The Addict's Wake

- [Announcer] "The Addict's Wake" is brought to you with support from the Central Indiana Community Foundation, the Indianapolis Foundation and Hamilton County Community Foundation, building a stronger, more equitable community together through the power of philanthropy.

Learn more at cicf.org.

And by.

- [Announcer] Well Trans, dedicated to the wellbeing and health of individuals by removing transportation barriers to care and supporting healthy living.

- [Announcer] Also by.

- [Announcer] At Landmark Recovery, we believe everyone deserves a chance to choose life without addiction.

Our dedicated staff guide patients on a pathway towards lasting healing with integrated treatment programs in a judgment-free environment.

Landmark Choose life.

- [Announcer] Additional support from Indiana Council of Community Mental Health Centers, serving the health and wellbeing of all people in Indiana, the Indiana University Center for Rural Engagement, extending the resources of IU Bloomington to improve Hoosier lives and viewers like you.

(doors slamming) (door slamming) (people chattering) (solemn piano music) (singer humming) (solemn piano music continues) (singer continues humming) - This thing has been, this is worse than going to Iraq.

It's a war in Brown County.

It's just hard.

I don't think you want grand gestures Just a simple faithful friend Someone who will walk it with you All the way to the end Someone who can live I love you Singin' how I've come to know, oh oh oh oh oh oh You're my, oh you are my My sweet refuge You're my, oh, you are my - They're a group of kids who are sort of connected socially and they lost their children to overdoses.

They are very well-known people, very well-known families, and this was sort of a shock to the consciousness of Brown County, what's actually going on here.

(singer vocalizing) - I was left with a monster on my back and I knew it.

If hell could be on earth, it's addiction.

So I kiss farewell to drama My everything is you And after all the things that you've done Oh, your love's been proved - I got tired of seeing our young people die.

I got pretty mad.

I was really feeling a lot of anger.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, oh oh Lord, every day I need I need you, I need you I need you I need you - [Tim] There's really only three outcomes.

Either quit, you die or you go to jail.

Sweet refuge My sweet refuge - [EMT] I've already administered one dose of Narcan.

Open that up.

Get a little bit.

Hold that down and let her squeeze it.

Use both your hands.

- [Cop] How do you know him?

- He's my nephew.

- [EMT] Airway.

- [Cop] How you doin'?

Are you good?

You 'bout died.

- Why?

- [Cop] Why?

'Cause you took heroin.

- [Aunt] You're gonna die.

You were close to death.

Jesus.

- Yeah.

- [Aunt] Please stop doin' that.

- [Cop] Who'd you get it off of?

- [Victim] I didn't even think about the- - [Cop] Doesn't have to know it was you.

You can't remember who you bought drugs off of?

Are you able to stand up now?

- Yeah.

- Let's go.

- [Cop] Yeah, that's like, that's like a miracle.

- Agreed.

- What?

- [Cop] You're dead one minute and then you're up walkin' around.

- Yes, I'm not gonna be able to pay for this.

- All right, well, welcome to Recovery Out Loud, where we believe addiction can only thrive in secrecy, and the moment we speak aloud, it will begin to lose its power.

I know now, today, loving an addict is 10 times harder than being one.

I've had an amazing journey, an amazing story of recovery.

My name is John Cunningham and I will be tonight's host.

- [Group] Hey, John.

- And that's when I got the idea to create a non-profit organization called Recovery Out Loud.

We are an open platform.

We support any and all pathways to recovery.

The only thing that we care about is that you're doing it.

- For me I really like the lack of anonymity.

- Whether it be 12 steps.

NA, AA, CR, Jesus, exercise, reading.

We don't care how you do it, just come here and tell your story, because it's your story.

We are a group of people who are out to create a like-minded network of sober individuals.

- ROL gave me the freedom to live and it showed me what recovery was about.

- We're trying to put recovery on Front Street.

- That was tight at the end, bro.

- [John] Was it?

- You got me a little teary-eyed, man.

- [John] We're not anonymous.

It hits me in my feels, you know?

We are live on Facebook.

Our stories are very well out there.

We're spreading hope as far as we can get it, because it's needed.

The out loud part is about reducing that shame and that guilt and that stigma around recovery.

(twangy guitar music) - And you walk through Brown County, it's like a Hallmark movie.

- Brown County is an hour south of Indianapolis, an hour north of Louisville.

It's a small community.

There's only about 15,000 people.

We have a lot of tourists who come in and out.

- Nashville's an artist colony, which kind of gave a a nice mix of people in the beginning.

You know, it's a real friendly place, close-knit community.

- People like the idea of Norman Rockwell, but that means you're hiding all of the real stuff and you're makin' it look like everything's perfect when we all know things aren't perfect.

Southern stone - [Michelle] Yes?

- I did 10 tests.

- Yes?

- [Student] I only missed two.

- Nice.

My name is Michelle Joy, and I am a fourth grade teacher here in Brown County.

I've had students who have watched loved ones overdose.

I've had students who have parents in jail.

Both parents, mom and dad.

(soft solemn music) There's a lot of worry, a lot of anxiety, a lot of concern because it's scary.

- My name is Cory Joy and I live in Nashville, Indiana.

I am actually a pastor of a church.

There's a fair amount of poverty, and so as kids are growing up in that poverty, sometimes coping mechanisms is, you know, turning to drugs or alcohol.

- We had a student who came and she immediately said, "I have PTSD."

Her parents have struggled with drug addiction.

So I did share some of my story with her, and her eyes, she just got so big.

I don't go into a lot of detail, but they know that my son passed away.

(soft solemn music) I do remember the first time we got a phone call, and it was from a grandma of some of Caleb's friends and she used the word heroin.

- There's a couple very specific moments where we really weren't sure where his state of mind was, but later understood like, oh, well that was, he was probably under the influence at that point in time.

- But of course Caleb denied it and said that people were lying, and he just had a way of always trying to put me at ease and saying, "Mom, it's nothing.

People just like to talk."

- Michelle and Cory are good friends with my mother, and we all went to church together, and he had the biggest heart.

His smile was one of a kind.

(baby crying) (onlooker laughing) - No, never done it before.

- The mother of his child was trying to take visitation rights from him.

- She knew what he was involved in and she just said, "I just don't have any tolerance for that."

- But he was just really upset and so scared that he wasn't gonna get to see his daughter.

Because if anything meant something to Caleb, it was that little girl.

- [Friend] Daddy's got her all calmed down.

(soft solemn music) (wind chimes ringing) - I knew I had a troubled boy, but I didn't know what was going on, deep down inside his heart and in his brain.

- I never thought I'd be the guy to shoot up.

Never thought I'd be the guy doing heroin.

There was no signs that I'd ever be this person.

This is how it happened.

I'd probably start, that's my picture with me and my dad.

I was probably five years old there.

Dad had an attitude and a personality a lot like mine.

I remember him always wrestling with us, playing with us.

Very good, very active dad.

You know, he was my hero and that's kind of what I think you see there.

You know, that's why I'm on dad's back.

That's where I wanted to be, you know what I mean?

I would think he died of massive heart attack.

You don't think that you're gonna go to bed at 16 years old and wake up to a dead father and he's 38.

That just don't happen.

(soft dramatic music) He was my everything, you know?

I remember just how I lived to impress my father.

When I'd hit a home run, he was always the first one there.

He would, I remember watching him throwing people out the way to make sure he was the first person to home plate when I hit my first home run.

Like he was my biggest fan.

There was a real piece of me that died with him.

And that's when my mom moved out to Brown County.

So in that year of 1995, I lost my father and all my social support at the same time.

I was scared, man.

So I gave up, I stopped playing sports altogether.

Got involved with the wrong crowd here 'cause they were more than willing to take me in.

I noticed the weed being passed around, the alcohol and it just felt like the right thing to do.

This is probably around six months before I took my first pain pill.

It was like the sun had finally risen in my soul.

It was like all that pain, all that stuff that I was running from was gone in an instant.

I think my addiction started the moment my father passed away.

Pain is the gateway drug and I think if my dad don't die, I don't think this ever happened to me.

(singer vocalizing) (soft solemn music) - I'm Daniel Alton.

I've lived in Brown County for seven years now.

I was raised by my father for the most part.

When I was, uh, when I was 15, he was diagnosed with lung cancer.

They gave him like six months to live and I think he made it three or four months.

My mom, she had struggled with addiction for most of her adult life.

- It probably started when I was 16.

You know, I (laughs) I used to dabble with, you know, weed and maybe some acid on the weekends.

I met this guy and he smoked crack and he got me started (laughs) and went to Florida with him and ended up going to jail.

- I was working as a bartender.

I had a child on the way.

I came across this one person who was using and we kind of hit it off and, you know, I didn't really do that kind of stuff, but I didn't judge.

My girlfriend at the time and I had just split up.

She took the baby with her and I was living out of a hotel that was literally right across the street from the bar I was working at.

One night after work, I had that friend that was using, you know, come over and hang out.

He pulls it out and offers me some and for whatever reason (chuckles) I said yes.

I don't remember much about that night, but I woke up the next morning and still had some, and for whatever reason I did it again and uh, I kept purchasing it that week and I think I probably did it seven or eight days in a row before you know, I was like, hey, this stuff's kind of expensive.

Like I should probably not get in the habit of doing this.

I tried to quit and I'd say it was probably about 24 hours or so after I quit, I just got violently ill.

I mean, I was sick.

I was throwing up, waking up and going back to sleep.

Hot, cold, sweat.

I mean, it was, it was a nightmare.

You know, I convinced myself that I had to keep using in order to keep working.

And I went to live with my mom again and that's when things actually just got 100 times worse.

(soft tense music) - Scott Southerland, I'm the Brown County Sheriff.

I feel like we're probably about half and half between methamphetamine and heroin.

The difference is that people aren't usually dying from the meth addiction, but we're losing a lot of people to heroin overdoses.

If we're working on burglaries and thefts, a lot of those are to support a drug addiction.

A lot of domestic situations are involving either drugs or alcohol.

(soft tense music) - Possession of methamphetamine, possession of a narcotic drug, heroin.

My gosh, I'd say that's 80% of our felony crimes.

2017 we did see a rash of fatalities.

A lot of them came back to back.

They were good people.

(soft tense music) - It's awful to walk through as a parent.

- A lot of it's shame, you know?

They didn't want dad to know that they were in the situation they were in because that's the only thing I'd ever told 'em since they were kids.

As long as you're honest with dad, we can handle anything.

All you have to do is be honest with me, and... (Tim sniffles) (Tim sighs) (soft solemn music) - We were aware that it was in his circle.

- You know, I would say, "Somebody said, you know, that you're using heroin."

He's like, "Mom, look at my arms.

I have no marks and I'm not scrawny skinny."

And he wasn't.

I mean he was 6'3", you know, 200-some pounds.

He was just masterful at hiding things and lying about what he was doing.

- The idea that they're strung out all the time, absolutely not, in fact is a lot of times they function fine during the day.

It's the nighttime.

Anxiety kicks in, depression kicks in.

The, you know, the loneliness.

They can't sleep.

And so typically what happens, it's usually they're using it when it's in the secret.

(motorcycle engine rumbles) - I moved back in with my mom and my brother and at that time, they were still heavily using, getting back into that situation, it was almost impossible to not, you know, go full blown.

I was going through at least a gram or better a day.

You know, around here you're looking at like $200 in the county, but if you go up north to Indianapolis, I mean I was getting it there for $40.

You know, they had weapons on them and you know, they would meet you at gas stations and you'd see other people walk up to 'em and walk away with drugs and then they'd text you and say, you know, come on, you're next.

You know, I'd start going up, getting the large amounts coming back and I had friends that used as well and they would say, "Hey, take my money," or "Can I go with you?"

Selling drugs was never like a profitable venture per se for me.

It was just a way to support my habit.

(soft tense music) - I loved pills and heroin.

I loved opiates.

I loved it more than I loved my family.

I loved it more than I loved my son at the time.

I liked feeling like the best version of myself, even though it was a lie.

I'd have to shoot up probably every four to six hours throughout my entire day.

I would have a shot of heroin on my bedroom dresser because I knew I'd wake up at two or three in the morning and withdraw and I'd have to just take that shot just to get back to sleep.

I got really, really bad off into burglaries.

This is how I came to support my habit, and they were home burglaries.

After my wife divorced me, I got a girlfriend.

She would work from eight to five, so I had from eight to five to figure out how I was gonna get my money to get high every day, 'cause at this point I can't work.

(chuckles) So I had some buddies from Brown County.

I ended up creating a team.

We were about a team of five and this is what we did.

You'd look for a house that looked empty 'cause you want 'em to be at work.

The idea was never to hurt nobody.

You would have a crowbar and you'd put a crowbar in the door and it would bust open in two seconds and usually we'd look for something out in the country 'cause we wanted no neighbors.

And you'd go in, within 30 seconds, grab anything you can, bring it out, take it to Indianapolis where we've now had connection on heroin and you'd fence it off and you'd get heroin within seconds.

February 17, 2012.

I was gonna go do my thing and I was gonna go get my heroin, everything was gonna be all right.

And I scout out a couple houses and when I go in there, I'm in the bedroom, I come out the hallway and I hear a garage door shut.

Sch-pow.

(soft tense music) And I'm like, "Oh man."

And this kid, 17 year old kid walks in his house and we lock eyes and he's looking at me and he's shocked, I'm looking at him and I'm shocked.

And I remember I had this thought and I had a crowbar in my hand and I said, you know, I will do absolutely anything to get through you.

I'm getting what I need.

And I just take off running right at him.

And he gets out my way and I go this way and I jump out his back door and my getaway car was in a panic out there waiting on me.

And I get in, throw the stuff in and we take off and I think everything's fine.

Like, wow, that was close, but we're gonna make it.

Probably 25 minutes later, a while, I look in my rear view mirror and there is an ocean and I'm talking ocean, sea of red and blues and they are coming and they are coming fast.

(insects buzzing) - So what the addiction research is sharing with us now is that this is not a moral flaw.

Addiction is not even a brain disease.

It's really just what we've looked at with behaviors in the classroom.

It's a mental and emotional reordering of circuits in the brain that are a part of our reward circuitry.

There are areas in the brain that respond and are intimately connected to motivation, to survival, to pleasure and to reward.

The brain of an individual who has found pleasure and who has found comfort and soothing in an opioid or in with the use of alcohol is now relying on that, not because of choice, but because the brain has relearned its dopamine levels.

And dopamine is that neurotransmitter that motivates us.

It's about dopamine and that's what's underneath that drug and that's the neurotransmitter.

It's a survival response.

Just to get up in the morning, we need, on an average day, about 50 nanograms per deciliter of dopamine, just to get up and just to have a normal day.

And on that fabulous day when you're at the beach, you know, when you've won the lottery and everything is going perfect, your brain and body are producing about 100 nanograms per deciliter.

But when a person, when an individual ingests an opioid, that opioid raises dopamine levels to 1,100 nanograms per deciliter.

Substance abuse like alcohol and heroin, cocaine, marijuana, put us in the high hundreds.

And so what happens, when you continue to feel that motivation and that reward and that pleasure from, let's say methamphetamines or heroin, then your body and brain develop a different tolerance for it.

The brain learns quickly and it learns deeply motivation at all new levels.

It's kind of a new homeostasis.

It all of a sudden craves dopamine.

Not craving the drug, craving dopamine.

(soft solemn music) - I just remember the entire community being stunned.

I mean the religious leaders were stunned, the criminal justice system was stunned, law enforcement was stunned.

I don't think anybody saw it coming.

It just felt like a tide rushing through the county, I guess.

- That night, it was a Friday.

It was Labor day weekend.

- We were just talking and hanging out and then he said he was gonna leave and I always hated it, you know, I just wanted him to stay around for an evening, but he wouldn't.

He just, I mean he rarely was at home.

- The next morning he was quiet and he would sleep in, you know, if he didn't have to get up and go to work.

You know, we didn't bother him.

He was an, you know, he's an adult, try to give him his space.

- And then I was just like, that's really odd that he's not up and gone.

And so I started messaging him and no response.

And then I went by his room and I knocked on the door and where we were living, the door was glass with wood around it.

I got down and I could see him laying there.

- You know, it's one of those moments that as a dad, as a man, I'm not proud, but the overwhelming fear kicked in and I couldn't get, I couldn't go in the room, I couldn't go in the door.

There's no way to explain what that feeling is to someone when you feel like a coward and you can't go in the room.

And when you know, 'cause you can see, you can tell he's not moving.

I mean, you know.

- So it was the worst day of our lives.

(soft dramatic music) - The day before Caleb got ahold of me and he said that he was hurting, that he was trying to get ahold of something and I didn't have anything, so I was like, "Well I got this friend, you can ask him."

- And he was like, "Oh, hey, I know someone who's, you know, who's looking for some.

Do you want to sell a little bit to this person?"

I was like, you know, "Yeah, sure, I guess."

His name was Caleb Joy.

(soft dramatic music) And I said, "Well yeah, I'm trying to find a ride up to Indianapolis to get some now, you know."

And he said, "Well, I have a ride."

And I said, you know, "That that works out," you know?

The problem with buying in large quantities for really cheap, the chances that it's cut with something are much higher.

So if you take a large amount of heroin and then you cut it down, you're basically adding something else besides heroin to extend, you know, make it go further.

You have more substance to sell, more to weigh out, then you can make more money.

I know that the guy told me that he cut it with, you know, codeine sometimes and sometimes fentanyl and you don't know that that person that cut it mixed it up all that well.

You could do some, you know, do a line or something one time and it'd be fine and the next time you do it, it has more fentanyl in it or something like that and that's, that's the time it gets you.

That's when you end up overdosing.

On the way up there, Caleb even asked me, he was like, "So, you know, is this that stuff that has the fentanyl in it?"

You know, I explained to him that it was, and he was like, "Well I don't really like that stuff."

And I was like, "Yeah, me neither, but you know, I can try the other guy, but you know, there's no guarantee that he's gonna answer and it's gonna cost more."

And he said, "Well, nevermind."

You know, "We'll just go ahead and do that."

(soft dramatic music) Caleb and I, we come back from Indianapolis and he drops me off at home and he goes home.

Well, the next day, the mutual friend of ours that was supposed to help Caleb get his, he texts me and he says, "Hey, please, please, please, please, please tell me that you didn't help Caleb get anything yesterday."

- It was like, it was like a bad dream.

It was like never in a million years.

- "No dude, like please tell me you didn't help him.

Like Caleb overdosed last night."

- It was like poof, he was gone.

Like that one person I counted on, one person I confided in, he was just gone.

- I mean, I'll never forget that feeling.

(Daniel sighs) Just like a wave of guilt.

(soft tense music) - I would expect that there is nothing in life that would test a soul more than to lose a child.

How do, you know... That's the time when, you know, you say to God, "Where are you?"

- It would've been really easy for me to just say, I'm done with ministry.

- Yeah.

- You know what, I'm just gonna go do what I was doing before and you know what, I'm just gonna kind of like, I'm gonna bow out of this.

- I was angry at first.

I was angry with the Lord and I told him I was mad and I yelled and screamed at him.

You know, I would get in the car and I would just drive by myself and just scream and cry and beat the steering wheel because I prayed, I fasted, I, he was my number one prayer request every time.

And so I thought the Lord was gonna save him.

- What we did have to reckon with is, you know, not just the why, but okay, like, God, what do you want to do with this?

- Yeah.

- What do you wanna, you know, he, God turns pain to purpose.

He's always turning pain to purpose.

We've never been promised a life- - If you allow him.

- Yeah, you're right.

If we allow him.

(soft solemn music) People need to start doing something.

We can't keep talking about it.

Can't just keep complaining about it.

We can't tell everybody how to fix it.

We need to start doing something and fixing it.

And so that, for us, birthed the ministry of, you know, Do Something Ministry and said, you know what, we're going to, we're gonna do something different in this county.

(soft solemn music) - I think that's the moment that that really drove everything.

- So many folks knew Caleb, that there was just something so wrong with that light being gone and that the community needed to be responsive as a result.

- It scared people to think that, you know, you have a teacher and a pastor and their son died of an overdose.

- We got Caleb's phone and we started looking through his records and then ultimately we found out where he had gotten the heroin from, that he overdosed on.

(soft dramatic music) - It was, we were all just blown away by it.

Just crying, like scared, you know.

This is like, of course, you know, we felt bad for Caleb losing his life.

But then, you know, of course we're gonna start thinking about ourselves, too.

You know, they're gonna trace this back to us.

(soft dramatic music) - Whenever an addict, you know, a heroin addict hears that someone overdosed on somethin', they're like, "Wow, that must be some really good stuff."

And you always think to yourself, "Well I'll just make sure I don't do as much as they did and I'll be fine."

- [Interviewer] You guys use the rest of it?

- Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, we finished it off.

It was either me or my brother, one of us did actually overdose on it and had to be Narcaned but luckily someone was there to actually, you know, administer the Narcan, so.

I really felt really worthless.

You know, I wasn't working, I wasn't seeing my daughter.

I was honestly a pretty crap dad.

And, I mean, it got to the point where every time I shot up, I kind of almost wanted to overdose.

(insects buzzing) - It was a couple days later and we were sitting around the house, we were getting ready to go to bed and the dogs didn't even bark or anything and there was this pounding on the door.

- The house was raided, you know, seven or eight cops, you know, came in the door with their guns pointed at me screaming at me to get down on the ground.

And I mean that was, that was unreal.

- Not only did I have my own guilt, but then, you know, it's in the paper and there's all these comments on Facebook about what kind of mother I was and what a horrible person I had to be.

And I guess I just felt like I was getting what I deserved.

But that young man dying and his daughter losing him and his parents losing him, that was, I don't know, that hurt me.

He was the same age as Daniel and I just, I felt it, you know?

So, yeah.

Like me dying, I guess I felt like it wouldn't have been any gray loss to the world, but him dying I thought was.

(soft tense music) - There was a broad, deep and dark shadow over Daniel.

And Daniel was looking at some pretty significant criminal charges if that proved to be true.

In my mother's words, he was in deep.

- My brother and my mom, they ended up coming up with the money to bail me out.

Obviously after being on the front page of the paper, "Man supplies drugs to overdose victim," like plastered all over the Brown County Democrat.

Nobody wanted anything to do with me.

- A lot of people thought shame on Daniel.

- That's when I swore I was gonna turn my life around.

I don't really think that any addict can want to change until they hit rock bottom and I had hit it.

(soft piano music) - And I go up the block stairs and I go into my cell room.

I remember thinking to myself like, "You really only have two choices here.

Like either you just go and jump off that pier right now and you kill yourself or you gotta start fighting back.

Like you gotta do something different, 'cause this ain't working."

And I had to get extremely resourceful in a place that didn't have any resources.

So all I knew to do at this time was to start reading some books 'cause I know it's what you're supposed to do.

I started doing a little bit of working out, running, things like that and just kind of holding on for dear life.

Taking responsibility for things, it has its power to it.

I remember I had to write like a grief letter to my dad and I remember writing that letter but the letter was different.

This time it's not from a spot of how dare you, you know, it's not, why did you leave me?

It wasn't from that spot.

It was a, you know what dad?

I'm sorry I dishonored you, you know?

It's okay that you left and I forgive you and I will do my best from here on forward to make sure I exemplify the principles that you taught me 'cause you were such a good dad.

And I realized it was me.

It wasn't him, it was me.

That was my fault.

And when I started coming from those places, I started healing that hole in me, that spot that I didn't know I had when I was 20.

To go from a 30, do 15, accepted it.

Knew I was gonna do it, told myself I was doing it, to getting out in two and a half years?

If that's not coming back from the dead, I don't know what is.

I was released on May 14th, I reported to work May 17th at five o'clock in the morning.

And that's what I did for six months.

I wanted to take responsibility for everything that I had done.

There were some things that I was doing in prison that I knew had changed me.

Those things being reading, I exercised a lot.

I had a house arrest bracelet on.

You know, I'd put my house arrest box somewhere close to this wall here so it could detect me and I'd go outside here and I'd run circles around my house for exercise.

- Just run.

And I mean for half hour, 45 minutes at a time.

- I didn't want to let that part go.

I knew that part was important for me.

- People would go down the road and they would honk at him, wave at him, you know, and he'd wave back at 'em.

- I had huge, huge holes to get out of.

I had lost all the weight, so I didn't have no clothes.

I did not have a driver's license.

I did not have a car.

I have $2,500 worth of house arrest fees to pay to Morgan County plus another $10,000 to pay for my regular probation.

Any of these would've been valid excuses to quit.

But I realized early on, valid excuses will kill you.

This second chance was something I was not going to squander.

- When you look at 'em and you think about the level of personal courage that it takes for them to pull themselves out, I mean, think about it.

Their whole lives, their whole cultures are built around this one group of people called drug users, right?

And they have to ditch it all.

They have to lose all of it.

They have to divest themselves completely of their identities.

- He did pretty much a complete 180 in his whole behavior.

- You know, I just kept trying to do the next right thing in order to get my life back on track.

- I worked at a bank and he would come in every week to cash his checks, so I knew of him, so I also knew his situation.

- She smiled at me.

I kind of got the idea there might be something there.

- He kept asking me out and I was like, I don't really know about this 'cause it's a big risk to take.

- One of the first thoughts I had when I saw her was, "Wow, she would be a really good role model for my daughter."

If I could date someone like that, that would really help turn my life around.

If I could find someone who never lived that kind of life and who would constantly, you know, be by my side to make sure that I didn't go down that path again.

- And I was like, "Okay, well I'll give you a chance."

And then that's why we continued to date, because I'm just like, you're nothing like this person that they portrayed you to be.

(people chattering) - And so we did Hope Fest on the anniversary, the first anniversary of losing Caleb.

- Hope Fest is a gathering to help raise awareness about addiction.

It's something that the Joys put on.

It was a pretty big deal.

I mean, I was super, super scared.

You know, I always just assumed they hated me.

Michelle was kind of helping direct people and tell them where to park and she saw who I was and she just immediately ran up and gave me a hug.

And I mean, that was, that was something else.

I mean I almost felt like a, a weight just kinda lift off my shoulders, you know?

- I didn't want Daniel's life ruined.

We'd already lost Caleb and I knew that Daniel had a baby and Caleb's daughter wasn't gonna have him and I didn't want the same for Daniel's daughter.

So I never, I was never mad at Daniel.

It's not his fault.

- The Lord tells us we're supposed to forgive and that's a given.

But it's, that's hard when you're facing, when you're looking at that.

But it was easy to want to forgive so that he would not suffer the same thing.

We wanted freedom for him.

We wanted him to be free from it.

- I'm amazed by their resolve to really have an impact in this community and to use Caleb's story in a way to make sure that no one else ever experiences the same.

They lost their boy.

I stand in awe of their ability to, honestly, not to have lost their faith but to have had their faith deepened.

(soft piano music) - After seeing what the Joys had done, I think I started looking at that case a little bit differently.

He's also extremely remorseful on what happened with Caleb.

He went above and beyond to have a very proactive plan.

We took a chance on Mr. Alton.

- The prosecutor kind of put the ball in my court and said like, you know, "We're gonna keep an eye on you, you're gonna be drug tested, you're gonna have to get counseling to work out all your issues."

If I kept doing the right things, then I could have, you know, a good life.

- Sheriff Southerland and I looked each other in the eye and you know, we said the exact same words, like, we've gotta do something about this.

You know, we've gotta work together.

Be bold.

- Mr. Southerland has been phenomenal as a sheriff to, he has been just incredible in being proactive and saying, we're gonna, let's address the problem and let's not just try to, the solution is not just putting him in jail.

- [Inmate] Hey man, it's good seeing you.

- NA was already present in the jail on a limited basis when I took office.

We've expanded that.

We've got NA people coming in now that know the people that are back here.

They know them, their acquaintances, their coworkers, friends, family or something.

There's some connection there and they're able to tell them how they got to where they're at today.

Moral Reconation Therapy, it's a program that's used by the Indiana Department of Corrections.

We've expanded the minister of the church services, the jail chaplains and made that more available.

(inmates cheering) - [Children] I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America.

- This is not a strategy of like just say no, right?

It's all about empowering students.

So really changing the way in which we go about drug education to much more empowerment and really thinking about your voice and how you use your voice to sort of command your life.

- If they don't know how to process their anger or that depression, that often leads to substance use disorder and so I do watch for that.

- We have a curriculum now that we have deployed K-8.

It is called Second Step.

It is fundamentally based on neuroscience.

Every single teacher is trained in the work and every single teacher delivers the curriculum.

So they're making, they're developing relationships with students in ways that they haven't before.

- So we're gonna be talking about focused attention practices.

So take one hand, have one hand and you can begin tracing your fingers.

But on each hand, when you start to trace up, inhale, and when you come down, exhale.

If you're angry and you do this and you calm yourself like this, what are the consequences?

Bristol?

- [Bristol] You're not hurting somebody.

- I'm not hurting anyone.

I'm not hurting myself.

Do people hurt themselves?

- [Children] Yes.

- Yes.

People do hurt themselves.

What do people use sometimes to make themselves feel better but in the long run it actually hurts them?

Abby?

- [Abby] Drugs.

- Drugs.

But as we go through life, there are gonna be some very hard moments and it's important that we learn how to calm ourselves.

It's important that we learn how to have positive, happy thoughts about life, So when those hard times come that we know how to get through them.

- I think really what began to change that was the unity.

And it became this isn't your problem, this is our problem.

I think that when it became such a language, I mean it was a daily thing.

Newspapers, news.

- It just prompted tons of conversation.

- I'll tell you who it really helped was families that didn't, you know, those who, they have family members that are in addiction and they're keeping it to themselves because, well, we're a good family, you know?

We're a longstanding family in this community.

You know, there's gonna be shame and guilt on us because we did something wrong.

You didn't do anything wrong, you know?

There's all kinds of factors that led to this.

- I wake up today light as a feather.

I'm talkin' I wake up and I see light I have never seen before and it is bright and it never leaves my side, and it's not because of me, it's 'cause of all you guys that surround me on a daily basis.

So when I got out of prison, I was on absolutely on fire for recovery and I still am today.

I wanted to be around like-minded, sober people so bad, I couldn't stand it.

Like these are the people I wanted to live my life through.

I knew it.

I didn't use a sponsor, I didn't do the 12 steps.

My recovery was created because it had to be.

I didn't have those tools available to me.

So when I go there and all I'm wanting is sober friends, they kind of start hitting me with, "Who's your sponsor?

What step are you on?

You're not doing these things?

Are you really recovered?"

And like, I remember feeling, I was like, nah, this ain't good.

You know, this ain't good.

Like, I'm fine.

Like, I just want to be around you people.

I don't need to do these things.

I just need sober friends.

I've had plenty of downs, plenty of challenges, just like everybody else does in life.

We call 'em gatherings and they're more like, it's just a foundation.

Just a spot to come to get to know each other.

I think a lot of times we do so much therapy, but we don't know how to live.

I listened to all your, whew, your input and what ROL has done for you and I just had no idea that this was all gonna happen.

It's been amazing.

I got in recovery to be happy and to be free.

More than anything, free.

I've spent the better part of 15 years, I mean, locked up in one way, shape or form, whether it was in my head, whether it was in physical prison, whether it was in my image of myself, and I did not get into recovery to not be free and to be 100% fully who I actually am.

Remember why we're here and do this for the right reasons.

We all have our reasons and why we're here, so let's celebrate that today.

- [Group Member] Yeah.

(group members cheering) - Recover Out!

- Loud!

- Recover Out!

- Loud!

- Recover Out!

- Loud!

- I'm walking in memory of my son, Caleb Joy, who we lost three years ago on this Saturday.

And so walking to remember him, walking for all the moms who wonder if today is the day for their child.

- I am walking for anyone out there that's looking at all of us wanting to how in the world we did it because we're here to give them hope.

I'm here to walk for my son and these two little girls over here in hopes that they might never have to face the hells that we have faced.

- [Michelle] How are you?

I think he looks familiar and then I'm like, "I don't know, maybe he's not."

You doing all right though?

- [Daniel] Oh, how are you doin'?

(Cory laughs) - How you doin', sir?

- How you doin'?

- Buddy, I'm good.

So how's your psyche?

How are you mentally?

- I'm doing great.

I mean, three years ago, well, no, I'd say four years ago if you would've told me, you know, the kind of life I'd be living, back then, I would have said, "Well, are you gonna share some of that dope you're smoking?"

- Uh huh.

You know, from where you were- - Exactly.

- To where you are now?

- Exactly.

- That's awesome.

That's good.

- Yeah, I hope it's really gonna come full circle.

(soft piano music) (soft dramatic music) (soft dramatic music continues) - [Michelle] And he said, "It's time to let Caleb go."

And I felt such peace in that moment.

Neither of us were ready before and it just felt like the right time.

- We don't love sorrow, but we know that you teach us through it.

And so, Father, we ask that you would grow our compassion and to heal our hearts and that you would turn our grieving and our sorrow to joy and peace.

We love you.

In the name of Jesus we pray, amen.

(gentle music) I think sometimes when we see ashes or we see maybe it's a casket, in death, we feel like that death is a final and Caleb is not with us, but he's, he's still in our hearts, he's still in our minds.

And so, you know, he will forever live in our hearts until we see him again.

- [Michelle] We need to make it a mission that we help people find freedom here.

- [Cory] Yep.

- And I know that this is exactly what he would've wanted.

He would've loved that he was remembered.

- Well, we know his soul's committed with heaven.

We know he's there.

Let's commit his body to the ground.

(melancholy music) (melancholy music continues) (Cory sighs) (melancholy music continues) He loved this area and he loved people.

His loss was the catalyst for this.

But out of this now comes a moment where you live.

- It was literally just a different version of myself.

You know, thinking back to, you know, the kind of lifestyle I lived and looking at the way that I live today, I mean, it's just two completely different worlds.

(singer vocalizing) Back when, you know, I was really struggling with my addiction, I would go through times where things felt good and I felt happy and like, you know, I look back on it now and like happiness just has a whole different meaning.

Whenever you've been that low, whenever you've been, you know, down to the deepest, darkest part of your life and then you're able to turn it around and you're able to meet the love your life and you're able to have a beautiful daughter and you're able to have a great career and you're able to go out and buy a house, like those things just mean so much more whenever you've really struggled and you've really been through it.

Like you've really learned how to appreciate those things.

And it's stuff like that, you know, that really wakes you up to all the good stuff in your life.

(singers vocalizing) (singers continue vocalizing) (singers continue vocalizing) (singers continue vocalizing) (soft acoustic music) (soft acoustic music continues) (soft acoustic music continues) (soft acoustic music continues) I try to hid the demons - [Announcer] " The Addict's Wake" is brought to you with support from the Central Indiana Community Foundation, the Indianapolis Foundation and Hamilton County Community Foundation, building a stronger, more equitable community together through the power of philanthropy.

Learn more at cicf.org.

And by.

- [Announcer] Well Trans, dedicated to the wellbeing and health of individuals by removing transportation barriers to care and supporting healthy living.

- [Announcer] Also by.

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Our dedicated staff guide patients on a pathway towards lasting healing with integrated treatment programs in a judgment-free environment.

Choose life with Landmark Recovery.

- [Announcer] Additional support from Indiana Council of Community Mental Health Centers, serving the health and wellbeing of all people in Indiana.

The Indiana University Center for Rural Engagement, extending the resources of IU Bloomington to improve Hoosier lives, and viewers like you.

(gentle music)