choice, people start looking at it in a different manner, that it's driven by what's happened in the brain.

It does not mean that they should not be responsible for the consequences.

It's a consequence people are responsible for.

But the drive is coming from what's happening in the brain.

[music playing] - My name is Bianca Dardeen.

I'm an enrolled member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians.

I'm in recovery.

December 28, 2016 will be four years that I've abstained from my drug of choice.

I was about 17 years old when I was first exposed to opioids.

The first time I tried it, I really liked it.

And I was like, wow, I've never felt anything like this before, you know?

I felt invincible.

I felt powerful.

I felt funny.

And I got to hang out with the cooler crowd.

But it was a complete downhill spiral.

I would use the opioids, and then I would use the methamphetamines.

And kind of when I was coming down off the opioids, I would use the meth and then go out in search of the opioids.

I was 22 when I got pregnant with my lovely son.

He's amazing.

I had a severe addiction to Percocet at that point in my life.

I felt really alone and scared.

I didn't know where to go.

I didn't know how to approach it.

- The Eastern Band of the Cherokee Indians has approximately 14,000 enrolled members right now, give or take.

That obviously changes.

The Qualla boundary covers around 56,000 acres in five counties.

- Way back when, the Indians were not treated very well.

And they were trying to colonize them and get the savage out.

So they actually forced children into boarding school situations.

And they would not let them speak their language.

They cut their hair, which is sacred.

And there was a lot of abuse that happened in those schools.

And what they're struggling with is they have this sense of themselves as a traditional Cherokee, and then they were taught this other thing, this very awful thing that has affected them.

And then they're having children.

There's a lot of abuse that comes out of that.

Very often, no matter what nationality you are, abused people abuse people.

- I met this guy, and I started living with him.

And then I was involved in this really awful domestic violence situation.

And the only thing that I can remember truly using to cope was going back to drugs.

- Folks who have experienced trauma are at a much higher chance of developing a substance use disorder.

You have to treat the trauma in order to treat the addiction.

- I had been arrested on some pretty serious charges.

My grandparents gained guardianship of my son.

And at that point in time in my life, I knew I couldn't take care of my son.

I could barely take care of myself.

I remember I was signing some papers for his medical care.

And I was basically signing my rights away.

The only thing that I had really ever tried at was to be a mom.

And that was taken from me.

The drugs have always been there when nobody else was.

And that led to a shack on top of a hill.

There was no power.

There was no water.

So I was going to take my life that night.

And there was just something so weird.

This breeze blew through the shack.

And it was almost like creator saying, hey, why don't you just go lay down and just-- I'll give you a breath of fresh air.

Just go rest, you know?

And it's scary how close I really was, because nobody would have found me for a really long time.

But just the thought of leaving my son behind permanently, that's what changed everything.

So I remember one time distinctly, I asked my little boy, I said, what do you want to be when you grow up?

And he looked up at me.

He said, I want to be like you, mom.

And I was still in active addiction at that time.

Kids aren't stupid.

I know he's seen me struggle.

I know he's seen the change in me.

Mom goes into the bathroom, and she's in there for a little while.

And then she comes out, and she's completely different.

But I can show him a recovered mom.

I can show him a mom that's there to wake him up in the morning.

I can show my mom that's taking him to school.

I can show him a mom that's going to be like, hey, we got to do your homework or we're both going to get in trouble.

- Though we are seeing overdose numbers level out some, we're continuing to see the number of folks trying to access services [inaudible].

- And that's the biggest difficulty, is accessing services.

- It's a rural area.

And like all rural areas in our nation, there's a reduction in services everywhere.

- So the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indian, the tribe itself has done an amazing job at really tackling this.

They included our very own comprehensive outpatient center.

We have our own inpatient center and our detox unit that will be all in-house.

So the idea is that a person may start in residential and then literally do their step-downs here in Cherokee with their tribe, with their people, and also within the hospital system.

Everything is right here for them.

- I went to self-help groups first.

And there was a group of friends there that they absolutely changed my life.

They said, hey, you should come to Analenisgi.

While I was receiving services from Analenisgi, the opportunity of Mother Town presented itself.

So Mother Town, it was a program designed for people early in recovery trying to gain employment, trying to integrate back into the community.

- Mother Town is a beautiful, beautiful organization.

So they started with a very extensive garden over on the Kituwah mound, which is a sacred, sacred land.

Mother Town is a really wraparound service.

It's a social group.

So there's a whole group maybe of a dozen folks.

It's also run by folks that are in recovery themselves.

- We're going to go out into the community.

And we're going to do projects around town.

We're going to go to elders' houses and help clean them up, just building that unity and that community with other people around and stuff.

- And employment, actually, across all races, across all areas has shown to be the most consistent factor-- positive factor for folks in recovery, which makes sense.

You now have a little bit of money.

You can pay your own rent.

You can have your own home and just feeling proud rather than shameful.

You can't just treat one thing.

You have to treat the whole person.

All of it.

- So when people look at you and they say, oh, you're just a dirty junkie, and you'll never amount to nothing, and stuff like that they, they don't know the person behind the mask, basically, is really struggling severely just to try to be a person.

It hurts me because we're just sick and struggling people.

And we don't need to be bashed just because our symptoms aren't a broken leg or a visible thing.

Just focus on wow, look how far I've come.

Now that I'm not using, the ceiling has just been blown off.

And I can really just do anything I wanted to do.

- So there are a lot of folks, naysayers.

They're also the same folks that label us as addicts, and alcoholics, and worthless, and all kinds of other names.

And why is it worth doing?

Why is it worth investing in?

Because that's not what we want it to be when we grew up.

We are capable of better.

And recovery happens every single day.

And it may be the 10th time that somebody's gone in to seek services, and that may be the magical moment that sticks.

We are not addicts.

I am a daughter.

I am a sister.

I am a girlfriend.

I am a homeowner.

I have a job and a steady income.

And everyone deserves that.

And everyone is capable of getting there.

Sometimes you need a little help, though.

- So yeah, today's a very exciting day.

I am really, really excited to go to the airport and pick up Carrson.

This is a huge deal.

I'm a little anxious because the last time we were at the airport, I was taking him to detox, and we were flying out to Texas.

And he had a near fatal overdose.

I'm excited [inaudible]!

A little nervous.

I felt confident that he was really strong in his recovery.

So it really wasn't a concern about him going backwards.

That was not where the anxiousness was coming from.

It really was coming back to the same people, places, and things.

I mean, even for myself as a family member in recovery, I have triggers.

- There's all kinds of different triggers.

It varies from person to person.

Being in North Carolina is definitely a trigger for me.

For example, when I was driving back from the airport, I saw a lot of the motels that I used to use at and stuff.

Some good memories, some bad memories.

But I do miss it here.

But feels great to be home.

[music playing] - The children make a meal, and we just sit back and say-- - You're doing this way much better.

- --what do you guys think-- - Tonight, what we have here is the Vanderwood family, Jimmy and Paige Vanderwood and their three kids, Austin, Nicholas, and Lauren.

Our kids grew up together.

And we're excited about bringing the family together, being normal.

- Doesn't Carrson look good?

- Oh, yeah.

He looks fabulous.

- Yeah, he does.

- I like the haircut.

It's nice to have this and prove positive that recovery is beautiful, recovery does happen.

I'm very grateful.

I'm proud of you.

I'm proud that you reached a point where you were ready to help yourself.

And we're very blessed, very blessed.

So I love you.

- I love you too.

- I love you.

- I want to thank my mom for all that she's done, been there, supportive of me.

As much crap as I've given her throughout my life, I don't know how you could have stuck with me.

But hey, you did.

And now we're here.

- Straight to the point, right?

- Right?

Started from the bottom.

Now we're here.

- Yeah.

It's finally here.

Oh, my goodness.

I have thought about this day over, and over, and over again.

It's a good morning.

So I can't wait till you see the classrooms.

Been working hard, but very excited about what's to come.

- When I was 16 years old, I wish I had that for myself when I was getting a little out of hand.

- [inaudible] right here.

- [inaudible], guys.

- This truly is a passionate endeavor, but a love.

I mean, there's lots of love in here.

I think back to our own son and how desperate for help, and to be proud and so excited for the families that they have the opportunity that we didn't have.

There's going to be help and an option for students to have now.

And that's very exciting to be part of that.

- I know that this school will save lives.

- Wow.

I just-- this day has finally arrived.

I cannot tell you how many times I have thought about this day, dreamed about this day over, and over, and over again.

I want to immediately think Open Table United Methodist Church for welcoming us with open arms and allowing us to bring the first recovery high school to the Triangle area.

As hard as the journey was-- and I would not have wished it on anyone-- but without Carrson, there would not be Wake Monarch Academy.

And that is something for him, as part of his recovery journey, to be very proud of.

I'm not going to cut this.

I don't know how we could hold all the scissors together, but we're going to try.

They gave the scissors to me and was like, Leah, cut the ribbon.

And I was just like, oh, no.

If you can't reach the scissors, I understand.

But grab hold, grab a hand.

We're going to do this together, because it was a team effort.

Woo!

Wake Monarch Academy is now open!

Woo!

As I've always said, there really needs to be a recovery high school in every county in every state.

So I'm very hopeful that we're the first in this area, that there will be more.

And then when you say recovery high school, people are not going, what's that?

A lot of people don't understand what a recovery high school is.

So I'm hopeful that one day that when someone mentions a recovery high school, everybody knows what a recovery high school is.

- It's amazing.

It's surreal.

You wonder how it has come to play.

But it made it.

- What she's done with the school is absolutely amazing.

- We made it.

We made it.

We're here.

We made it through the pandemic.

To have come this far, since May 7 of 2018 to be opening in August of '21, it's amazing.

We have an option now for kids.

And it's just-- it's exciting.

It's really exciting.

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