Permission to live

To some it may seem counterintuitive, but Mora’s largest substance abuse treatment center, Recovering Hope, is on a mission to make using opioids safer for its clients. 

Called “harm reduction” strategies, the aim is to reduce overdose deaths among drug users, keeping them safer until they are ready to seek treatment. According to the Minnesota Department of health, harm reduction models have been used since the 1980s to reduce the harms of active drug use. 

To that end, Recovering Hope is providing anyone who asks with free test strips to check drugs for the presence of deadly fentanyl, doses of naloxone to save a person experiencing an overdose and clean needles to prevent disease spread among intravenous drug users. 

Recovering Hope President Sadie Broekemeir said it’s a common misconception that providing clean needles, test strips and naloxone encourage drug use. She is hoping that by offering these services without judgment, users can feel safe and supported when making the decisions to seek treatment. 

“It’s our philosophy to meet people where they’re at — not just in the moment they’re ready for recovery,” she said. 

Finding recovery

Becy Applegate struggled with drug addiction for 20 years starting with methamphetamine but eventually moving to opioids. 

She was convicted of a felony; was separated from her children; had no credit; and struggled to find housing. She had been in and out of 16 different treatment centers since age 18. 

At her lowest point she was dropped off at yet another detox center. Her driver told her: This time is the last time; I won’t be coming back to get you. 

The last treatment center Applegate ever entered was Recovering Hope — and it really was the last time. 

“What got me to where I am today was literally losing everything ... I was so broken and so lonely and I was sick of it. So I took the steps ... This place let me find my strengths and let go of my weaknesses.”

Today, Applegate has been sober for three and a half years. She graduated from Recovering Hope’s program three years ago, began attending a college, and just started a new job with Recovering Hope as a peer support specialist. This spring, she got to watch her children graduate from high school as a sober and proud mom. It was a moment she had never thought possible. 

She uses her own story to encourage others who are struggling. “You can still succeed in life. Success is possible. Recovery is possible,” she said. 

Permission to live

Applegate said that when she first started her recovery journey, she was against harm reduction strategies, saying they felt like “permission to keep using.” She soon came to realize “harm reduction is permission to keep living.”

Personally, Applegate has known 10 people who have died from drug overdose. 

“Some people have lost their battle and it breaks my heart. I don’t want to see people struggle if they don’t have to,” she said.  “It’s terrifying and it’s such an unnecessary death when there are so many options and resource for treatment. It’s just hard to reach them.”

Applegate said the majority of the women in treatment at Recovering Hope are there for opioid or meth addiction. Offering free tools to help users stay alive is part of reaching clients and helping them toward recovery. 

Applegate’s job as a peer support specialist is to help clients obtain what their ideal recovery looks like. It isn’t always a cold-turkey solution. 

“I’m meeting clients where they are at. Maybe they aren’t ready to start treatment. Maybe they are just starting to get their toes wet, maybe they are ready to reduce their use or start using more safely. Well, I can work with that.”

The increased danger of fentanyl

Broekemeier knows all too well the consequences of the opioid epidemic. 

Broekemeier said when a client dies as a result of drug use, she emails staff to inform them. Ten years ago, she may have had to send such an email once a year. At the start of 2022, Broekemeier said she was emailing staff of client deaths almost every week.

Broekemeier said many of her clients who experience a non-fatal overdose and are then tested are surprised to learn they have fentanyl in their systems. 

According to the MDH, illegally-made fentanyl is driving much of the increase in overdoses seen in Minnesota and across the county in recent years. It is widely available and often added to drugs such as heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine. 

In the early 2000s, methamphetamine was often made in meth labs throughout Minnesota. When Minnesota enacted laws that restricted the availability of decongestants (an essential ingredient to making methamphetamine) local production of meth decreased drastically. 

Today, the majority of methamphetamine enters Minnesota from outside the country. The farther the drug travels and the more times it exchanges hands, the more likely it is to be cut and laced with other substances. 

Unknowingly, many drug users who think they are using methamphetamine have had their drugs laced with fentanyl.

According to the Minnesota Department of Health, fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that is up to 50 times stronger than heroin and 100 times stronger than morphine.

Overdosing on this powerful opioid can cause death by slowing and eventually stopping breathing.

The administration of naloxone, also known by the brand-name Narcan, can save lives as it disables the opioids effects on the brain and temporarily reverses an overdose. The effects wear off after 30-45 minutes, so multiple doses are often needed until the person can be taken to a hospital. Naloxone comes as either an injection or nasal spray. 

Special test strips that look a little like a pregnancy test can be used to test a drug for the presence of fentanyl. 

Preventing deaths

Recovering Hope recently partnered with Steve Rummler HOPE Network to become a Naloxone Access Point: a publicly accessible pick-up site for naloxone and fentanyl test strips.

In a written statement, Alicia House, Executive Director of the Steve Rummler HOPE Network said, “Recovering Hope is a natural community partner for two reasons. First, they work with women and women with children who don’t have many safe options to find support in active addiction. Second, access to recovery services tends to be more difficult in rural communities. The more NAP sites we can create in towns like Mora, the healthier our communities will be.”

Naloxone kits at Recovering Hope are free and available to anyone who asks for one. 

“We want to be able to get this into the hands of people who are using,” said Broekemeier. 

Each kit contains medical gloves, three sterile syringes/needles, three doses of Nolaxone, alcohol wipes and instructions. 

Broekemeier disperses approximately 25 kits every month. The kits go to many different people in different stages of their addiction and treatment or to family and friends of addicts. Many kits go to Recovering Hope clients who discharge themselves against staff advice.

“We have conversation with clients about how to use more safely, and when they leave we as them to leave with these things that are going to keep them alive,” Broekemeier said. 

“Harm reduction prevents deaths; it does not encourage use. Naloxone gives people who are overdosing a second chance. Fentanyl test strips benefit all individuals who use drugs (even if they don’t have a substance use disorder) since fentanyl is cut and laced into many substances.

“The Naloxone Access Point gives us an opportunity to build trusting connections with people struggling with addiction to spark their willingness to recover.”

Harm reduction strategies can be controversial and are seen among critics as enabling drug use. Research disagrees.

Take distribution of clean needles as an example. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, injection drug users that utilize a syringe service program are five times more likely to enter substance use treatment than those who don’t use an SSP. 

Furthermore, the ability to get clean syringes reduces infections of HIV, hepatitis, and other infections. 

Research has shown that SSPs do not cause increases in illegal drug use or increases in crime.

Sheriff Brian Smith sees the benefit of the program but also the hazards. 

 “If people are going to do drugs, they are going to do drugs one way or another,” he said, so that from a public health standpoint, reducing the spread of disease by providing clean needles makes sense. 

However, the distribution of naloxone kits makes him wonder, “Are we enabling drug addiction? ... Narcan has made it easier for users to continue to do dangerous things.”

In the end, Smith said he is in law enforcement for the purpose of trying to help people, and often that means saving them from death so they may have the opportunity to change. 

About Recovering Hope

Recovering Hope Treatment Center in Mora offers a treatment model unique to only a few centers in Minnesota. The center offers women struggling with substance use and mental health disorders a safe place to live with their young children while the mothers participate in treatment and parenting programing. 

For clients, this model reduces the challenge of separating from young children to complete treatment and helps provide moms with the skills they will need to manage their addiction while parenting. 

Recovering Hope first opened in 2016 offering a 74-bed treatment center. Since 2016, Recovering Hope has expanded it’s capacity to 108 beds and added an adult outpatient substance use disorder treatment program, and a comprehensive mental health therapy center that serves children, adolescents and adults.

Today, Recovering Hope operates with approximately 90 employees.