Transcription:
00:14 – 00:44
Host: Jennifer
Welcome to the Community Matters podcast. As you know, we’re starting a series on incarceration. The very first episode that we did, daylit this trend between incarceration and addiction. And so trying to unpack that a little bit. Today, we have Jonathan Holt with us to share both his personal and professional experiences on this topic.
The Community Matters Podcast, episode three JLG architects.
Just to start out, Jonathan, can you tell us more or tell us anything about what you do now with the state of North Dakota related to addiction and recovery?
01:02 – 03:08
Guest: Jonathan Holth
Yeah. Thanks, Jen. It’s great to chat with you. I’m looking forward to the conversation. My role currently is I’m the managing director for the Office of Recovery reinvented for the state of North Dakota. The Office of Recovery Reinvent is unique. It was created through executive order by Governor Burgum in 2017, after he was elected to office. Shortly after he was elected, his wife, the First Lady Catherine Burgum, went public with her story of recovery.
She’s been in recovery for over 21 years now and decided to make that her platform, speaking openly about her recovery journey. And out of that came an event called Recovery Reinvented, which was a conference back in 2017 that gathered North Dakotans together to share stories of hope and joy in recovery and lift up faces and voices of recovery, but also to talk about the science behind the disease of addiction and what we can do to improve the lives of people facing addiction, and also help people find recovery in our state.
So that conference has grown from 2017 to this past year. We had close to 900 in-person attendees, another 1500 online tuning in from 28 different states and four different countries, with with the single goal of eliminating or reducing the shame and stigma that is associated with the disease of addiction. So we do that through powerful storytelling. So we are we’re a unique office in that our mission is we are not a treatment provider.
We lift up the treatment providers in the state of North Dakota. But our mission is single handedly to to reduce stigma. And and we do that a number of different ways. So that’s what I get to do on a day to day basis. So we’re closely with the governor and first lady and our state behavioral health team. And we travel the state and listen to people and tell stories of recovery.
00;03;08;17 – 00;03;40;01
Host: Jennifer
I think there’s something very powerful about that. You know, just as we started to unpack and talk about incarceration, we’ve realized that there are millions of stories on incarceration. There’s no blanket statement for why people are there and what set them up for that. And I think and I imagine that your experience with, you know, the state of North Dakota, the governor and the first lady lady creates an opportunity for you to hear more stories and have more, more context related to that.
03:40 – 04:10
Guest: Jonathan Holth
Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, in terms of, you know, the justice system and the disease of addiction being intertwined, I spoke to a judge in eastern North Dakota who told me that 95% of the cases that come through his courtroom involve substance use disorder, right. So the data supports the fact that these two things are intertwined. There’s no question about that.
So we we need to keep that on the forefront in our discussions for sure.
04:10 – 05:15
Host: Jennifer
And one thing you know, I was also reading some information that was provided by the Department of Justice on a gender responsive strategies to incarceration. And it spoke to a similar statistic that 80% of women in state facilities in state prisons have substance abuse problems. And then it outlined what I thought was powerful, as it outlined the base condition of the general population.
That number is closer to 7.4%. And so there’s obviously a strong connection to that. So, Jonathan, I would like to kind of move into learning more about your story, because I think it’s really the stories that give people this more empathetic, resonant approach. And so on your personal journey, I’d like to understand if you could just take us to the very beginning.
Where were you and what were those steps that led to this, this significant change in your life?
05:15 – 08:46
Guest: Jonathan Holth
Yeah. So I was born. And then what happened? Right. So, I mean, what a journey it’s been, Jen I mean, I so my I in May this year it’ll be 15 years of long term recovery for me gradually. Thanks. And you know, I, I grew up in an incredible household with a loving family and with parents who gave me every opportunity to achieve success.
And I think, you know, it’s important. I’d like to share. I like to share that with people, because I think that there are some myths that, you know, anybody who suffers from the disease of addiction, it’s based in significant trauma. And there’s no there’s no question that that’s the case for many, that trauma is a huge part of this and that needs to be addressed.
But I didn’t have that growing up. I didn’t have any trauma. I had a great childhood. I grew up in a great community. I was fortunate enough to start my own business at a young age. I was 27 when, you know, our first restaurant opened up. And I think for me, you know, really what happened was I, I all of a sudden was creating my own schedule and I was making more money than I had before, and I had really 24 over seven access to alcohol because I owned a bar and restaurant.
And those three things were a bad equation for me, right? It was just something that really got out of control really fast for me. I just started drinking more, and I had, because of the fact that I was my own boss at the time. I just had, you know, no real repercussions right away from that. And before I knew it, it it was something that I just couldn’t return from.
I tried to slow down, to scale back, even, to fully quit on my own a number of times and couldn’t do it. Like many people you know, I’d go a day or two without drinking and say, I’m doing good here, and then it would all fall apart. But, you know, I started to become a person that I’d never been before.
I was not a good son. I was not a good brother. I was not a good friend. And in that was pointed out to me by the people that loved me. And and when that was pointed out to me and I still wasn’t able to stop, I think that’s when I knew that that I had a serious problem and that addiction had its grip on me, and I needed to do something about it.
So, you know, after some convincing from my dad, my dad was a man of very few words, you know? And so that means when he did say words that they meant something, you know, I mean, he sat me down and looked me in the eye and said, you got it. You got to get this fixed. I went and I spent 30 days and and treatment and Project Turnabout and Granite Falls, Minnesota, and, and then started working a recovery program and have been sober since.
So it was it happened really fast for me, but it became really evident clearly that that it was a problem and needed to be addressed. And now it’s, you know, it’s a lifelong problem that I work on every day of my life.
08:46 – 09:33
Host: Jennifer
That’s helpful perspective. And I have some questions for you just on what is at the heart of you being able to keep this promise to yourself, you know, to to stay in recovery and kind of thinking of it through the lens of someone who maybe has a lot of other, you know, struggles in their life, kind of imagining somebody who’s incarcerated and having to go through a similar process in that environment versus the environment that you’re in.
So it would be great to know what is if you could reduce it, which you can’t. But what was really at the heart of what made recovery and continues to make recovery successful for you, maybe especially in the beginning, because I think that’s the point in time that we’re kind of looking at. Sure, some degree.
09:33 – 12:20
Guest: Jonathan Holth
Yeah. I think, you know, one of the things that I found when I was in my active addiction was that even though I found, you know, I considered myself an intelligent person and a thoughtful person, that I was still I still continued to have bad things happen to me. And, you know, I couldn’t really quite articulate why, I couldn’t really quite articulate or understand how I couldn’t get a grip on some of the most basic things in, in life.
And really the only answer to that was that I, you know, I was in my active addiction and that was that was trumping everything else in my life. So, you know, I think things like, you know, doing basic things in life, like paying bills and doing laundry are things that fall by the wayside. So for me, as I’ve thought about what motivates me to stay in recovery, I think back to those times and how difficult it was and how it didn’t need to be difficult.
But my addiction made it difficult and I don’t want to go back there. One of the tools that you know, we learned in treatment from my counselor was he always told me, you know, when you’re starting to think about maybe drinking again is to play the tape forward and think about what this is going to look like. If you go back to that place.
For me, you know, I was a single guy at the time. Now I’m married and have three kids. My wife, my daughters have never known me in my active addiction. I’m motivated to make sure that they never know that side of me. You know, when I get together with old friends from college and we tell stories, my wife is always kind of like, what are you talking?
Who are you talking about? I don’t recognize that person at all. And I want to keep it that way. Right. So I in the simplest form, Jen, everything that’s good in my life right now can be traced directly to me finding recovery. And I don’t want to find out if I’ll still have those things if I don’t have recovery.
So, look, I’m I’m like any other recovering addict in that there are moments in every day of my life when I think about going back there that this is a daily battle. It’s not it’s not something that is you, you know, you say you’re recovered and you’re done. But I have to quickly pivot to think about what that means for my life and for those that count on me today.
And when I’m able to think about that clearly, then it’s an easier decision for me to to not go back to that.
12:21 – 12:41
Host: Jennifer
So you said there are moments in every day that that you struggle. Can you describe you know, what are those moments? Is there something about those moments that you want to turn back to alcohol, or is there something that like, where are you at your weakest?
12:41 – 14:47
Guest: Jonathan Holth
Yeah, I think, you know, generally moments of adversity. Right. And that can be small or large moments of adversity or frustration. Right? I mean, we we all want things to go as we hope and plan every day, and rarely do they do. They do that. And, and, you know, for, for years, for many years prior to finding recovery, it was much easier to handle those moments because the coping mechanism that we had was a substance.
And and, you know, although it’s 15 years ago, I still remember how easy that was to quickly move away from points of adversity or to, you know, when I had moments of shame or disappointment or frustration, those moments can be gone really quickly when you bring a substance into play, when you don’t have that, you know, I have to think about it and try to come up with solutions.
So I think those are the moments when there’s moments of adversity, right? So if something in my professional life doesn’t go exactly how I’ve planned, I think about that. It would be really easy to take the edge off right now. Moments when, you know, even moments when I’m alone, right? I mean, it doesn’t happen often, but when I have to travel for work, right?
And you are in a hotel room and know that, you know, I could I could have some drinks right now and no one would ever know. Those are challenging moments. So for me, again, it’s just constantly thinking through those moments. But I will say also that one of the great joys of recovery for me is being able to always have a clear mind and be much more emotionally intelligent to really face adversity when it happens, because when you mix alcohol with it.
It takes longer and it’s more complicated. So I’m super grateful for a clear mind to be able to handle adversity as well.
14:47 – 17:03
Host: Jennifer
When you describe moments of adversity being highly challenges for someone who’s in recovery. To me, that completely collides with people leaving, you know, a corrections facility. You know that moment where you’re being thrust out into the world with certain stigmas? I mean, there’s stigma for being addicted, but there’s also stigma for being in in incarcerated in general. And so it seems like there’s a lot of things that build on each other in negative ways between these two things on your way out, and likely contribute to going into going into incarceration.
You know, I think about I try to think about things as far upstream as possible. And so as far upstream as there is a thread that meaningfully connects. And so if I’m trying to work my way back from a person that has never been incarcerated, you know, and they’re going in, they’ve been convicted of a crime, they’re going into prison.
How far upstream could the community or parents or people or even an individual themselves prevented that from happening? You know, and just trying to think about how far ahead of this we can get as a society. And I visualize it as a highway, you know, like when we’re born, we we land on this smooth road that is clearly meant for traveling.
It’s got a great surface and we we just know where to go. And as if we’re born there. And it’s we’re saying a lot of people aren’t born there, right? You’re just born into circumstances that are going to make life difficult for you. But we were if we were to idealize the situation and say we were all born on a highway, we start out life.
Where are some of those first off ramps that lead us off this highway onto a gravel road where our tire gets popped and we can get lost, and people yell at us for being on their land, you know, like, yeah, where are these off road, off roads in life? And what are some of the earliest ones? Do you have any thoughts on that?
17:03 – 22:06
Guest: Jonathan Holth
Yeah, I think well, first of all, I think it’s important to note that there are a lot of off ramps and they’re continually wherever you look. Right. And they can happen anywhere. I think, you know, as I think about and as we talk about the disease of addiction and finding recovery, that it’s important that we’re diligent that this can happen to anybody at any time.
You know, we talk about the fact that the disease of addiction does not discriminate. But to this point, recovery does too much, you know, so we we haven’t been able to get to the point where recovery is as inclusive as addiction is. Doctor Joseph Lee, who is the CEO of Hazelden Betty Ford, gave a presentation at Recovery Reinvented two years ago, where he talked about the fact that we have data that shows that we will be able we’ll be able to tell if somebody is susceptible to substance use disorder at age eight.
If we’re running the right tests, we’ll be able to know that. I think in terms of the off ramps that you talk about in that highway, we have a lot of tools and science that points us in the direction of knowing when someone is going to struggle. But I think for the most part, and this can be for a number of different reasons, that’s probably a whole nother podcast.
But we’ve been reactionary to when something happens versus proactive in getting in front of of those people that are more susceptible to the disease of addiction or incarceration. Right? I mean, we know, for example, if, you know, if somebody loses a parent early on in life, that.
They have a pretty good chance of being in the system, so to speak, at later in life. We know that if somebody’s parent is incarcerated, that it’s highly likely that they’re going to find their way to incarceration at some point. These are things that are common knowledge. But are we being proactive enough early on to try to prevent that?
I don’t think we are, and I don’t think it’s anybody’s fault, per se. I think sometimes it’s a lack of resources. You know, our education system is stretched thin right now. Or I mean, so I think that there are a number of different off ramps, but I think it’s a good analogy, Jen, in the sense that if you look at times when people find active addiction or become addicted, it is almost always tied to a transition in some point of their life.
Transition can look like a lot of different things. It could be a major life event that happens to them, someone in their family. It could be a kid moving to college for the first time and living on their own. Positive transitions or things that we think about as positive transitions can lead to addiction because it’s different and it’s something that people don’t know how to cope with.
And so I think we need to be really diligent about the fact that everyone’s highway is going to have a ton of off ramps, and we don’t necessarily know when they’re going to happen, but we can, I think, prepare much earlier. I also the last thing I’ll say on it is I think part of this, the solution is just normalizing the conversation around this and and doing that at a younger age.
Right. So in my household, you know, I have three young daughters that have asked the simple questions of like, why can mommy drink a glass of wine? But Daddy Kent, I don’t understand that. Right? And it would be really easy for us to sort of blow that off or make jokes about it. But we’ve taken the opportunity to speak very candidly about what addiction is and what daddy’s disease is to our seven year old.
And I think that that’s been beneficial because it gives us it gives them an understanding of what their parents might be going through. It gives them some diligence of what they might need to be looking out for in themselves someday, because there’s genetics that come into play with the disease of addiction. But I think the most important thing is I’m hoping that it creates three little young allies for my daughters to be in school every day, and to be empathetic and understanding and supportive of other kids who might be going through some significant struggles at home with their parents regarding the disease of addiction.
And if you think about, you know, the power of having tiny little human armies invading our school that are allies for people that are going through struggles. I mean, I can’t think of a greater force multiplier for tackling this disease than that.
22:06 – 23:38
Host: Jennifer
I agree. And if we have your three children, which I know are.
On our side, and also, you know, I have had the the privilege of having conversations with several people in leadership with the North Dakota Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. And, you know, I think it’s easy for all of us to put our head down and do what we have to do. You know, we all have budgets to hit, people to manage, but to be able to have a conversation with such challenging department where everyone I talk to brings in the the component of empathy and humanity and the fact that people shouldn’t be judged by, you know, the worst moments of their life.
And there’s a whole pathway that takes people to where they are. You know, I mean, I think that has been I just been so grateful for that. I haven’t been as proud to be from North Dakota as I have in those moments where I can see our leadership on, you know, ahead of the curve. In fact, I think they’re designing the curve when it comes to how we’re going to treat people and how we’re going to step up and and address this.
And I think it’s beautiful. And if we have that end and then we have your children coming up, I mean, everything in between should be easy to connect the dots.
23:38 – 24:02
Guest: Jonathan Holth
Well, I would just say on that that, you know, having that end, you can’t really have the rest of it without that, right? I mean, having the empathy and leading with empathy and kindness and humanity, you can’t implement programs without that. So that is such an important first piece to really making progress where we need to make progress.
24:02 – 25:11
Host: Jennifer
So I did have just a couple more questions. You know, I wanted to dig into a little bit more of of the spaces, you know, kind of thinking in terms of going through recovery. And, you know, we’ve illuminated some of those really stressful moments that are transitionary. And right now in New England, when you come into the facility, you’re put into a larger group, and it’s an orientation phase where you really kind of learn what this facility is like, a high transition phase, and then as you move through the facility, you kind of have your space and your group and maybe becomes a little bit more consistent.
I’m just trying to put myself in that moment. If I was struggling with addiction simultaneously with what’s happening here and what are the day to day things that you think one would make it just a little bit better and easier to to survive and to try to become a better person rather than a worse person? Sure. Through this?
25:11 – 28:47
Guest: Jonathan Holth
Sure. I think everybody that’s in recovery would tell you that probably the the most significant thing for them to be able to find recovery and stay in recovery is finding a community. And community means different things to different people, but we know that it means more than yourself at a minimum. So I think, you know, I think having the opportunity to find the community in some capacity.
And when I say, you know, a community, it means finding people that you find a kinship with that you feel like understand you. So that’s really, really important. So I think we need to always be sure that we’re providing opportunities for that. You know.
That looks different for every for a lot of people. There are some people that are much more comfortable in a group of two than a group of 100. Yeah, but I still haven’t talked to anybody yet that has said I found recovery just me in a room at home, and I didn’t want to talk to anybody else. Every person that I know that’s in recovery will reference other people in their recovery journey.
So I think community that’s that’s one that’s really important. I think people, unless you have lived experience, it’s hard for you to really imagine the importance and the power of nice things and quality living conditions around you and making simple changes in your life. So I’ll give you an example. Like for me, like I told you, some of the things like laundry and making your bed, like fall by the wayside, right?
One of the things that one of the greatest tools I learned in recovery was getting up at a certain time every day, paying bills. And they’re supposed to be paid, keeping up on my laundry, folding laundry, taking care of my living space. And that starts to create feelings of doing something good for yourself and doing something good for the world.
So when you are in a space that doesn’t feel kept up, doesn’t feel clean, that starts to create feelings of why. I mean, why am I doing this? It feels like I’m headed back to where I was before I got sober and found recovery. So there have to be positive things that happen in someone’s life when they begin to find recovery and begin to find sobriety.
Otherwise, it’s just way too easy for them to relapse again. It’s another thing. And when I say having nice things, I’m not talking about having expensive, you know, having a really expensive car or anything like that. I’m just talking about the feeling that is created from being in a well-kept space, having access to things like natural light, right?
I mean, things like that make a world of difference in someone’s brain, and they make a world of difference in their ability to stay in recovery. So those are the first two things from a space perspective that that come to mind is finding that sense of community and having the opportunity to find that and being in a place that really you can take pride in, in terms of how it looks and how it feels and have the ability to contribute, how to how it looks and how it feels.
00;28;47;05 – 00;29;17;07
Host: Jennifer
That makes it of sense. And I know that you’ve just started, I guess not recently, but you started working with the first lady, you know, in the middle of her journey in the state of North Dakota. And so knowing how her work is kind of playing into all of this, can you tell me some of the progress that you’ve noticed in our state in terms of addiction and recovery through her initiatives and through her work?
29:17 – 32:47
Guest: Jonathan Holth
Yeah. So I’ll just say I’ll start with, for me personally, you know, before I’ve been in this role for almost a year. But prior to that, you know, I’d been in recovery for quite some time before I felt comfortably felt comfortable going completely public with it. And I think when the first lady went public with her story, that was the thing that made me feel comfortable talking openly and honestly about this.
So that makes a world of difference, because that has a spider web effect. When more people start talking about this openly and honestly because it reduces stigma. The progress that I’ve seen is that we know that stigma is probably the greatest barrier for someone that wants to get help because of the way society looks at people with substance use disorder, of the way somebody’s family might look at it, and just the way that that person might feel like society or their family will look at them.
I have talked to one of the greatest parts about my job is every day I get phone calls from people in the state of North Dakota saying, I know someone that needs help. How can I? How can I get them the help that they need so I get to walk them through that? I can’t tell you how many times, though.
I’ve sat down face to face with someone who knows that they need help, but tell me that they can’t do it. I can’t I can’t go to treatment right now because I. I can’t afford what my coworkers might think of me. I can’t afford to potentially lose my job. So we have a lot of work to do on stigma, but I will say that we’re making progress.
The state is making progress. The way that people talk about the disease of addiction today versus even the way they did ten years ago in our state, is completely different. One of the things that I tell people when they’re considering getting help is I get nothing but positive comments when I talk about my recovery journey, right. I don’t have people that look down on me.
They congratulate me, just like you did during this call. That’s much more the norm than it was ten, 20 years ago. And that’s a good thing. Because of the fact that our offices mission is, is solely to reduce stigma in the state, we felt it was important that we measure that. So in 2018, we commissioned a stigma survey in the state of North Dakota that measured people’s attitudes about the disease of addiction.
And we did the same survey again in 2021, three years later, and we reduced stigma by 11% during that time. So we had and, you know, that’s for one question we asked people, do you believe that addiction is a disease, or do you believe that it’s a moral failing or a choice? And in 2018, 64% of North Dakotans believed it was a disease, and in 2021, 75% of North Dakotans felt it was a disease.
We know that people’s attitudes towards this directly impact how we treat it, and our ability to treat it, and our ability to get people to help that they deserve. So what have we done in those three years? We’ve told stories. We’ve normalized the conversation around the disease of addiction and recovery. We’ve had these conversations inside of jails and prisons.
We’ve had these conversations at small town banks. We’ve had them in large theaters. We need to have these conversations everywhere. But we think by normalizing it, more people will get the help that they need and deserve.
32:48 – 33:46
Host: Jennifer
I agree, and you know, I think there are valid arguments as well, you know, to to the fact that we still have to, you know, justice still has to be served. There’s no there’s no arguing that. Yeah. And, you know, people can make bad decisions and, you know, they need to serve those consequences. But there’s a balance, hopefully within the entire picture where you can start to see things a little more nuanced and broader.
I know I had a conversation with the director of the North Dakota Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, a friend of yours, and Dave Crabb, and explained to me that one of the women in the North Dakota system right now was sold by her father as a young girl for two cases of beer. And when your life begins with a moment like that, like when we’re talking about moments of transition.
3347 – 33:47
Guest: Jonathan Holth
Like, yeah.
33:48 – 34:09
Host: Jennifer
This is another level of a moment of transition that people in North Dakota experience and feel. And it just adds more color and context to, to, to the circumstances. And for me, highlights that every circumstance is very different from the next.
34:09 – 34:11
Guest: Jonathan Holth
Yeah. Agreed. Well said.
34:11 – 34:38
Host: Jennifer
Well, I think, you know, Jonathan, I want to thank you so much for your time today. I’m so grateful. Every time I talk with you, I think you make me a better person and a smarter person. So I should probably talk to you every day of my life. But I just want to thank you for your contribution to the state of North Dakota and to every communication, every community that you are a part of because it’s significant.
So thank you so much for your time today.
34:38 – 35:22
Guest: Jonathan Holth
Well, thanks, Jen. And I’ll just say I mean thanks. The feeling is mutual. So yes, we should talk more. I appreciate every time I get to talk to you, but I more than anything, just want to express gratitude to you. And for the team at JLG for being willing to host these conversations because it makes a difference. These conversations matter, and they need to be held out in the open more.
They need to be held where more people can hear them. So providing a platform for that to happen and for, you know, allowing people to be vulnerable and and comfortable at the same time, like you’ve done with me today is really, really important. So thanks for hosting the conversations. It does absolutely make a difference.
00;35;22;21 – 00;35;25;00
Host: Jennifer
Of course. Thank you so much, Jonathan.
35:25 – 35:35
Guest: Jonathan Holth
Sure. Thanks.
35:35 – 35:40
Host: Jennifer
The Community Matters podcast, episode three JLG architects.
