Breaking the Chains of Addiction with Rebecca LeMasters | Episode 111

Breaking the Chains of Addiction with Rebecca LeMasters | Episode 111
Voices for Voices is the #1 ranked podcast where people turn to for expert mental health, recovery and career advancement intelligence.

Our Voices for Voices podcast is all about teaching you insanely actionable techniques to help you prosper, grow yourself worth and personal brand.

So, if you are a high achiever or someone who wants more out of life, whether mentally, physically or spiritually, make sure you subscribe to our podcast right now!

As you can see, the Voices for Voices podcast publishes episodes that focus on case studies, real life examples, actionable tips and "in the trenches" reports and interviews from subscribers like you.

If that sounds like something that could help you grow personally or professionally, then make sure to join me by subscribing!

—
Thanks for listening!

Support Voices for Voices: https://bit.ly/3XPWeMm

When Rebecca LeMasters speaks, you can almost hear the clink of chains breaking—the chains of addiction and stigma that once held her captive. As a professional woman and mother, her battle with substance abuse was cloaked in societal expectations and shame, but through resilience, she emerged as a guiding light. We have the privilege of hosting Rebecca, a board member of Voices for Voices, who takes us through her personal odyssey from darkness to advocacy in addiction and mental health. Her narrative not only illuminates the lesser-seen struggles of addiction in the professional world but also highlights the transformative power of recovery, and underscores the urgent need for supportive communities and tailored resources, especially for those vulnerable groups often overlooked.

In our heart-to-heart, Rebecca shares the crucible of her experience, emphasizing how pivotal a robust support system is for those navigating the precarious path of recovery post-hospitalization. We zero in on Tuscarawas County's innovative strides—a testament to the impact of local initiatives in the broader battle against addiction. The county's efforts shine a spotlight on the necessity of accessible treatment options for all, particularly women, pregnant individuals, and veterans suffering in silence. This episode is not just a conversation; it's a rallying cry for collaboration and inclusivity in the realm of addiction recovery, beckoning listeners to join in fostering a society where hope and help are within reach for everyone.

Chapters
0:00 Advocacy in Addiction and Mental Health
10:54 Changing Face of Addiction and Treatment
25:43 Challenges and Resources for Addiction Treatment

#RecoveryJourney #Advocacy #Podcast #tvshow #AddictionRecovery #WomenInRecovery #InspiringStories #CommunitySupport #AddictionTreatment #PodcastEpisode #Japan #Tokyo #Osaka #Singapore #Malaysia #Australia #Sydney #Melbourne #Brisbane #KualaLumpur

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hi everyone, thanks for joining us again on another episode of the Voices for Voices TV show and podcast. I am Justin Allen Hayes, founder and executive director at Voices for Voices. We just asked that you please share, like this episode and previous episodes, if you want to check those out as well. Voices for Voices again, we're trying to help and reach three billion people over the course of my lifetime and beyond, and if you can help us in any small way, we would really appreciate it.

Speaker 1: 0:36

So in studio today we have one of our Voices for Voices board members. She is on the Tuscaroras, carroll County, adams board, and Adams that stands for is Alcohol, drug, mental Health Awareness. She has 12 years of sobriety, which is absolutely awesome. She'll be going into her story and her experience and sharing a little bit of that with us. She also has 10 years of community outreach experience being part of a community, finding people that want to help others and really just trying to have a healthy society and to be on the most positive track that we can be.

Speaker 1: 1:32

Nothing's perfect, but she has 10 years of that community outreach, of really trying to connect and help as many people as possible, which is one of the big reasons why we have her on our Voices for Voices board. She also has 8 years of addiction treatment experience and the services industry, so really a broad spectrum of professional experience as well as personal experience. We're going to talk a lot about our guest story, her experience, and then we're definitely going to touch on one of the hottest topics, really not just here in Summit County but across the United States fentanyl, and what that has looked like through the lens of our guest. So our guest today is Rebecca Lamasters. Rebecca, thanks for joining us today.

Speaker 2: 2:31

Hi, all you're welcome. I'm happy to be here. I'm happy to share some of my story with you and share some of the redemption that comes out of recovery, and also share my experience in this field.

Speaker 1: 2:46

So maybe we can start wherever you're comfortable with your personal experience and then we can maybe shift into how that maybe help guide you professionally, and then we can go from there.

Speaker 2: 3:01

Yeah, my personal experience started with alcohol. I think a lot of people don't really recognize women still in this day and age I mean, it's getting better but a lot of women who are professionals, young moms. You know, like I was in a separated relationship young in my life. I had a lot of stressors that came on me and also I saw a lot of people that drank alcohol and actually existed well in their life. They had good jobs, they had nice cars. You know they own things.

Speaker 2: 3:32

It wasn't like alcohol was related to a lot of the negativity that I know it's related to now. So that was my first journey with addiction. I would have said probably 10 years ago I didn't think that addiction was related to alcohol because addiction was pressed so far into a life of drugs and things that were illicit and that were illegal. But that's where it started and it took a definite sobering incident to get me to where I'm at. But I was in a car accident and during that car accident I was actually in the hospital and when I was in the hospital I was actually in there with a lot of the professionals I worked with and not only was it eye-opening but it was also embarrassing and you know I did seek treatment, but I wasn't really looked at as a poster child for addiction. So therefore, I think that getting treatment for myself was very tough and that's why it brought me to where I'm at today. Because seeking all of those answers and always getting turned down and being told you're not really an addict, you're not really this, you're not really that, you're just going through a hard time in your life, or you're a young mom, or you're a young professional, or you're a woman, so you can't be addicted to anything those things really opened my eyes and made me want to help more people, not just women, but women and men that are going through this, and I've seen it grow and today we are just exponentially so much farther ahead than we were then. So that's why I got into community service, addiction services.

Speaker 2: 5:22

I kind of left my profession in the medical field behind because I felt like my profession in the medical field maybe was a crutch to me and maybe paralleled to my addiction, because my addiction was compounding with also, you know, an opiate addiction.

Speaker 2: 5:42

I had a lot of pain. I actually my gallbladder almost burst and instead of knowing that that was going to happen, I was heavily medicated to just keep working and keep going and you know. But back then, you know we watch all the stories now that are on, like Netflix and all the TV shows and I think that prescriptions were pushed on people for pain because we didn't want people to be in pain. But we also had all these pharmaceutical companies that were making so much money off of these prescriptions and we were so illy educated in every profession and just in our daily lives, like the general community wasn't really educated on how even addiction with a prescription If you had a prescription it was legal. If you drank alcohol, it's legal so how can that be an addiction? So I've really grown out of those things and grown up and have educated myself and others around me.

Speaker 1: 6:43

So yeah, and I'm glad you went into the. I'm not glad you went through the experience, but I mean today going into how you may have been viewed as taking a longer time to get help because maybe you weren't in the demographic. They're like oh, you're fine, just work through it.

Speaker 2: 7:08

And.

Speaker 1: 7:08

I even felt, and have felt in my recovery, very similar of I need help, something's going on. I don't know what it is, and it took a doctor visit, a doctor visit, an ER visit, an ER visit. And for me the siren was on, the light was blinking. But even some family members like, oh yeah, just take a deep breath, go for a walk, just work, work through it, put it down.

Speaker 2: 7:39

You can put it down anytime, yeah.

Speaker 1: 7:42

And I think that's key for our listeners or viewers and whether they're here in some account or across the world, we have followers and people that have found a big interest in voices, for voices To just know and understand that if you're going through something tough, that you need to really be an advocate for yourself and you need to keep going until you feel you're getting that adequate response from the medical community, from family, that people are really buying in, because addiction, regardless of substance, alcohol or whatever you want to call it, are things that they don't know, demographics or zip codes.

Speaker 1: 8:29

It affects a lot of people everyone and I think what you were saying was very informative.

Speaker 2: 8:35

Yeah, I mean I don't really see and now I don't just see addiction, I see dual problems. It's dual with mental health, it's dual with compounding addiction, it's dual with trauma and codependency, and I think that a lot of the things that are missing are, I mean, the support system. The support is there more in the community and the government offices and even doctors' offices, and healthcare is really getting there. But I think in the mental health industry we really have stepped it up in the last, especially the last three years, especially for people that are professionals and are working in. I mean, like you said, addiction it has really no demographic, it has no population, it has no zip code. It affects everyone. But I think that those agencies and those people are starting to see us as one and some of the stigmas are starting to fall off. So, and I feel like I hope that I'm part of that journey, so yeah.

Speaker 1: 9:43

So how does that make you feel that you're part of the solution, that you yourself have gone through experiences, but that you're part of that solution, not just you personally, of being an advocate for yourself, but really extended the arms to the community?

Speaker 2: 10:04

Yeah, I mean, I'm really proud of that. I'm probably more proud of that than anything other than my family and my children and all of their accomplishments. But logistically and professionally like that, getting a seat on the Adams board is probably one of the highest accomplishments in my professional life and in my life in general at this point. I mean I sit on that board with amazing men and women who are just top tier of who you can go to and who you can get resources from, and I feel like the Adams boards in general have grown into more of an approachable service in the past five to three years. I guess three to five years. I mean before that, when I was first suffering with this, I didn't even know what an Adams board was.

Speaker 2: 11:01

I didn't know what the Drug Task Force Agency was. I didn't know anything. Like you said, we just went to the emergency room, we looked for help and we sought out doctors and nurses and sometimes lawyers and people just kind of get us out of harm's way, not to really shelter us and keep us going in a healthy lifestyle. So that's really what you need. You have to really build your foundation and your core in recovery and then you have to stand upon that and then you have to have resources that also are going to help you stand up, because relapse is a real thing in recovery and you have to have people in your personal and professional life that are willing to see the signs and the symptoms and you have to wanna be honest with those people as well. So I think a lot of that has opened up in the last couple of years.

Speaker 1: 11:59

What's your feeling about individuals working for organizations that are supporting the community, and I think that's a really important thing that you have to take a person like yourself myself has that lived experience versus that book experience. Are there things for those individuals that have the book experience that you think are maybe missing, whether treatment of yourself or people that you've known that like oh well, if that person had been through some of the things they're suggesting that's in a book, that's not gonna help in real life.

Speaker 2: 12:43

Yeah, I think that's where we really started was. You gave somebody a test in an office setting and that test told you whether they were addicted to something or whether they had a mental health issue or whether they. Those are things that are very square. A lot of us have a very round problem, so that round peg doesn't fit in that square spot and I think that now people are seeing that and I think that you have to have the education compiled with the experience to really build a great plan. But I'm so glad that so many people that are not educated come out with their stories and I mean, like, look at all of the social media and people that are coming out and saying this is where I was, this is where I am now, such as ourselves. Having a podcast and really speaking on these issues gives you a united front.

Speaker 2: 13:42

But I don't think that there is a line of demarcation. I don't think anybody's drawn a line in the sand and said like you have to be educated to treat this or you have to be. I mean, obviously you need certain degrees to work in certain facilities and that obviously makes sense because of how the state is structured and to protect people. We have hippolals and things like that, but they're also hiring a lot of people that are non-college educated but have, you know, like real street smarts and boots on the ground experience, because that's something that you really can't teach.

Speaker 2: 14:20

You know, it's something that, like you said, it's just it happens to you and you learn from it, and I think that's how my life went Everywhere from you know, getting when I was young. You know, learning how to get a medical card and learning how to, you know, get food and get housing, and all of these things have helped me. Now, letting someone else know that's in, you know was in my shoes, know how to get to that faster and easier, but it takes those people that sit in those offices every day to also get us to where we need to be, and so we really need to work together. So I think that you know there's no difference between the education and the street smarts, except for the piece of you know, the diploma and the piece of paper. But you know you have to have that so people can be protected as well.

Speaker 1: 15:15

So I had a conversation with somebody in the mega field a couple of days ago and they were. We were having a conversation about what happens, let's say, if somebody has an inpatient stay at the hospital. You know what happens from that point on and the conversation was okay, you get this piece of paper, you get this referral, you're leaving the hospital. You might not be able to see somebody for a day or two. What happens in between there, like how are you able to provide food and shelter? Yeah, what's been your experience on, kind of, maybe, that piece of that is a that now bringing that into the setting.

Speaker 2: 16:02

There is a large, I guess, gap in our services. Where that is concerned, I can tell you from my experience I think I was a little bit a step ahead of the game, working for different treatment centers and different addiction service industry providers, because I was that person so I knew how to get there. But if you haven't had that experience and this is like, say, this is your first time dealing with addiction or your first or second time and you go from the ER, they give you a referral and let's say you have to go back into the court system and the judge says, okay, I want one through five done within 10 weeks, and you have no one to guide you. You have no one to tell you where all these services are. You don't know what to do. I mean, that's where we set people up to fail.

Speaker 2: 16:58

So what we're doing now? I feel like people are listening. A lot of the judges are listening, a lot of the doctors are listening and what they're doing is they're putting liaisons in those positions to guide someone, or they're putting someone like a community outreach representative or the Adams Board. A lot of emergency rooms join with the Adams Board, because they have those resources, so they'll reach out to that person and give the board the name of that person legally, because they need help getting to all of these different places. I mean it's like a game of monopoly, right. I mean you start here, you're in trouble, you're destitute, you feel like nothing is gonna help, right, but then you have to jump so many steps. Well, you don't do it on your own, you have to have a team to help you get there, and I think that we're still working on that. There are still so many places that need to understand that you have to have that person in place, like that liaison in place. But we also have a lot of different companies that do that as well, like there's Thrive, and I mean there's a couple of different ones that I could definitely mention, but, connecting with them through my career as a business development director, I not only did they refer people to me, but I was able to refer people to them, and they are the middle ground. So we really have to talk more about those services as well.

Speaker 2: 18:28

So I'm glad that you brought that up, especially with you know, right now, with fentanyl being such an epidemic, I mean we can't even. We don't even have like an opiate task force anymore, because the grants don't pertain to just opiates any longer because of all of the different methamphetamines, fentanyl, like all the different drugs that are coming in. We've had to change even the verbiage of the way we get funding to do these things because of all these gaps that are being filled. So I hope that answers your question.

Speaker 2: 19:00

It's kind of a long answer but it takes us into, like, the next subject, which is kind of like how the face of not only addiction but the face of drug use has changed so drastically over the 10 years, you know. I mean it used to be alcohol, and I mean alcohol and heroin were, you know, two of the biggest that we talked about. And then there, you know, there's cocaine and things that we all like not if we were sitting around the dinner table we're going to discuss, but we know what they are. Now there's so many different names for drugs, there's so many different ways people can get these drugs and how they're administered and how people are ingesting drugs is just beyond my comprehension, even as someone who you know was kind of in that seat.

Speaker 2: 19:51

I mean, I had a prescription and I was buying something off the shelf. So even I had to educate myself on all these different things. I had to take training for you know, narcan, you know, and I know that we have, you know, great projects out there, like the Don Project and all the health departments. You know they teach how to administer it. But now we see big billboards for.

Speaker 2: 20:14

Narcan, where just two years ago it was like taboo to even like talk about it, you know, and people were just like, oh, I'm not going to have that in my car, I'm not going to administer it. But I mean, I literally find myself looking at people in a parking lot if their head's down and maybe they just may be resting. The first thing that comes to my mind is do I need to get my kit? Do I need to help this person? I mean, we're just in a different society now, so you know.

Speaker 1: 20:42

And yeah, like I said, not just fentanyl, you know, with other synthetics like xylazine, which takes things to another level. But then also there was a recent news story about five or six fourth graders went to school and one of the fourth graders passed out candy I don't know if it was gummy bears or the like and they started to get sick and the students fourth graders ended up at the hospital and they found out that there were trace amounts of fentanyl in the Bay. Yeah, and so then the authorities traced that back to where the child got that from. And so when we talk about, like, the demographics, there's no demographic that is excluded. And I mean, if we're going down the fourth graders candy, I mean, for me I haven't. At almost five year old it's scary because you have to worry about an extra thing, like, oh, okay, well, my daughter's at ballet or she's at gymnastics and her friend says, oh, we want some Cheez-Its, or like oh wait, the bag's already open, Like we gotta get our test strips, and it's so.

Speaker 2: 22:05

It's extreme, it's very extreme, but I mean I think the majority of us don't treat it as an extreme issue when we're out in our daily lives, I mean you have to live, right, you have to. I mean you're living a life every day.

Speaker 2: 22:21

You have to, yeah, you have to work, you have to pay your bills, you have to go on with life. But I think that it is up to us to do our part to educate the general population on these things because just like that story, you know there's other stories and there's other problems that come along with these types of addictions and these types of drug use. I mean we could get into a lot of them. We could get into trafficking, we could get into abduction and all of these things that are taking place. And you know it used to be a lot of officers would come on, they would do, you know, like a training on just touching fentanyl and what it could do to you, or ingesting it just from being around it. But now we have to take that a step further.

Speaker 2: 23:07

Like if you're in a public restroom and you turn on the blower, you know there was just a proven fact that they were doing that in public restrooms. They were putting fentanyl bags in the hand dryers. I mean, like, can you imagine that? But you know it's like what is? What are these people thinking? So thank God we have professionals to get behind that part of this.

Speaker 2: 23:32

You know, epidemic. We're on another part of the front lines, which is community awareness. But you know, like I said, thank God and thank goodness, that we have all of those people that are, you know, risking their lives every day to stop these things, far beyond our reach. You know, but it is something that you do think about in this profession every day, because you know of all of the Narcan training and all of the things that we can. You know the services we can get to help us. You know there are a ton of grants out there that are just amazing that if you apply for them and you, you know you do actually get the funding for it you can do so much with this grant money to help your community.

Speaker 1: 24:17

So yeah, so being right, this second we're in Summit County, but with you being on the Tuscarora and Carol Adams Board, county-wide state of Ohio. How are the counties? Are there certain counties that are done better or worse? There are the services. How do you see that with what your role is now?

Speaker 2: 24:45

I think that in Tuscarora County, of course that's you know. I mean that's where I spend predominantly. Most of my time is Tuscarora West Stark, and not with the Adams Board. But I'm in Stark County a lot and you know I do crossover into Carroll County just with what I do and I think that Tuscarora County is doing an amazing job. I think they're doing an excellent job. I'm not an expert on any of that, so I could just give you my opinion on what I see and how I see people responding and the programs that we have. And you know you have to look at the numbers of, you know who's going through the court system and you know you have to look at the numbers of arrests and things like that to compile all the statistics that really answer those questions.

Speaker 2: 25:33

I don't have those in front of me, but I would say yeah, my opinion is that I think that Tuscarora County is doing great. I think that they really just they jump on, you know, problems and they try to. If they can't extinguish them, they try to find the resources and the right people to put in place to help with them. I can tell you that, from the jails clear up to the courts, clear up to you know, we have a new hospital system in our small area which has been a definite learning curve. I won't speak too much on that, but you know, having that system come into our small area and having to acclimate to their aesthetics and the way that they do things has been really eye-opening to how fast we used to get services, and now we kind of have to go by their steps. And so I think that every county and every community has those jumps or those hoops to jump through, and I think they're all doing a good job, you know. But as a whole, I think we still have work to do. You know there's never not work to do, there's never. We're actually going to be opening up a new men's residential treatment center in our small county of Tuscarawas County, and that speaks volumes to how far we have come with, you know, extinguishing stigmas, getting property to build this place.

Speaker 2: 27:11

Mike Dots is on our Adams board and he's done a phenomenal job, as you know, giving us all of the facts on this project, and you guys could look it up. There's what was a press release on it and it's just. It's amazing because this is what I have fought for my entire time in recovery. I have fought for the courts and the judicial system, along with the medical care providers and the mental health providers, to find a common ground to help people Like you can't just ignore it and you can't just arrest people, like it's not going to go away and I think, with you know, the people that we have in place, we've really grown as a community and we are putting those services in place, but I think we still need some help with some of our living and we, you know we need some more. We need some more places for women as well. You know, I'm just going to say that out loud. We need more. We need more meetings for women and you know we could. We're definitely going further on that front.

Speaker 1: 28:19

So yeah, and anybody in the audience, listening, viewing, reach out to Rebecca if you have ideas, if you have resources. That's part of what this platform is also for. So to kind of close things out, or we're coming up on our time. What's maybe the number one topic? You get a call about it to give our viewers and listeners an idea of like, what are you being called for? And just to get people like, oh, wow, I never thought about that. Yeah, I think that's the most common.

Speaker 2: 28:57

Yeah. So I think right now, a big thing that I'm getting called on for are Veterans that are in a tough spot with you know, veterans corps with addiction, with there's a lot of Female veterans that are actually they suffer through addiction and now they're suffering through not Pregnancy or childbirth, but they are, they're, they're gonna be mothers to be and they don't necessarily Know where to go, what to do, they don't necessarily have a place to land. So we need some more services for you know, people that are in that demographic, for people that are expecting mothers Expec and the fathers that may be supporting them, or fathers that are gonna have children with someone that's expecting either Addiction on either side. We really need Resources for that. So I welcome any resources where that's concerned. I know every community is trying to grow, but we really don't look at those numbers of how relapse hits women at in postpartum. So I think we need to look more at that.

Speaker 2: 30:02

And, like I said, back to veterans, I mean a lot of veterans are suffering and we I mean the VA does a great job, but we still don't have enough treatment centers that really, I Guess, offer services specifically for you know, veterans in our area and it's hard for them to get there because they have to jump through a lot of hoops to to get, you know, the insurance and you know through the military and they have to have so many knows to get to a provider that is Outside of you know the realm of what the military says or where they should go.

Speaker 2: 30:34

Not that those aren't good providers, but you know, I mean recovery is an individual thing. It doesn't. It's not cookie cutter, it doesn't work for everybody. So I I just I welcome new treatment centers and owners and operators of those centers to Contact yourself or me and please let us know what their programs are all about, because we could really share that in a broad spectrum. So, yeah, those are some of the things that I think we're really we're struggling with and our adolescents and our teens, I mean, how many places do you know where we can send our teens? I mean off the top of your head, it's really hard to you know, know those places and know who has, you know, the best program. So I think that you know, just making ourselves more aware of mental health from ages, you know, 12 to 40, are what we keep, we have to keep working on so, and as far as contact information, how can people reach out on LinkedIn?

Speaker 2: 31:42

Yeah, how would you definitely reach out to me on LinkedIn under Rebecca the Masters. I have a small resume on there. Not everything is on there, but you know a lot of people know me through the addiction services industry I work with. I'm obviously connected to you with voices for voices. You're a great way to get to me. I think that my bio is on our website as long as, as well as a couple other websites, I work with the Adams board. I'm not necessarily the person you would get connected with, but if you call me, I can connect you with any service provider. I also, you know I'm connected with the health departments and Anyone clear up into. If you need help getting into, you know, a place for assisted living, if you're in the demographic of 55 to 75, you know I can help with that as well. I mean, I really have not pigeonholed myself. I've really got a broad outlook on who I can help and I mean I'm glad to do that through voices for voices.

Speaker 1: 32:49

Yeah, we're. We're happy to have you on board. All the work that you do the the doors who open the ideas man there's. You know some, some bigger ideas and things that we're gonna be Collaborating on in 20 here in 20, 24.

Speaker 2: 33:07

Yeah, we're definitely talking about some good stuff and I think we're gonna be at a walk in their shoes. Yeah well, I'm gonna be speaking and thank you for supporting me in that, and last year, you know, we were there as well and I think that that's gonna be a great collaborating event and you know the people who run that are amazing. So, and there's a little bit more in depth where you know your higher power comes into play with that. So you know that would be great as well.

Speaker 1: 33:37

Yeah, rebecca, thanks for joining us today.

Speaker 2: 33:40

Thanks for having me.

Speaker 1: 33:41

I appreciate it yeah and thank you, our viewers, our listeners, checking out the transcript, here in Summit County, across Ohio, across the US and and across the world. This is a TV show podcast that our organization, voices are for voices, is sponsoring. I am Justin Allen Hayes, the founder and executive director, and Please share, please like this episode and check out other episodes were well over a hundred here and 24 going towards 200 and until next time, wow. We hope you have a great day and be a voice for you or somebody in need you.