Recovery Innovations

Recovery Services Administrator
Recovery Innovations of North Carolina

There are certain things in life that you can’t predict but make sense when you look back.  It might not appear logical but then the events of one’s past point in a particular direction.  That’s how I explain what brought me to this wonderful organization of Recovery Innovations.  I would never have predicted working in behavioral health when I dropped out of college at 19 and joined the Army.  Five and half years working in counterintelligence supporting Special Operations Forces at Fort Bragg in the 1980s is hardly the starting point of a resume in behavioral health.  Nor would parachuting, instinctive shooting and evasive driving be the sort of skills used in traditional behavioral health settings.

All of that was really about the road less traveled and the desire to have a meaningful life.  I was trying to find out who I was and what life was all about.  That’s what led to the 180 degree turn after leaving the military.  I spent a year or two working with the poor and homeless in downtown Raleigh, NC.  Then my seeking led in a more interior direction.  I visited various monasteries, lived in a co-ed religious community in Canada for a while, and then went off to the seminary in Buffalo, NY for four years. 

While in the seminary I decided to focus on ministry to Latinos and work within the prisons.  I spent a summer in Puerto Rico and two summers in Mexico studying Latino culture and Spanish.  I also spent two years as a chaplain in the Attica Correctional Facility where I had the privilege of meeting many folks who worked in family businesses from New York City.  In both settings I developed educational programs and conducted counseling.

After ordination I was assigned to Chapel Hill, NC and was in charge of Latino ministry.  Two years later I was sent to work in the Mexican town of San Juan de Teotihuacan.  I lived almost in the shade of the two great pyramids and while organizing social support programs I took up an interest in archeology and history.  I continued to be fascinated by human and cultural development.  I began formulating the principles that would underlie the cultural competence training I would conduct for public and behavioral health organizations and this served as the backdrop for articles as a columnist for the Durham Herald Sun. When I returned to the United States, I was put in charge of area wide Hispanic ministry covering the region of Burlington and Wilson, NC.  I became involved in community organizing and founded “El Centro Comunitario.”  El Centro Comunitario was a nondenominational community organization that promoted health and wellness programs as well as sponsored important Latino festivals and cultural activities. 

Taking stock of where I was and in which direction my life was heading, I began to see myself more in the role of a social worker than a liturgical minister.  I decided to leave active ministry and went to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to study social work.  While in the university I worked on a behavioral health team serving Latinos in Wake County Human Services and then I spent a year in the outpatient substance abuse clinic of the Durham Veterans Administration. 

My work in these settings introduced me to the difficulties persons face with co-occurring substance use and mental health challenges.  I was urged by faculty to not “waste my time” serving persons with co-occurring challenges as these were near hopeless causes.  Far from abandoning my desire to support persons with co-occurring challenges, I was inspired all the more to try and make a difference.  My stubbornness was rewarded when I was asked to start the first Integrated Dual Disorder Treatment (IDDT) Team in the State of North Carolina.  I had a rough blue print of the evidenced-based practice sketched out in the federal guidelines but had to literally invent many of the aspects of the program because we were in a fee for service system without any start up funds.

The resiliency of persons with co-occurring challenges exceeded my expectations and the team proved to be very successful.  We were nominated and won the Durham Local Management Entity’s Provider of Excellence Award for 2007 as well as the 2007 Council of Community Program’s state level award for Excellence in Best Practice Services.  We were nominated for SAMHSA’s 2007 national Science to Service Award where the team was presented as a model for financial sustainability.

Looking back on my life it isn’t such a great surprise that I find myself in Recovery Innovations and starting the Recovery Response Center here in Henderson, NC.  A search to make a meaningful difference, a belief in the capacities of the human person to recover, and the road less traveled are what Recovery Innovations is about.  I feel at home here.  Recovery Innovations wants to do much more than just support someone with symptoms.  We expect, believe, and facilitate recovery.  Recovery for us is “remembering who you are and using your strengths to become all that you were meant to be.”  That sounds almost like a commercial for the Army but most certainly reflects the goal of anyone who goes to the monastery and passionately believes in the inherent good of each person.