- [Announcer] WVIA's "Mind Over Matter," a mental health initiative is underwritten by Geisinger.

- [Narrator] When you hear Geisinger, what comes to mind?

A hospital, doctors, health insurance?

We're all those things.

But here's something you might not think of, we're also your local pharmacy.

Geisinger Pharmacy isn't just for people in the hospital, it's for you.

Wanna fill a prescription?

We've got you covered.

Just need over the counter stuff?

We've got that too.

And Geisinger Pharmacy is run by your friends and neighbors.

We're your local healthcare system and your local pharmacy.

- [Announcer] From the WVIA studios in Pittston, WVIA Presents "Mind Over Matter" Substance Use Disorder.

(gentle music) Now moderator, Tracey Matisak.

- Hello everyone and thanks for joining us for this very important conversation about the state of mental health and substance use disorder in Northeast Pennsylvania.

Every day in Pennsylvania, 14 people will die from a drug overdose.

Overwhelmingly, those overdoses will involve opioids like fentanyl, which accounted for more than three quarters of all fatal overdoses in 2022.

While overall overdose deaths have declined slightly, some counties continue to see death rates higher than the state average in Northeast Pennsylvania, Luzerne and Lackawanna counties are among those with overdose death rates above the state average.

(dramatic music) In a few minutes we will meet some people who have bravely shared their own stories of substance use with us and how they overcame the addictions that so powerfully affected their lives.

But first, a closer look at how some parts of Northeast Pennsylvania came to have exceptionally high rates of substance use disorders and what's being done to help individuals and families who are dealing with it.

And for that, we turn to our expert panel.

Janice Mecca is the Director of Assertive Community Treatment at Scranton Counseling Center.

She holds her PhD in human development and has been working with individuals living with mental illness for nearly a decade in both residential and community outpatient settings.

Dr. Joseph Valdez provides addiction treatment services at the Geisinger Center of Excellence in South Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, which specializes in the treatment of substance use disorders.

He is board certified by the American Board of Family Medicine and is a diplomat of the American Board of Addiction Medicine.

He earned his medical degree from Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia.

And Stefanie Wolownik is currently with Wyoming Valley Alcohol and Drug Services as a Drug and Alcohol Prevention and Education Specialist.

She has over 40 years in social services working primarily in substance use and homelessness.

So many thanks to all of you for being with us.

A couple of questions before we get to the stories that we want to share.

Stefanie, I'll begin with you, because we mentioned that locally Luzerne and Lackawanna counties have higher than average rates of substance use disorders.

What are some of the factors that have contributed to that?

- Well, it starts with alcohol, okay?

And has just kind of snowballed from there.

If you have one addiction problem with one addiction, it leads to another.

But we're an area where coal mining, okay?

As coal mines came up, so did bars and before bars were regulated, the number of liquor licenses were regulated.

The men came up outta the mines, wanting to drink probably more because of stress than anything else.

But you know, substance use, alcohol use disorder may not be genetic, they have not proven that quite yet, but it certainly is learned.

So if you're living in a home where alcohol is primarily used and abused, that's what you're going, children learn what they live and then they turn around and live what they learn.

- So lots of factors that can kind of set someone up for that.

Janice, to you, how often does substance use either lead to or follow other co-occurring mental health conditions?

Because so often you hear about substance use disorder and something else.

- It works both ways, so substance abuse disorders can cause increase in symptoms of mental illness, and mental illness can exacerbate substance use disorders.

So sometimes we treat mental illness with substances to help feel better in the short term if you're not getting long-term treatment.

And it creates kind of a mix of a very severe illness.

- And Dr. Valdez, Stefanie mentioned a moment ago, genetics.

What role does genetics play in substance use disorders?

- Well, there certainly is a genetic component.

I mean, they estimate that it's about a 50/50 mix between genetics and the environment, nature versus nurture.

So they both can have a role, you know, addiction certainly can run in families.

And you know, you see some families, they have a history of diabetes, they have a history of high blood pressure and some families have a history of addiction.

So you know that environment, the children that are born to those families are around the substances.

So, you know, certainly genetics can play a role, but the environment as well has a big part to play.

- Well, substance use disorders can happen to anyone regardless of income, education or background.

Marcy Garvin was armed with an MBA and a happy family when her life began a downward spiral.

Her husband's back injury led him and later Marcy down a harrowing path of painkiller addiction.

That addiction cost her dearly.

But Marcy has since turned her life around and is using her experience to help others avoid the suffering that she went through.

- I had moved to Pittsburgh and I attended the University of Pittsburgh and then I got a job working at a local finance firm, and I ended up going back to school and getting an MBA, a real stable career in the financial industry.

(pensive music) My husband ended up getting injured and requiring back surgery and that resulted in him getting prescribed pain pills and becoming permanently disabled.

He tried injections, he tried physical therapy, massages, he tried a lot of different things to not have to be reliant on the pain pills, but he ended up becoming reliant on the pain pills, and then I ended up also becoming reliant on them as well.

In the beginning, you know, it was Percocet, it was oxycodone, it was Opana, prescribed fentanyl patches.

And then it really moved on, as you know, the disease of addiction progresses and we ended up using heroin.

(somber music) I thought I was too smart to get caught up in something like that, right?

Here I am, somebody who has a master's degree in business, working a really good job, you know, kind of have my stuff together and it really, opiates brought me to my knees.

(sad music) Our financial consequences were so great because the amount of pills that were being prescribed were not enough to put a dent in our daily use.

And so we ended up resorting to buying pills or heroin off of the street in order to not go through withdrawal.

I was unable to pay my bills, right?

I was unable to pay my mortgage.

I was unable to pay my car payment, I had no money.

And I ended up getting fired from my job as a direct result of my use.

And it put me in a position where I had very limited options.

So I ended up coming back to this area, my parents still live in this area and they really kind of gave me an ultimatum where they said, you know, you either go to jail because they found, you know, some of my heroin or you go to treatment.

I ended up in treatment about 24 hours after I moved back here.

(inspiring music) I was completely broken.

I had lost pretty much everything in my life.

And I really was willing to finally listen to the people in treatment centers and to what they were telling me that there was more than just a physical aspect to the disease of addiction.

(bright music) There are a lot more resources available now to individuals who struggle with substance use than there were when I was having my issues use.

I ended up getting my Certified Recovery Specialist certification.

I began working in the field and then I became acquainted with the Healthy MOMS Program.

It was a grant funded program in the beginning that was really to address the direct impact of opioid use around pregnant women because pregnancy is really a crucial time for women.

They have really that external motivation to get better and to stay better for their child.

So it's really a time that you can capitalize on that and try to get women to where they need to be.

I was working with a girl who is 39 weeks pregnant, she's due next week and she's still using fentanyl.

(bright music continues) We have everything from women who are homeless living in Kirby Park to school teachers.

It doesn't matter where you are, you know, and it does not discriminate.

I have a son who lived through my active addiction and then I have a son who has never seen me use.

I really think that I'm able to really connect with these women regarding the experiences that I've had in my life and to help them get through to the other side.

(inspiring music) I actually got married again and I am incredibly grateful to still be alive and to be able to use my experiences to help other people today.

It's easier not to start than it is to stop.

The help is out there if you are willing to take it.

I was never willing to take the help until I reached a point where I was broken.

(inspiring music continues) - And many thanks to Marcy for sharing her story with us.

Janice, I wanna begin with you because one of the things that struck me about Marcy's story is that substance use disorders, for lack of a better word, can be contagious.

In other words, her husband first had a substance use disorder, he was addicted to painkillers, but then she became addicted as well, how does that happen?

- So I think her story is a great example.

So someone close to her was using, it's in her environment.

Someone she trusts may have been reporting that, you know, this makes me feel a certain way.

And you're, you know, more likely if you have access to it, if it's in your environment to use as well.

- And Dr. Valdez, Marcy described addiction as a disease.

Can you explain why that is true?

That is what happens in the brain that leads to dependency.

- Yeah, so they've made great strides in science and understanding what is actually going on in the brains of people that have substance use disorders.

And over the last 20 or 30 years, there's been some really interesting brain imaging studies that they've done, and you can see that people with substance use disorders, that there are some structural and functional changes that happen in their brain that has, you know, certain long-term effects.

And these may be genetic in nature, they, you know, have a predisposition to this or these changes occur over time as someone uses a substance chronically.

And the end result is that somebody may initially start to use a substance and there's a euphoria or a good feeling, but over time that sort of goes away and they develop tolerance and people continue to use to not feel bad or to feel normal again.

- Which leads me to you, Stefanie, because Marcy's addiction started with pain pills, but then as she described it, it went from one thing to another to another.

Increasingly more dangerous drugs finally ending up with heroin.

Can you talk about what causes that progression?

That someone may start with pain pills or start with alcohol and somehow they end up with heroin?

How do we account for that progression?

- Tolerance.

So when a person first has their first drink or their first high, if you wanna call it that, the brain is like, "Wow, this is something different."

And as they progress to, you know, having more and more because they like that feeling and then they start using it medicinally, that's what we get the problem, you know, it made me feel great, you know how to party.

I feel lousy now, you know, let me drink or let me smoke weeded or something.

And then, you know, what happens is that that amount doesn't work anymore and it's not getting them high, so they use more and more.

And then eventually they're to the point where nothing's getting them high, it's just they think it's getting them high because it's just getting them normal.

They're in pain without it through the withdrawal and the psychological that's going on.

So they're just getting normal.

Well when somebody, a dealer on the street says, "Hey, my stuff is really great, you should try it."

And it does it, now we're talking about fentanyl mixed in.

And so it does get them high for a little bit, okay?

And then that becomes normal again, you know, the pain that they need to just to use to get normal.

And then we'll add xylazine or horse tranquilizer and it gives 'em something different and before you know it again and they're always looking for that high again because they're not getting that any longer.

- Yeah, it's always chasing, either the high or to feel normal as you said.

In Marcy's case, Stefanie, she lost her job eventually because of the addiction.

And I wonder what advice you would have for employers, for instance, who may suspect that an employee has an issue.

How do you recognize it?

How can employers help?

- Well, it's very important for employers to have a policy.

Okay, back, you know, when it was the Drug-Free Workplace Act back in the '80s and the early '90s, employee assistance programs were very popular, okay?

And now there's not so much a specific employee assistance program, but, you know, with people's insurance makes it a lot easier to access care.

But it's really important for employers to have training for their supervisors, have their human resource folks know what's going on.

During COVID, I did a ton of those online because they had the time to do that.

But it's really important to keep up with that so that employers are aware of the signs and symptoms, they're aware of the resources.

And it's important for the employees to know that too.

That there is help out there for them.

That we're not going to fire you just because you have a substance use disorder, that we're going to give you all the help that you need and that you deserve, quite honestly.

- The resources are there, it's a matter of taking advantage of them, yeah.

Well, while Marcy's battle with substance use began in adulthood, addiction often begins much earlier than that.

Jah Tefera started drinking at age eight and was addicted by age 15.

His journey to recovery has been long and difficult and at one point cost him everything, including the roof over his head.

But today he is a different person.

He has learned firsthand that recovery is possible, but doing it alone is not.

(inspiring music) - We're not alone in this.

It can't be done alone.

We need each other to get better.

We need a family, we need the whole community, everyone.

We need this, that's what I want people to know, like a person can't do this alone.

(plastic crinkling) This is coffee.

(playful music) Not a lot of people know that coffee is actually green.

Coffee actually first found in Ethiopia.

So we, I still do the same process they do back home.

And this is the, this is what I use to roast the coffee.

And that's what I brew the coffee in.

Growing up in Ethiopia was, it's different, I was raised by my grandparents 'cause my mom was in America at that time.

The drinking came to me as a very early age because alcohol was in my house 24/7 and probably age eight or nine years old, it's the first time I have tried alcohol.

But by age 15 or 16, I got addicted to it a lot, like I had to drink every day.

I was 19 years old when I got to this country.

And my first thing that I found out about in this country was that you cannot drink 'til you're 21.

And so that was like the first thing I was gotten to do, and I was scared 'cause I was 19 and I didn't know how I was gonna live for two more years without alcohol, but took over when I came here, I was just, you know, I started out with weed and alcohol.

Then I came here and I started getting into pills and then cocaine, and I start losing external stuff like job and houses and stuff and start going down, and I was homeless, sleeping at the Kirby Park.

I thought everything that I had, like my job, my family, and all this stuff as like, what's the point even to stop right now?

And even if I want to, how I'm gonna do it?

I thought it was over.

(grinder whirring) Oh my God, this is what I live for.

I have been in the psych hospital and I met a person there that was a patient.

And I saw that person a month later and she looked totally different person that I met a month ago.

And I ask, "How do you get better?

You look better."

And that person start taking me through, you know, places and introduced me to more people that was, you know, doing this recovery and getting better, and that's how my life actually changed.

The saddest thing about this journey, not everybody can stay in the same path.

So right now she's not doing good, she had a relapse.

So there's a hope, you know, she will make it back.

(pensive music) It gave me purpose having this issue with alcohol and drugs.

So I work in that field and it's very satisfying.

I don't know if you ever had a chance to see somebody in active addiction.

It's very sad to see them.

But coming from that, you are watching right on your face turn into physically getting better, emotionally getting better, getting in touch with their family, getting better with everything.

And we do have what is called a family visitation.

And you watch little kids come in to see their dad and mom and the other way around, you know, it's just beautiful thing to watch.

You know, just watching people get better.

They can't put any amount money on that.

(inspiring music) I have built a life before and destroy it.

I was sober almost two years at one time and I picked up again and lost everything I had at that time.

Yeah, so I didn't, I started from zero and a lot of people to helped me.

- Misconception is that you can do it alone.

You cannot do it alone.

I believe that many people in recovery, you know, the more weaker they get by themselves.

You know, I have to be with a fellowship.

I have to be with a support group.

I have to have people that I can talk to that know and suffer from some of the same stuff that people do in recovery, you know.

- I love all of your shirts.

- This actually was Roger's shirt and then I took it from him.

- What is the common thing about the spiritual life, music and food, right?

All these three have one thing in common.

They bring people together.

That's all, it's all about my life has been, I love bringing people together, watch people eat.

It's so connected, just enjoying something together.

- Having a strong togetherness has helped me in my recovery because it really helped me change my perception of how I look at myself, how I look at the people around me.

Having real connections with people can help you.

You feel better, you do better things.

My life is a lot different than it was five, six years ago, so.

- If I describe my journey one, it's not easy.

It takes a lot of practice, it takes a lot of patience.

It takes to have a lot of room to make mistakes.

And it takes a lot of people by your side.

That's my journey, my journey is not alone.

I wish I can say I did this all alone, absolutely not.

I barely do anything, it's other people who show me how to do this.

- And thanks to Jah for sharing his story with us.

Dr. Valdez, Jah tells us that he started drinking at eight years old and that alcohol was readily available to him, which made it easier.

But the fact is that whether you grow up in Ethiopia or Erie, Pennsylvania, underage drinking is a huge problem.

I wanna quote a stat to you because, and this is about binge drinking among young people.

Studies show that in 2021, 3.2 million American youth ages 12 to 20 reported binge drinking at least once in the prior month, and those are the ones who admitted to it, so the number may be bigger than that.

What do you make of that and what are the associated health risks for young people?

I mean, he was eight years old.

What does that do to brain development?

What are the health risks?

- Yeah, unfortunately, Jah's story is very similar to a lot of the patients that, you know, I might see in my clinic.

Many of them begin using substances in very early age, early adolescents around 12 to 15 or younger.

And when somebody starts using substances at that early of an age, they're gonna have increased risk of developing substance use disorder and problems down the line.

And as you had mentioned a statistic, there is a lot of, you know, binge drinking among the youth about one in three, or 13 million as you said, 12th graders will have binge drank in the last month, or have used alcohol in the last month.

And you know, when they do drink and they drink in a binge pattern, it is dangerous.

There's risks of accidents, there's risks of motor vehicle accidents and injuries.

And it just, that brain is still developing, as you mentioned, until somebody's about in their mid twenties.

So using and particularly heavily at a very early age, could set them up for troubles down the line.

- Stefanie, I was struck by that statistic that 85% of people who recover relapse within a year of their treatment.

That is a staggering number and one that feels kind of discouraging.

Why does it happen so often?

And what's different about the 15% who are successful?

- I believe that the 15% that are successful have support.

They found the community that the gentleman was talking about in that segment.

They have the support, they've surrounded themself with people that care and are willing to help them through whatever circumstances they may be going through.

The 85%, unfortunately, again, I would think that those are people without support or trying to do it alone.

And I would venture to say that a lot of that is caused by stigma.

Stigma is huge, you know, a person won't get help because they don't wanna be seen as a drunk, a druggie, an alky, you know, those kinds of awful terms that we have for a person with a disease, with a medical disease, you know, the same thing.

It's that and mental health illnesses, are the only two diseases that I know that we have awful names.

You know, we don't stand over someone in a hospital bed with lung cancer and say, you smoked yourself into this or someone with a heart condition, you ate yourself into this position, you know, into this illness.

We don't do that to them, but why do we do it to people?

Because we think it's a matter of willpower.

And unfortunately as that perception is out there in the world, the people that are struggling with it believe it as well, "Oh, I'm just a bad person."

You know, people rise to your expectations.

So if we expect them to be bad people or we expect them to have no willpower, that's exactly what they're going to live up to.

- If I could just hop on to your point there a minute about relapse, I do wanna make a point.

I think there is a bit of a myth and a bit of a misconception, that people with substance use disorders or addictions, they never get better or it's very rare as we saw, and maybe that is true, as you mentioned, if they don't have a lot of support.

But we do have treatments out there, effective medication treatments, counseling, things that are proven scientifically to increase somebody's chances.

And when they have studied rates of relapse for drug addiction, for example, compared to other chronic illnesses like diabetes or high blood pressure, they're about the same.

They're about equal.

There's nothing unique about drug addiction, which we think of as a chronic disease, compared to others.

It is difficult.

Anyone who knows like myself that it's difficult to stick to a diet, you know, knows that chronic behavior change, you know, making those behavior changes over time is a hard thing to do.

- And it's important to recognize that the road to recovery is filled with potholes, as someone once said, so the expectation- - And it doesn't make them a failure, you know, if they relapse, it doesn't mean it's a failure.

There may be periods of relapse and remission and that's okay.

- [Tracey] Part of the process.

- And the nice, the good statistic is every time someone goes into recovery, the greater the chance that they'll stay in recovery.

- Janice, before we move on to the next story, one of the things that Jah mentioned was that things got so bad for him that he had lost his home, he was sleeping in Kirby Park.

Can you speak briefly about the connection between substance use disorders and homelessness?

- Sure, substance use disorders are more prevalent in the homeless population.

They're more easily accessible and they could also cause homelessness.

Individuals may be choosing between getting their next high and paying their rent, paying their bills, and that increases their chance of losing their housing.

- And Dr. Valdez, of course, the big theme of Jah's story is that recovery does not happen in a vacuum.

That you do need support, it only happens in community.

Can you drill down a little bit and talk about why recovery has to be a team sport, why, you know, it really can't be done alone and what it is about that sense of community that helps a person work through it.

- Yeah, what a wonderful, inspiring story and just a beautiful image there of him sharing food.

I mean, it looked delicious and he had that fellowship and support and you know, it really is a team sport.

You know, addiction is a disease.

Substance use disorders are a disease.

They affect a person physically, emotionally, spiritually.

And as they say in 12 step meetings, you know, recovery has to come about in all three physical, emotional, and spiritual.

So, you know, a person needs to take care of themself.

There are medications that can help them in their recovery and take care of themself physically, but often substances are used to self-medicate, maybe emotional pain or other issues.

And when you take that away and somebody is in recovery, you know, they need to work and learn to develop the skills to deal with those in a healthy way without those substances.

So that's where counseling and other meetings and whatnot really come in handy.

- Yeah, and that spirituality piece as well, yeah.

Well, like Jah, Roxann Murphy started drinking as a youngster.

Over time, alcohol became the gateway to other substances that not only controlled her life, but could well have ended it.

But Roxann found a way out and says that her recovery depends on helping others find a way out too.

(pensive music) - My life journey has taken me down many paths.

The paths that I went to became darker and things that I never thought would happen started to happen.

The thing that made me realize that things were not going right, I started thinking about eating a bullet, running my car off a mountain.

I hated looking in the eyes of everyone, and everyone kind of kept quiet when I was around.

They didn't wanna upset me and really never confronted me on it for fear of whatever.

I wasn't one that acted out in anger or whatnot.

I just, I lied, I stole, I don't know, I stole time, I stole money.

(pensive music continues) I drank for many years from sixth grade on during junior high school up until senior high school.

And in 1970 somebody introduced me to hashish.

From there it went from pot to psychedelics to pills, to eventually sticking my arm out and letting somebody put a needle in it with heroin.

And two weeks later, finding crystal meth, then I started doing a lot of cocaine.

At the height of my addiction, it got to the point where all I thought about was where I was gonna get something for the next try.

Anything, and everyone, I still cared about them, but definitely getting high and doing my thing was more important and took priority.

Did I do it on a daily basis?

No, I didn't like heroin.

I did like speed.

Starting in the middle '80s, I started doing as much and as often as I could.

(tense music) (birds chirping) And the bees are having a good old time, aren't they?

Being addicted to drugs affected my family.

My mom would stay up and lost many hours of sleep, which I never took into consideration.

My son paid a dear price because, you know, I would take off or I would be consumed by what I wanted to do.

I tried doing things with him, I did do things with him, but I remember holding my son in my arms when he was first born, and I looked at him and I thought I wanted to give him everything and anything that I thought I never had, and drugs and alcohol stole that from me.

In fact, I gave it away.

The defining moment was looking in the mirror and hating what I saw and saying, I can't live like this anymore.

I can't live with it and I can't live without it and I gotta do something different.

The person that probably inspired me to make this change in my life was a sibling of the person who I was involved with.

And I can remember calling him out of the blue one day and saying, you know, "I have a friend and I think they need help."

And he made me aware of, you know, the treatment center that he had gone to, and that started ball rolling for me.

Something that I was taught in the very beginning that if I want to continue to stay on this path, I need to give it away.

And if I don't give it away, I ain't gonna keep it.

I work in a program, it's called Free2BMom, and what I do is we work with pregnant and postpartum moms who have a history of substance use.

Being able to work with babies and watch them from the time they're in their mom's womb up until the time that they turn two, we stay with them for two years.

It's pretty neat, I just got a text message from one of the moms, she's going down on a lower dose with the MAT program, which is medical assisted treatment.

She's starting school for a CNA, her kids are excelling in school, they're involved in sports and it's pretty neat, you know, it really, really is pretty neat, yeah.

Just sharing their story and going forward and making changes in their lives.

Yeah, it's a nice feeling.

And, and I always say, you know what, I didn't do it.

It was like, I don't know, something was working through me.

Once I decided to stop doing what I was doing, it was like, I got a gift and I care, you know, and wanna let people know that if somebody like me could change their lives, so could you.

(pensive music) - And we are delighted to report that Roxann is here with us in our studio audience tonight.

Roxann, thank you so much for sharing your story with us.

Well, we have a lot to talk about there.

One of the things I wanna talk about with you, Stefanie, is that Roxann talked about how her drinking and substance use took a toll not only on her, but on her family, which at the time she was unaware of.

Can you talk about the impact on families when someone is struggling with substance use?

- Well, it certainly is a family disease, just like when we were children and our moms got sick, which moms never get sick, but the whole household stopped, okay?

So it's kind of like that.

Even with any chronic disease, you know, everybody kind of tiptoes around and don't get them upset, even if it's a heart condition, anything.

So it is a family's disease, it affects the entire family, whether from like Roxann's experience with her mom, having stayed up nights, worrying about her, her son, you know, being left alone, not left alone, but you know, her taking off, leaving him with someone else.

And in my years of working with homelessness, the stories that I've heard of how women have gone out there and have done things in order to just have diapers and formula and food for their children, as well as keep their own substance use disorder at bay by continuing to use it, just the trauma that that then ensues that it just kind of is a wheel that just keeps turning and turning and turning within the family.

- Dr. Valdez, Roxann said that her defining moment was when she looked in the mirror and in her words she said she hated what she saw.

Things began to turn around at that point.

But it's not uncommon to hear people who struggle with substance use disorders say that they had to hit rock bottom before things got better.

And it kind of speaks to the illusion of control that substance use can bring.

You often hear people say that they can stop whenever they want.

Can you talk about sort of the sense of control, the false sense of control that can come from substance use?

- Certainly, yeah, that goes back to some of the brain disease of addiction.

When we think of it as a brain disease, and there are changes in the brain that can affect somebody's judgment and behavior and their ability to really weigh, you know, evaluate decisions and weigh pros and cons and see what's happening to them.

Loss of control is one of the hallmarks of an addiction.

And many people, when they are in active addiction, they don't see that themselves, you know, they really need an outside perspective of somebody to see what's happening.

And unfortunately, it may take hitting bottom till they come to a place of acceptance for help, but you never know.

And so we're always there for them, letting 'em know that there's treatment and help available for them, waiting for the moment when they're willing to embrace it.

- Janice, like Jah, Roxann had very easy access to alcohol even as a young child.

And that of course started both of them on the road to addiction.

What are some prevention strategies that parents, that teachers that the adults in young people's lives need to have to help deter them from going down that path?

- It's important to have conversations with your children and the children in your lives about what substance abuse can do, how to say no when someone is offering something, what the consequences could be, and make sure that they feel like they have someone they can turn to, to ask for advice or let them know what's going on.

- So just making sure that you're always talking with them or that they, I guess that they feel that it's safe, right?

To be able to talk and sort of creating that sense of safety for them.

- Right, absolutely.

- Dr. Valdez, I wanna talk about the work that Roxann is doing, kind of like Marcy, she has channeled her experience into helping others.

Both of them are working with expectant moms who are struggling with substance use disorder.

How big a problem is substance use during pregnancy, and what are the health risks for the fetus?

- Well, it's a very pivotal time for many women that, you know, in addiction.

Unfortunately, many people when they're using and they're in their addiction, they don't take care of themselves, and they may not be going to the doctor.

They may not be, their life is not in a very organized place, and so if a pregnancy comes along, it could really be a moment that introduces a lot of unpredictability, a lot of stress, but also it can be one of those moments that motivates women to get into recovery.

So it is really good.

But certainly, you know, when you help and treat somebody that is, you know, a pregnant woman with an addiction, you're treating, you know, essentially two lives there where you're, you know, protecting the fetus and the woman.

Substance use during pregnancy is dangerous, with going through withdrawal.

If a mother's going through withdrawal, it can have some, you know, harmful effects on the baby as well.

So it is a really important time, and again, it takes a team approach to treatment for them.

- Stefanie, one last thing before we move on, because another type of addiction that we have not talked about, but that has really become a problem is vaping among young people.

And it has increased dramatically among adolescents in recent years.

Can you explain what that is and why it's so problematic, especially for young people?

- Certainly, vaping is the use of electronic cigarettes.

They were invented, supposedly, to help people who smoke cigarettes stop smoking cigarettes because it's seen as safer, because there's less chemicals in it when you light it up or when you heat up the nicotine that's inside of it, actually, it's not any safer, it's highly addictive.

And again, the thinking out there that there's such a thing as nicotine free vapes or zero nic vapes, so the kids can look cool and not put themselves in harm's way is a fallacy.

All the vapes have nicotine in them, even though it may be a lower amount.

But there are kids out there that are using electronic cigarettes or vaping that would never even think about picking up a cigarette.

Yet statistics are showing that they're more likely down the road to end up smoking cigarettes because they're not getting the satisfaction.

Not that, you know, cigarettes are certainly cost more, but because the vaping is so easy to use, they're vaping a lot faster than they would smoking a cigarette.

And the, again, another myth that it's just vapor, you know, whoever gave that, that was a beautiful marketing strategy, whoever called it a vape in the first place, to give you the illusion, that's just vapor.

It's not steam, it's not water vapor that's only comes from a pot of boiling water.

That's all an aerosol, it's all chemicals.

When kids find the out that the cloud is actually made from a chemical that that chemical in that vape is there, just to make that cloud, to make it seem like it's vapor, they're like, "No, you're kidding, they wouldn't" Yes, they would.

- Yeah, it is a huge problem.

Well, James Monahan battled addiction for over 20 years, losing just about everything in the process.

But with the support of family, friends, and the AA community, James found his way back to sobriety, celebrating almost three years of recovery.

Like the others we've met, James paid a heavy price for his addiction, including a recent health scare, but that hasn't stopped him from creating a whole new life for himself and helping others do the same.

- So back in March, I had this huge lump in the back of my neck.

It was an eight by by four centimeter mass lipoma, pushing on my spine and the nerve, and I went to see my doctor, CT scans came back to be a rare disease called Madelung's disease.

And the crazy thing is less than 1% of the population get it, and it's from the alcohol use over the years.

If I was still using and drinking, I wouldn't have got it taken care of.

And it was so bad on the back of my neck that I was almost passing out.

I was getting massive headaches and it was making me dizzy.

So my name is James Monahan, born and raised in Scranton from Dunmore area.

I started drinking at the age of 15 years old, started using cocaine at the age of 19.

And since then, over 20 plus years, I've lost everything in my life due to addiction.

Through high school, I was, you know, exceeding at the academic and athletic levels.

My senior year we went undefeated until we lost in the state playoffs.

And East Stroudsburg University is one at one of our state playoff games, and I scored a touchdown that that night and I wasn't going anywhere yet until they pulled me aside and talked to me.

So with that being said, I earned a scholarship to play football at a division two school, and that's when I ran into trouble.

I stopped going to class, I wasn't going to practice, and my grades were all Fs and I couldn't control it, and I came home within a semester's time.

I came home and went right into the workforce, and when I tell you I blended in for 20 years, I drank and used almost every weekend for 20 years.

I was living, I would say, a fake life, basically, on the outside I looked like everything was okay.

But on the inside I was really burning up.

I was 25 years old and I was engaged to my high school sweetheart that got broken off a month before our wedding.

And the following weekend, I don't know how I made it to my phone, but I ended up in the Moses Taylor Hospital with someone watching me sleep for 96 hours.

And to get everybody off my back, I'd agreed to go to Marworth for 28 days, and within three months I was drinking again and using, because I wasn't ready.

I didn't wanna stop, I didn't have the tools in place and I didn't listen to anybody.

I believed for me that mental health and addiction run parallel with each other.

And if I'm not treating my mental health, my addiction's thrown off and vice versa.

So I go to AA every week and that keeps me on that path.

And when I go to my meetings, I raise my hand and ask for help, "I need help."

And with that, I'm helping the newcomer coming in that's keeping me sober almost three years later by walking them through the steps or talking with them, or how do you get through your daily routines without thinking about the past.

So there's a lot I do on a daily basis that keeps me going, you know, towards my biggest goal, which is to finish school and get a, you know, a great career and hopefully start a family someday.

Usually there's people in recovery that don't get to this point, you know, and the statistics and the numbers are so low.

When I was in treatment, if there's about 50 guys in treatment, only two are gonna make it.

In 2021, I wanted to be one of those two people that made it.

And today I'm successfully still making it because I'm listening to the people in front of me.

What I'm looking at today is I'm very grateful for my life.

I'm very grateful for my parents.

They just celebrated their 54th anniversary and going back to school, I just received my 12th award at Luzerne County Community College.

And with all my hard efforts there, I just received one of the top scholarships to the McGowan School of Business at King's College.

Right now, I would like to say today I'm one of the lucky ones that can sit here and tell my story to help others.

And, you know, I'm doing the same at LCCC on campus.

When I went there two years ago, I, we started a recovery for all program and about 50 to 75 students are in that program today to talk about mental health and addiction.

A big part of our program is to forgive ourselves, make our amends, and move on.

But we're all human and it's tough.

Today I'm not that person and I'm working to get enough confidence to give myself the credit, to be easy on myself.

I'm very hard on myself.

I've done a lot of stuff in my past that I'm not happy with, that I don't remember.

And in making those amends, it takes time because no matter if people accept them or if they don't, I need to accept it, whatever they say and move on.

Going back to school gives me a sense of hope and purpose that I can do greater things in life.

I can do greater things today for myself and make a future for myself.

I appreciate every opportunity that I have to tell my story, hopefully it helps someone else.

Two and a half years ago, I went back to school, not just to get my education back on track, but just to get my life back on track.

It's a second chance at living.

And this would not be possible if I didn't have my family, my friends, my support group, and caring people in the community that wanna see me succeed.

- And we are grateful to have Jamie Monahan with us tonight in the studio, and he is killing it right about now.

So, congratulations, Jamie, and thank you for sharing your story with us in the last few minutes of our time together.

Janice, I wanna begin with you, because Jamie's story is not unusual in the sense that things began to fall apart in college and then there was a bad breakup at some point later, and there were a lot of life stressors that he was dealing with.

It seems that so often for young people in college, that's where they run up against a lot of these stressors.

Can you talk about how we can help prepare young people for the stressors that they will inevitably face, especially as they're going off to college, they're leaving home and may be ripe for a substance use disorder or for something like that to happen to them?

- Sure, making sure individuals have good coping skills, know healthy ways of dealing with stress, knowing who to reach out to, know when they have issues can be beneficial.

Making sure they understand the dangers of drugs and alcohol and what resources to go to on their local campus within their communities is really important.

- And when you talk about coping strategies, give me some examples.

- Breathing techniques, activities that they enjoy doing that's calming to them, maybe it's arts and crafts, going for a walk, reading a book, things that are important to them.

- Yeah, Dr. Valdez, Jamie told us that his addiction lasted for 20 years.

He said it cost him everything.

He described a rare and serious health condition that was related to that.

Can you talk a bit about just the overall health risks?

- Yeah, well, you know, addiction is one, a very terrible disease and it can just take over somebody's entire life.

And when people are in their active addiction, they may be neglecting their physical health.

And Jamie had mentioned when he was sober, he was going to the doctor and so they noticed that he had a medical condition that needed to be addressed.

So often when patients come into treatment, you know, that's part of it is that they need to take care of themself.

They need to go and see their doctor, take medications, do what they need to do.

And so, but when they're in active addiction and they don't have control, that's the only thing that is running their life is using and they're putting other things aside.

So, you know, I think we need more examples like Jamie's, inspiring examples.

We need people that are willing to kind of speak out because of the issues of stigma.

That there's a lot of people that there is a stigma, that they're afraid to acknowledge or admit they have a problem and ask for help with their doctor or others.

So I think people like Jamie that, you know, share their story, help to bring this out of the shadows a little bit and that this is a disease and that people can get better from it.

- Stefanie James started a student group to help his classmates who are in recovery, and he said that one of the biggest goals is forgiving ourselves, making amends and moving on.

That can be easier said than done.

Can you speak to why that is so important though, and why people may struggle to do that?

The whole idea of being able to forgive yourself.

- Yes, forgiveness is probably one of the more difficult parts of just living.

It's just, in any of us, and we need to forgive ourselves, not just because we deserve it, we cut us a break, you know, cut ourselves a break, but, you know, we deserve that peace, that tranquility.

So without forgiveness of ourselves, we're not going to ever get that tranquility, that peace, that peace of mind or finding, you know, a greater meaning in our life or finding our place in the world, the spirituality, so to speak.

And the forgiveness of yourself begins with actually forgiving others too.

Because if you can't forgive other people, you can't forgive yourself, and vice versa.

If you can't forgive yourself, you can't forgive other people.

It a insidiousness of human contact, you know, but the forgiveness portion of that, that's something that's relied very heavily on in treatment recovery and in support groups.

- And Stefanie, just as a follow up, people are watching who may be struggling with a substance use disorder or know and love someone who is, what kinds of resources are available in Northeast Pennsylvania for people who may find themselves in that situation?

- Well, there are, there's Al-Anon groups and as well as Nar-Anon, which are for Narcotics Anonymous for people, family members.

And also at our own agency.

We have a family and friends group that we run for people, not necessarily their loved ones are going through our treatment, they're still probably an active addiction, some of them, some of them are still struggling on and off, but they really do form a community and they care about each other and they talk about their struggles with this grandchild or their brother or something like that.

And it really, it's nice to know that you're not alone.

And pretty much any, you know, there's family therapy out there, there's a lot of resources, all they have to do is reach out.

The resources are there, again.

It's just a question of taking advantage of them.

I'm so glad, Stefanie, that you said you are not alone, because we always want our audience to know that if you have had these kinds of struggles, we want you to know that you are not alone.

If you need somebody to talk to, perhaps you'd like to explore some treatment options, you can dial 2-1-1 to speak with a caring person who can help.

I want to thank each and every one of our panelists, Dr. Valdez, Janice Mecca, Stefanie Wolownik thank you all for being part of tonight's program and for your ongoing work in the area of mental health and substance use disorders.

For more information, visit WVIA.org/mindovermatter.

And remember, you are not alone.

On behalf of WVIA, I'm Tracey Matisak.

Thanks so much for watching - [Announcer] WVIA's "Mind Over Matter," a mental health initiative, is underwritten by Geisinger.

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