New Hampshire native Timothy McMahan King was there and approached the Massachusetts senator. He handed her a copy of his book, “Addiction Nation”, published in 2019, which details the story of his past opioid abuse.

“Elizabeth Warren has a great plan [for solving the opioid crisis],” King said. “Love it. On paper.”

But in reality, he has serious doubts about whether it could be put in place. In fact, as an undecided Democratic voter, from one of the top states most affected by the opioid crisis, King believes that every single front runner in the primary election has laid out effective proposals to deal with one of the most serious health crisis plaguing the country.

“But they aren’t campaigning on it like they need to,” King said.

Timothy McMahan King, a New Hampshire native, published “Addiction Nation” in 2019, detailing his stuggle with opioid abuse. He stands in front of the Restoration Cafe, where a few hours earlier he briefly met senator Elizabeth Warren. Photo by Catarina Lamelas Moura

While the opioid crisis typically doesn’t make it into the top ten issues in democratic candidate’s stump speeches, it is currently listed in the top five in the White House’s official website, the author pointed out.

“There’s something that they’re looking at that the Democrats aren’t,” he said. “You call up a normal person and you ask them what their top issues are, drug policy is not going to be up there. But it’s not a policy issue. It’s a narrative issue. And Trump knows how to win on narrative.”

A total of 67,367  people died from drug overdoses in 2018, according to the Center For Disease Control And Prevention. That same year, New Hampshire had an age-adjusted rate of 35.8 deaths per 100,000 persons, close to double the national average of 20.7.

That year’s numbers also show the first decrease in drug overdose in the past 28 years (4.1% decline from 2017) — a fact Trump took credit for in his latest State of the Union Address.

“So Trump comes to New Hampshire and he taps into that,” King said. “But he’s not there to talk about the policy. He’s there to have a very deep visceral connection with the ways that people have lost family.”

The author argued that the only candidate who has been able to appeal to people on this level has been Andrew Yang.

“He goes to people and he’s like ‘what’s different in your town,’” King said. “But none of the other Democrats are integrating it that way, because it doesn’t show up as the policy issue that people care about. Where Trump’s campaign has identified ‘oh, this is a story we can tell that justifies our other policies.’”

At the recent McIntyre-Shaheen 100 Club Dinner,  which gives the Democratic candidates a platform to speak to funders and supporters, Lisa Klaud, 42, from Hooksett, New Hampshire, still hadn’t decided on who to vote for in the upcoming primary, but said she was leaning towards Andrew Yang.

“I think he has a tremendous amount of energy and intuition in terms of reading what the American public is experiencing,” she said. “He’s the only candidate that really understands what’s going on if you’re dealing with extreme poverty or your middle class. New Hampshire has its set of very specific challenges, and he’s been able to speak to all of them.”

Klaud also praised Yang’s Freedom dividend as something that would greatly impact the lives of people impacted by the opioid crisis.

“[It] would make a huge difference for anybody who’s raising children who are their children’s children, which in the state of New Hampshire happens a lot,” Laud said. “The foster care system doesn’t have sufficient beds for all of the people who are impacted. So that would really help struggling families to be able to make due when they’re doing parenting the second time around.”

Some Democratic voters who attended events over the weekend leading up to the primary looked at the opioid crisis as part of a larger issue. Cara Flynn, 19, a student currently living in Boston, has seen many people around her impacted by this problem.

“It’s more of a human rights issue,” Flynn said. “I believe that without Medicare for all, or without a universal health care plan, that it’s just going to keep happening. People are going to be taken advantage of and that includes not having access to health products that they need. And because of that, they turned to something more accessible, like drugs, alcohol.”

Samantha Spiers, 29, attended the McIntyre-Shaheen 100 Club Dinner, while still undecided on who to vote for in the primaries. Photo by Catarina Lamelas Moura

Samantha Spiers, 29, of New Hampshire, is leaning towards voting for Bernie Sanders. Although “it’s hard to meet someone who hasn’t been affected” by the opioid crisis, Spiers said that everyone is divided on how to address it. 

“People still don’t even see substance abuse as a mental health issue and as a health issue,” she said, stressing the importance of universal health care.

On the moderate side, John McSheffrey, 52, from Newbury, New Hampshire, wants to see big government hold big pharma accountable — a position he has seen on opposite sides of the political spectrum, both from Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump’s republican challenger Bill Weld.

“I think that [the opioid crisis] goes hand in hand with the importance of caring for the working class,” McSheffrey said. “You protect the middle class with Social Security, you’re protecting the middle class with jobs, you’re protecting the middle class with protecting their education and their healthcare, and protecting them from the exposure the big pharma pharmaceuticals.”

Whoever is elected has to be able to bring people together, he said.

“We’re not polarized. We’re not,” he said. “Our politicians are polarized. We’re a country in the middle. But the primary process takes us to the left and right, right, and we end up having extreme candidates. We need to have moderate candidates, because most of us are moderates. Most of us are in the middle.”

Surviving in Manchester

Hope for NH Recovery, in Manchester, is a community center where people with an addiction can find safe haven. Keith Howard, 61, its executive director is looking for a politician who can address the challenges of living in the 21st century. 

Hope for NH Recovery is a community center in Manchester, New Hampshire, for people recovering from addiction. Some of the art made there is displayed along the halls. Photo by Catarina Lamelas Moura

“As I am making my decision, It’s very unlikely that a politician’s position on increasing funding for opioid treatment or recovery is going to play much into my decision,” Howard said. “I think that politicians can have a much more direct hand in then fighting what I see as being an existential, philosophical issue of the emptiness of modern life. I don’t think that there’s a Senate bill that is going to bring meaning to people who need drugs just to get up the courage to live.”

As someone who has been in recovery for 12 years, Howard’s views stem from his beliefs on the underlying cause of addiction.

Keith Howard, 61, is the executive director of Hope for NH Recovery. He has been in recovery himself for about 12 years. Photo by Catarina Lamelas Moura

“I think that addiction is caused by alienation from humanity and alienation from the world,” he said. “If a person is alienated drugs make you feel better. If you are having your human needs met, then you don’t need drugs as much.”

Carlos Zemban, 57, a recovering addict,  spends a big part of his week attending meetings and hanging out at Hope for NH Recovery. About 30 years ago he left Santa Catarina, Brazil, for New Hampshire and hasn’t been back since. In 2016, Zemban was one of the 46,5% people in New Hampshire who voted for Trump. Hilary Clinton won the state by a very slim margin.

Carlos Zemban, 57, is recovering from substance abuse and spends a big part of his week attending meetings and hanging out at Hope for NH Recovery. Photo by Catarina Lamelas Moura

Zemban, is currently homeless and looking for a job, having been laid off from his previous position in construction three months ago. As a single parent to a 12 year old daughter, he sees Trump as the candidate who can better address his concerns.

“Being a single father, looking for assistance is a big deal. Every time you go to get assistance or anything, it’s like a barrier they have. That’s a policy that has to be changed around,” he said. “This year I have to find a way to advocate for a single father, with a kid, to find a place to live. Because a woman with a kid can get anywhere she wants to, but a guy with a kid, it’s very hard to get help. It’s a lot of barriers.”

Having used everything from alcohol, to cocaine, prescription pills and heroin throughout most of his life, Zemban has been in recovery since September of 2018. His substance abuse started back in Brazil, at the young age of 11.

“When I left Brazil I thought I could come here and start fresh,” he said. “But I ended up going the same way really.”

Now he said he is turning his life around.

“I can see myself sitting on the porch, my own house. You know, it happened before so why not?,” he said.

For the moment, he is focused on staying clean. And come November he will once again cast his vote for President Trump.

Catarina Lamelas  Moura is a graduate student in Reporting the Nation/NY in Multimedia concentration

The post Democrats have a plan for the Opioid Crisis. Yet Trump tells the story many Americans want to hear appeared first on Pavement Pieces.

Six months later, Fulton found himself 60 miles away from the posh neighborhood he used to work for before, as the general manager of the more modest Country Chef restaurant in Wilton, New Hampshire, a town with a population of less than 4,000 and a sketchy mobile signal.

The reasons for the downturn in his fortunes was the time Fulton took off to enter treatment for his alcohol and drug addiction. After seeking treatment, the Boston job was not there anymore.

New Hampshire is in the midst of an addiction crisis that is now a front-and-center issue in the Democratic primary here. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the rate of overdose deaths in New Hampshire has climbed steadily since 1999 and peaked in 2017 with 490 deaths, which ranked the third in the country.

Even though the number is expected to drop to 364 in 2019, when the final tally is made, the drug crisis remains to be the Granite staters’ biggest concern, according to a 2019 poll conducted by the University of New Hampshire.

“Everyone living in New Hampshire knows someone who has been struggling with opioid overdose,” said Theo Groh, 29, a resident of Manchester.

Many Democratic candidates treated the opioid epidemic a healthcare problem, but for former addicts like Fulton, it was an economic problem. Fulton said it was “fateful” to run into Holly Cekala, the owner of The Country House, who opened the restaurant in December 2019 with a mission to hire former drug addicts and provide them with a normal working environment.

Fulton had a wonderful resume in the hospitality industry and had run five restaurants and bars. Before the Pour House, he owned Cowboys Bar and Grill, a $3-a-drink bar in Woonsocket, Rhode Island until July 2019. But his successful career in the food business paused after booze and cocaine became a serious issue for him.

“You work weekends and nights, often time because of the hours, people are using drugs as crutches to get through the shift or up for a shift,” said Fulton.

Cekala herself suffered from the alcohol and drug culture of the hospitality industry. As a teenager, she rewarded herself with a drink at the end of a shift, which is common in a lot of places. “Then you started to look forward to these drinks,” she said.

People who work in this industry “are susceptible to addiction,” Cekala said. Her alcoholic issue then caused a car accident in which she was injured, and which put her on morphine to relieve the pain. “It’s just a spiral of events once you are addicted,” she said.

The workers in the accommodation and food service industry have the highest rates of illicit drug use ­—19.1% of all workers— of any profession in the U.S., according to a report by Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, a branch of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

There are 15.3 million Americans employed in the restaurant industry in 2019 and nearly 6 in 10 adults have worked in the restaurant industry at some point during their lives. “There are millions of us working at the bars and restaurants, we are the ones working the weekends, we are the ones working holidays for you,” Fulton said. “We should not be forgotten.”

When seven Democratic candidates took the debate stage in Manchester on February 7, many talked about their plans to tackle the substance abuse crisis. Each had a different proposal.

As she has before, Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar mentioned her dad’s alcoholic history and said “this is personal to me.” She proposed a $100 billion policy to tax opioid manufacturers and use the money to expand treatment. Vice President Joe Biden stressed his early work on curbing drug overdose. Entrepreneur Andrew Yang supported supervised withdrawal sites and mandatory three-day treatment. Mayor Pete Buttigieg called for “decriminalizing all drugs and treating it as a medical issue but not a moral failure.”

Cekala watched the debate from her restaurant on Friday night but none of the candidates’ words appealed to her. “It’s not a healthcare problem, it’s an economic problem. People can’t find a decent job, they can’t support their families and pay for their rents, that’s depressing,” Cekala said.

For Fulton and Cekala, the question is “what is next after treatment?” In rehab, “you disappear from the normal world for 3 months, you get healthy and clean, and you get out of there. But you don’t have a job,” said Fulton.

After leaving the hospitality industry, Cekala studied psychology at Rhode Island College and since then managed several recovery community centers, including one at the Rhode Island Women’s Prison. In Fulton’s words, “Holly was a recovery celebrity in Rhode Island.”

After 20 years of working in charity organizations and as a certified recovery counselor, she made the move to open a restaurant in December 2019. “There are too many restrictions. Don’t share the numbers, don’t become a friend,” Cekala said, referring to the restrictions placed on counselors. “Why would I charge someone to be his friend? But that’s essentially what he needs. A friend.”

Instead, she decided to reenter the industry that once failed her. She opened The Country Chef and hired ten employees, with eight of them were former addicts.

Cekala was not the first employer hiring former addicts. Republican Governor Chris Sununu launched The Recovery Friendly Workplaces in New Hampshire in 2018, to push employers to hire people who are in recovery and provide their employees with education and training related to substance misuse and behavioral health. Cekala applauded the effort, but she thought it was “a little bit behavioral health heavy.”

“I am not a behavioral health provider, just a small business owner to create a normal work environment,” said Cekala.

At 3pm on Saturday, the last group of late brunch eaters left. Fulton started to wipe the table and brought dirty dishes back to the kitchen while making small jokes with Cekala, who worked at the cashier. “They are all kids to me, I just want to cuddle them,” Cekala said.

“When we put the restaurant back together, Holly and I often went on and on, it almost felt like a counseling session, which is really helpful,” said Fulton.

Fulton has been sober for 80 days now. He now works 50 hours a week. Although the hours are still long, but “coffee is free” and he has “people, who have also gone through this to talk to all the time.”

Behind the cashier, there stands a wall of liquor bottles. Cekala has two designated people to make drinks and Fulton is one of them. The 33-year-old restaurant manager has been in this industry “since he could remember” and pouring drinks is a day-to-day job. “I was just made for this, what was I supposed to do?” said Fulton.

But the motivation is different for Fulton now. Besides being a successful manager, he wants to “fill this place with once lost adults and kids” and build a stepping stone for them to get their lives back. People with drug records are often seen as troublesome and incapable of holding on jobs. “But one good reference can fix that resume forever,” said Fulton. “If we can give them experience and solid training here, they at least have us to call.”

Although Fulton has never foreseen his future in a family-style restaurant in New Hampshire, he called it “an interesting twist in his life.” And if the model of Cekala’s recovery-friendly workplace works, it would be a new start of Fulton’s career.

“If I can blend my talent with my recovery, God bless it,” Fulton said.

 Zishu Sherry Qin is a graduate student in the Business and Economic Reporting Program

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