PHOENIX

Arizona man lived to tell the surgeon general his success story fighting opioid addiction

Former opioid addict Jeremy Reed lived to tell his story about addiction thanks to help he received at Arizona organization

Elizabeth S Eaton
The Republic | azcentral.com
  • Addict lived under a bridge in Phoenix before getting help from Community Bridges
  • Several former addicts tell their story to Surgeon General Vivek Murthy
  • Jeremy Reed now works for the organization that helped save him
Jeremy Reed from Mesa sits under a tree and watches the Interstate 10 traffic near the pedestrian bridge at McDowell Road and 18th Street on June 15, 2016. While he was homeless and under the grip of his opioid addiction between 2006 and May 9, 2011, he would return to that spot to rest.

When Jeremy Reed found out his cancer had spread to his abdomen and lymph nodes, all he could think was, “Jackpot.”

"I was never thinking, 'Oh, man, I have cancer again,' " Reed said. “I knew I was going to get prescribed all these pain medications.”

After years of using alcohol and marijuana in high school, Reed began taking prescription opioids in college to fit in. He had always felt uncomfortable with himself while growing up in New Jersey. Drugs were his way of finding belonging as "the party guy."

Reed, now 35, was admitted to the hospital for his cancer recurrence in 2004. There, controlled by his addiction and unconcerned about his cancer, he saw an opportunity to manipulate those around him to get his hands on opioids.

Once released, Reed made what he called a "sound financial decision" by switching to heroin. It  was much cheaper than buying prescription opioids on the street, he said.

By 2006, his parents had had enough. "They kicked me out of New Jersey," Reed said.

They sent him to get help at Community Bridges, which has numerous treatment facilities in Arizona. 

Reed could have been one of the thousands who die of opioid overdoses — more than 28,000 in 2014, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Instead, with the help of Community Bridges, he overcame his addiction, and now works for the organization.

Monday, along with four other opioid addicts-turned-employees, Reed told his story to U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, during his tour of the organization's Central City Addiction Recovery Center (CCARC) in Phoenix.

Murthy was here to address the prescription-opioid abuse crisis as part of his Turn the Tide Rx Tour.

"I was blown away by the folks I met here at Community Bridges," Murthy said. "These stories, they help us all understand that recovery is possible"

Access to treatment is essential

Murthy said the first step in the fight against opioid abuse is to ensure that people have access to treatment, like the kind Community Bridges provides.

Jamie Pothast, director of Crisis Services at Community Bridges, described the location Murthy visited as a "one-stop shop for all of your behavioral-health and physical-health needs."

The CCARC has facilities for crisis observation and in-patient medical detox. The center also has a patient-centered health home. CCARC provides substance-abuse, mental-health and physical-health services. If a patient arrives seeking help for an addiction and also has a general medical condition such as an ear infection, the patient is able to get that treated as well.

"We need this kind of treatment and support all across the country," Murthy said. "Over 2 million people in America right now need treatment for opioid addiction, but only about a million of them have treatment. We have to close that gap."

The federal Health Resources and Services Administration recently allocated $94 million to expand access to medication-assisted treatment. President Barack Obama has proposed more than $1 billion to combat the opioid epidemic.

The cost of inaction, Murthy said, is much higher than the funds needed to take action.

"It’s not just a cost in health-care dollars spent," he said. "It’s most importantly the humanitarian cost of lives lost, families destroyed, and communities torn apart. And that’s a cost that we’ve endured for far too many years."

To prevent abuse of prescription opioids, Murthy said that he plans on working with doctors and nurse practitioners "to sharpen their prescribing tactics" and increasing education so people are aware of just how addictive opioids are — something Reed sees as a necessary step forward.

"It has to be more than just, ‘Here, take these, you’ll feel better. Call me in the morning.’ There has to be more than that," Reed emphasized.

The Bridges to recovery

Jamie Pothast, director of crisis services (left), and Julie Wonsowicz, senior director of clinical services, talk with U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy as he tours the Community Bridges Central City Addiction Recovery Center on Monday, June 13, 2016, in Phoenix.

Reed's first stay at Community Bridges wasn't long. Soon after arriving in Arizona, he returned to opioid abuse and began living underneath a bridge.

He got stuck in a daily ritual.

"Every morning, I would wake up and say, 'I’m not going to do drugs today,' " Reed said. "Twenty minutes later, I would be on the hunt again.

"That would go on from the time I woke up to the time I went to sleep, constantly just being homeless and walking everywhere, just doing whatever it took to get my next fix."

During the five years that he called that bridge home, Reed was in and out of jail and Community Bridges. It wasn't until someone questioned his way of life that Reed was able to admit that he needed help.

Under that bridge on May 9, 2011, he said, another homeless man and Reed contemplated the craziness of their lives. Then Reed's companion asked him, "Why don’t you do something about it then?"

"And I walked out from underneath that bridge and I said, ‘You know what, I’m going to,' " Reed stated as if it was the simplest thing he had ever done.

Eight hours later, he arrived at the doors of Community Bridges, doors he was so thankful hadn't shut on him during his years of homelessness and opioid abuse.

His friend, however, did not heed his own advice. Reed said he learned three years ago that the man died.

After receiving treatment, Reed began working for $8 an hour "putting pickles on plates" at a restaurant. Then he found out his girlfriend was pregnant.

"I’m thinking, 'How am I going to support my child and my girlfriend?' " Reed remembered.

His original motive for returning to Community Bridges was purely financial. He knew they would pay him more than his current job.

It wasn't until he was hired on and began his training that the full impact of the program hit him.

The CEO of Community Bridges, Frank Scarpati, met with the trainees on their third day to discuss the importance of "hiring the product."

"I didn’t think of myself as a product of Community Bridges at the time," Reed said. "I do now. And that’s when I knew, jeez, this organization believes in me as an employee, why would I want to leave?"

He's now a clinical coordinator for an assertive community treatment team, helping seriously mentally ill patients who live on the streets.

He is married and has two kids. Life is beautiful, he said.

"(Community Bridges) waited for the willingness in me, each time planting a seed for me to make a change," Reed said. "And when I was ready, I did."