Pathways Drug Rehabilitation Luxury Addiction Treatment & Detox Center
Beating the odds: One family’s fight against addiction
SOUTH BEND — When Allison Connor graduated from the Pacific County Drug Court, she didn’t have a single relapse on her record.
Pacific County Superior Court Judge Donald Richter said it was a remarkable feat.
“You are living proof that it can be done,” Richter said. “And also a great testament that it should be done.”
In 16 months, Connor was not sanctioned a single time by the court. Her graduation from drug court was on Thursday, Oct. 24 at the Pacific County Courthouse in South Bend. While Connor sat before Richter, her husband, Dustin Erwin, cheered his wife’s success and watched over their 5-month-old daughter, Serenity Erwin. Erwin, 27, graduated from drug court in July.
“It humbles me to see how far we’ve come,” Erwin said.
Almost rejected
Accepting Connor into the drug court was a difficult choice for the program’s organizers, said Tessa Clements, drug court coordinator. Erwin was accepted into the program first in March 2018. Erwin struggled to separate himself from Connor. The two had been together for more than a decade.
“I couldn’t keep myself away from her and every time I would go back to her I would end up relapsing and throwing away all my clean time because I’d rather be high and with her than sober and alone,” Erwin said.
When Connor also got arrested, her joining the program became an option. Erwin was as nervous about Connor joining as Clements.
The court was protective of Erwin, Clements said. Letting Connor in would risk losing both him and her.
But the court was wrong, Clements said.
Connor jumped through every hoop to get into the program. And when she got back from inpatient treatment, she and Erwin became each other’s rock.
In treatment, Connor went from wanting to be in drug court for Erwin to wanting to be there for herself, she said. Both Richter and Clements called her a leader in the program and in the recovery community as a whole.
“It’s crazy just because I’ve never looked at myself as a leader, ever. And I still have a hard time doing so,” Connor said.
Connor isn’t loud, Clements said. She isn’t a vocal leader. But Connor doesn’t back down. She is firm and she knows what needs to be done and dedicates herself to doing it.
“She is just this tiny little mountain in the middle of all this chaos,” Clements said.
Drug Court
Ahead of Connor’s graduation, Richter attended to the usual business of the court. A couple members had to face Richter’s displeasure for missing meetings or having a bad attitude. But two got chips for 14 months of sobriety. Another person got an 11-month chip, another was cheered for nine months and another for eight.
And one received her one-month chip. That chip can be the hardest to get, Richter said. And the most meaningful. A chorus of “yups” went through the crowd at Richter’s words.
The participants passed around the chips after their peers came back from the seat in front of Richter.
Three years ago when Clements became the drug court coordinator, the program had just two participants. Up to 20 now, Clements has sat through six graduations. Clements hasn’t had a single participant die, though she has lost people due to relapse or running from the program. And while the job is tough, it is people like Erwin and Connor who remind her why she loves the work.
“It’s pretty remarkable to see people build their lives from the ground up,” Clements said. “Which is really where Allie and Dustin started.”
Effectiveness
In 2016, the National Drug Court Institute looked at nine studies conducted by leading scientific organizations that concluded adult drug courts reduced criminal recidivism by between 14 to 8 percent. This was typically measured by rearrest rates in the two years after graduation. The studies also showed $2 to $4 in savings for every dollar spent on drug court programs.
But the report noted this is an average, and drug court success was often dependent on whether a court followed best practices.
In a December 2018 article for the Federal Probation Journal, U.S. District Court Judge for the Western District of Oklahoma Timothy D. DeGiusti looked at various different studies of drug court models on the federal level. The studies often focused on numbers and not what people in the programs and running the programs saw, he said.
“These programs are typically staffed by experienced criminal justice practitioners who have seen many rehabilitative initiatives come and go over the years, and who are uniquely qualified to judge the impact of reentry programs from a frontlines vantage point,” DeGuisti wrote.
DeGuisti reached out to former federal drug reentry court participants as well as staff members and asked them to reflect on the drug court.
Many former participants wrote that the program saved their life.
And while staff members offered some criticisms, including complaints about over supervision of participants and the need for better training, a large portion of the comments praised the courts.
“I also note that the drug court experience has a positive effect on the people who work there, they like seeing sick people get well, they are so used to seeing bad news, we love what we are doing,” one staff member wrote.
Seeing is believing
There is a moment that gets to Clements every graduation. The moment when the prosecutor dismisses the charges.
“The stupid legal lingo,” she said.
The words are so convoluted most people don’t even understand all of it, Clements said. But the language declares the person rehabilitated and their charges dismissed with prejudice, meaning the person can’t be recharged with the crime.
For Connor, that moment came when the prosecutor dismissed charges of stealing eight oxycodone pills from a man whose house she was cleaning. After she was arrested and after she went to treatment, Connor said she worked her hardest not to relapse. She knows there are people who are critical of the court, who don’t believe in it. And she encouraged those people to come and watch.
“Every court date is open to the public and if people actually came in and saw how hard all the participants work they might have a different perspective on it,” Connor said. “It shows that what drug court is doing for people is actually working.”
Now, Connor wants to finish her diploma. She is thinking about becoming a certified nursing assistant. And she is working as a caregiver at KWA home healthcare service.
Her graduation cake was decorated with a picture of her and Serenity in the hospital after Connor gave birth.
All women look fierce after labor, Clements said. But it was the first time Clements saw Connor look so empowered.
“She looked like she was getting ready to take on the world,” Clements said.
