That Podcast in Hutch - Jacci Espinosa
A conversation about addiction, recovery, and the importance of harm reduction policies
This episode means a lot to me. And it hope it will to you, too, once you’ve listened to it.
Today I’m visiting with Jacci Espinosa. She works at New Beginnings, and is a dynamic and engaged member of our community. She’s also an addict in active recovery. In this episode, she shares her journey with me - from her early substance use, growing addiction, relapse, and recovery.
Throughout the conversation, I kept thinking about how human her story was. And how inhuman our typical conversations are about addiction and substance misuse. The truth is - and we’ve been learning this more in recent years with the explosion of opiate-based prescription addiction - that an addict is a person. But our conversations about addiction tend towards callousness, judgement, and sometimes flippant remarks about choices. Yet the issue of addiction predates any of us alive today - and it is a human condition that begs for attention, and compassion.
In 2015, I decided to write a story about Oxford House coming to Hutchinson. And I decided to spend the weekend at one of the houses. Every person in the Oxford House was a recovering addict. And every person in the Oxford House treated me kindly and warmly. Like I was family. It has always stuck with me.
During that weekend I learned a great deal about addiction - how and why it begins, why it persists, and how those who are misusing substances feel about themselves, and how the world perceives them. What I experienced was a group of big-hearted people who had endured some very traumatic experiences in life. And I experienced a group of people who wanted to recover more than anything in the world.
This is an important topic in our community, state, and country. We need to revisit old policies and see where we can do better. And we need to revisit our humanity and compassion, and see where we can do better there, too.
In Jacci’s story, you’ll hear from someone who has moved from active addiction to active recovery - who is now doing good work in our community, helping others, contributing to our economy and our wellbeing. That doesn’t happen if we write people off as lost causes.
If you’d like to do some additional reading, I’ve included links at the bottom of this post.
To listen to my visit with Jacci, subscribe to That Podcast in Hutch at Salt City Sound or on your favorite podcast streaming service.
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Here are some related links:
Kansas Recovery Network Facebook page - https://www.facebook.com/KansasRecoveryNetwork/
Reno County Substance Misuse Dashboard - https://www.renogov.org/761/Substance-Misuse
Oxford House -
https://www.oxfordhouse.org/
An editorial I wrote in 2015 about addiction and Oxford House - http://jasonprobst.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Lessonsfromoxford.pdf
A story from 2015 about Oxford Houses in Hutchinson - https://www.hutchnews.com/article/20150809/news/308099895
If you’re interested in deeper reading on addiction, I suggest reading Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs.