You have to start somewhere

Ohio has earned its share of nicknames. The Buckeye State, in honor of the state tree and the much better known college football team. Its motto, “the heart of it all” graces every license plate. To outsiders, it has long been a flyover state. 

Now, it’s being dubbed the heart of an opioid epidemic giving a wallop to Appalachia. I wanted to learn more about this crisis and how the people working to combat it see things. So I attended a recent addiction recovery conference in Fairfield County. The county is not among the hardest hit, but that’s not saying much when eight counties saw the number of unintentional drug overdoses reach triple digits in 2016. Statewide, deaths rose 33% last year.

People pin the drug problem on lots of things: job loss, trauma, easy access. A feeling of hopelessness pervasive in towns with few opportunities is a common source of blame.

Lancaster, a town essentially built around a glass factory, is no exception. For years the factory provided good jobs and development and allowed people living there to form a cohesive community that, for the most part, looked out for one another.

No longer.

A review of Glass House, a book that records the rise and fall of this all-American town, describes Lancaster as “a shell of its former shelf.”

Some residents and business developers say it’s making a comeback. Main Street is home to an Ale House, an art cafe and a glass museum. Signs on the light poles pay homage to members of the armed services or Hometown Heroes, and a tribute to William Tecumseh Sherman, a Civil War general who fought on the side of the Union, stands in a small square. Many of the shops have flyers advertising an upcoming job fair tapped to their windows. 

A few blocks away old Victorian-style homes serve as reminders of Lancaster’s glory days. Some still sit regal on sweeping lawns above the city. Others have been sliced into duplexes or show off peeling paint and warped foundations. People sit smoking on porches. One newer home near a four-way stop displays a Confederate flag in its front window much like the one at a shop down the road called Hillbilly Heaven.

And so, it was here, in this town where people gathered at a church on an unseasonably hot day in September to discuss solutions to a problem that wasn’t going away. Classrooms were devoted to discussions about peer support, the neurobiology of addiction and included an information session about a new overdose response team the city was in the process of unrolling. 

People seemed eager to help or get involved in putting an end to the problem. A woman who runs the reentry program at the local prison said people are tired of hearing that the city has a problem with drugs. They want solutions.

That means overcoming challenges like transportation, since many recovering addicts can’t drive to job interviews or peer support groups. It also means getting around stigma and judgement.

The reason Ohio is treating the drug problem the way it should have been treated long ago, said one speaker, is because of who is being affected: rural, white, suburban citzens.

Unintentional overdose deaths more than doubled in four years, from 1,914 in 2012 to 3,963 in 2016. Worse, the number of overdoes attributed to Fentanyl, a drug 10 times more deadly than heroine, rose from three to 52%.

But for as big a problem as it is, almost no one seems equipped to deal with it. Doing so means more staff at recovery and treatment centers, new training for police and new ways of thinking about punishment. The courts and prisons are struggling to keep up with the numbers of people brought in for low-level felonies, said one law enforcement officer.

The roots of the opioid problem are debatable, but the lack of jobs has certainly not helped. An upcoming job fair promises up to 90 companies in attendance. But many suspect the offerings will be in health care or the service industry. 

For those who work in social services, jobs are hard to fill because they can be so emotionally taxing. And while a minimum wage job is something, if it doesn’t cover child care or other expenses, people don’t see much benefit.

While good jobs are hard to come by in industrial towns where the industry has fled, for many an employer, good employees are too. “It’s all about these,” said one conference participant, pointing to her smartphone. A friend of hers has struggled just to get people to show up to work, she said. After several rounds of interviews, one of his newest employees failed to show up on his first day.

Such work ethic contrasts dramatically with that of an older generation. Even now at Anchor Hocking glass factory people in their 60s work alongside 20-somethings who irregularly show up for work after being placed there by temp agencies.

The opinions I collected were frank and honest and seemingly informed, and I was pleased at having peeked inside a community I had never been a part of. The talks around folding tables are only the beginning of my quest for answers. But as one of the recovery workers said over a boxed lunch of Subway sandwiches, “you have to start somewhere.”