Translator: Madison Shirley Reviewer: Peter van de Ven
The Jane Aubrey House
is a home for women who struggle with opiate addiction.
I believe
the way our country has approached opiate addiction and recovery
has been a complete disaster.
I know that individuals who struggle with this illness
both deserve and need affordable, effective long-term treatment.
Jane Aubrey, she was my first child.
I loved her before I even held her in my arms.
I knew I was supposed to be her mom.
We did everything together.
In fact, in a lot of ways, we grew up together.
She has the biggest blue eyes,
the blondest hair, and the best smile,
and she was always the life of the party.
In fact, when she was young,
I used to have to say, quite often, "Inside voice, Janie,"
because she was loudly leading the room.
However, when Janie hit middle school, she started to change.
And what I thought was normal teenage angst
was actually the onset of mental illness,
and I had no idea.
She and I did go through therapy through her adolescence,
and it was a struggle.
But, Janie got better.
When Jane was 18,
she made a bold move to Los Angeles to pursue a career in acting and dance,
which made sense because she was very talented,
super theatrical, and she had danced for the Nevada Dance Academy
for many years.
And when Jane was in Los Angeles, she and I spoke on the phone all the time,
sometimes several times a day.
And after a few months, Janie wasn't sounding like Jane.
And I wasn't sure what was going on, but my gut was telling me
that she needed to come home to see a doctor.
At eighteen and a half, Jane was, in fact, diagnosed with a mental illness
called borderline personality disorder.
People who suffer from this mental illness also suffer from other mental disorders
such as anxiety disorders, eating disorders, and mental disorders.
They also sometimes tend to self harm,
they have substance abuse issues, and suicidal thinking.
Janie had them all.
This was a tragic diagnoses for our entire family,
and her dad and I took several mental health classes,
just to ensure that we could have
an as manageable, normal, loving relationship with her,
ongoing with this illness.
I don't know when Janie started self medicating, but she did.
And I don't know when she started taking prescription pain pills,
but she did, which led her down the really scary path of addiction,
to heroin.
Her dad and I had her in several treatment/recovery programs,
none of which worked.
She would go in for the typical 28-30 day program,
and this not only didn't work for her, but it set her up for failure.
28-30 days is the normal amount of time for someone who suffers from an addiction
to get treatment.
And it also sets them up for failure.
By the time Janie was 21 years old, she was out of control.
I can not tell you how many times her dad and I were on the streets,
searching for her,
getting her out from under dirty bathroom stall doors,
or me going into a drug house, pulling her out, putting her in our car,
and taking her back to the very places
that promote substance abuse programs and mental health services,
with them only turning her back out onto the streets within 72 hours.
I was always there and I would plead to these professionals,
"What are you doing? My baby is sick, she needs long-term help.
You need to help her."
And they would look at me as if their own hands were tied,
with a super sad look in their eyes, knowing that we were losing the battle.
On March 10th, 2015, at 3:40 in the afternoon,
I got a phone call.
And it was that phone call that no parent should get.
Janie had overdosed on heroin, and I had lost my baby girl.
And here I stand, a short 22 months later,
and my heart is broken,
and I'm pissed off.
I'm angry that I had to lose my daughter.
I'm angry that no one could help her.
And I'm angry that our substance abuse treatment programs
and mental health services across this country are so broken.
Which tells me that if we treated substance abuse
as the chronic illness that it is,
then we as a country would be approaching it in a much different way.
The United States spends over 400 billion dollars annually
in the name of addiction, on programs and resources that don't work.
And this is exactly what happened to me and my family,
and that has happened to many others across the United States.
And its unacceptable.
And this is why we need to be having this conversation.
Did you know
opioid addiction is one and one half times more prevalent than cancer,
with only ten percent getting treatment?
Only ten percent.
And this is both from prescription pain pills,
such as Hydrocodone, Oxycontin, Percocet, Vicodin, Morphine,
and then your street drug heroin.
And what's interesting is that all these drugs,
they produce the same effect and high.
It's the same thing.
Which is why four out of five people who are addicted to heroin
started out with prescription pain pills,
moving onto the cheaper, more readily available street drug heroin.
In November of 2016, the U.S. Surgeon General
came out with extensive scientific evidence
proving that opioid addiction is, in fact, a chronic illness.
And this is because it changes the structure of your brain;
it actually alters your brain.
And in turn, this is why people who are addicted to opioids
have a higher risk of chronic relapse,
which is what happened to Jane.
Since being involved in the recovery aspect -
It's why I know that we need to have substance abuse programs
widely available across the United States, because currently, we don't.
There is a huge shortage.
And a lot of times it takes weeks and sometimes it takes months
to get into treatment.
These are the things that I think we need:
I think that we need to have prevention.
Early on, we need to have it in our schools, our educators.
We need to have it in our local, state, and national legislative system,
to be committed to changing how we're approaching opioid addiction.
We need to stop punishing people who have this addiction
and start really helping them.
And all doctors, every single physician, needs to be really educated
on the dangers of the addiction of prescription pain pills and opiates.
And I also think it would be really cool if we could create a monitoring system
that the medical community could tap into
and collectively track when and if prescription pain pills are prescribed.
After Janie died,
I led the charge of a volunteer program addressing addiction,
with an emphasis on opioid addiction.
And this brought awareness to my hometown,
and in turn, it spurred a year of initiative at my church
to raise money to purchase a recovery home.
And with the help of many volunteers and leaders in my community,
I am really proud to say that in July of 2016,
we opened up the Jane Aubrey House.
This is a home to help young women between the ages of 18 and 25
who suffer from opiate addiction.
And this is not your typical 28-30 day program,
this is an "as long as it takes" program,
to ensure that these women can really begin to heal.
And they have intense access to therapy,
they also have personal development,
financial training, and job placement.
It's an incredible program.
(Applause)
Thank you.
(Applause)
And you can do this in your community too.
Reach out to your local leaders, reach out to your law enforcement
or your church,
and collect and get together, get your resources and ideas together
so you can make a difference in your community too.
Because chances are
the person you're sitting next to is struggling with an addiction,
and if it's not them,
then they know someone close to them, that is.
And addiction has no bias.
It doesn't matter what your socioeconomic status is, or your race,
or how well you've raised your children.
And when we realize
that we need to love those who struggle with this chronic illness
until they can love themselves,
that is when we will see a real change for us all.
Thank you.
(Applause)