A path forward from drug-fueled criminality – if anyone cares to listen

After about a half hour of mingling and wonderful snacks provided by the Mountain Home Bed & Breakfast, McShin Foundation co-founder John Shinholser launches formal portion of the VRR Summit in the Mountain Home courtyard shortly after 1 p.m. Royal Examiner Photos/Roger Bianchini

A proactive and proven path forward and away from the arrest, incarceration, release, re-arrest, further incarceration cycle of substance abuse at the root of so much criminal behavior that lands people in local, regional and state incarceration, not only on drug related offenses, but also the petty criminal behavior that feeds or is a consequence of substance abuse, was celebrated in Warren County on Thursday, August 29.

The question is, is anybody listening, or perhaps more pointedly, does anyone care?

The “VRR Organizational Summit” was held against an idyllic rural American backdrop at Mountain Home Bed & Breakfast on Route 522 South near the entrance to the Lake Front Royal subdivision. The summit was a celebration and report on progress of the Virginia Recovery-Rehabilitation Program implemented at the Rappahannock-Shenandoah-Warren County (RSW) Regional Jail and Prince George County’s Riverside Regional Jail this past December.

At the point of the summit were 23 “scholarship” recipient inmates, 22 from RSW, who are successfully graduating into the world clean and sober with a mission. That mission is to break the pattern of addiction that had dominated their lives, often to the point of abject dejection that there was any way out for them.

RSW VRR Program graduates present offered highly personal accounts of ‘breaking the chains’ of addiction with the help of the McShin Foundation and RSW Jail’s embracement of the recovery and rehab program.

Graduate after graduate recounted the life-altering, perhaps life-saving moment that McShin Foundation counselors, all recovering and rehabilitating substance abusers in their own lives, made them understand there was hope for them – hope to move past the downward spiral of drug and/or alcohol addiction and its ultimate destination of hopelessness, despair, incarceration and all too often, death.

That hope is for regaining control of one’s life in order to break destructive patterns of behavior and personal associations. The result is movement toward life; even toward a productive life well lived and capable of repairing, not only themselves, but also broken interpersonal and family relationships; and as one 51-year-old woman described it, even her relationship with God.

“I had been in and out of rehab many times in my life; I’d been in hospitals – overdoses and no clue. I would pray to God, ‘God, please if you just help me I won’t do it again – just save me, I won’t do it again.’ And each time I would break that promise to God. And that even made me feel worse. I couldn’t figure out what was wrong with me.

”Well through RSW, McShin was put into my life and to me the education, the teaching of things they told me about why I was a drug addict and why I had an addiction, I was just amazed by it. Like everybody says, when Cricket (Assistant Director of Operations Chris Ronquest) came in, Hannah, Diana – some of the most important people in my life, John, they showed me there was hope. That to me was the most important thing about this program, what is most important for everyone to know who can know, that there is hope – we don’t have to die,” Leslie told the crowd of her peers, McShin, RSW and County officials.

Her report of being clean and sober for nine months, the longest period in her life in over 30 years brought cheers of approval from the summit participants.

In opening the summit under beautiful blue skies shortly after 1 p.m. on the Mountain Home B&B grounds, McShin Recovery Resource Foundation President and co-founder John Shinholser told the assembled, “We don’t mind our own business – recovery is our business, recovery is everywhere. We are hope dealers, that’s what we do.”

McShin Foundation co-founder John Shinholser pointedly stated that some pharmaceutical opioid judgment funds should help expand a proven recovery-rehab system that can reduce inmate recidivism and long-term expenses related to substance abuse incarceration.

And putting a nice wording spin on an old description of the drug addict, VRR Program worker Huey added, “We are dope-less hope fiends, that’s what we are.”

Sadly, only one political candidate was present for three elected Warren County Board seats (Shenandoah, South River, North River – none present, though retiring North River Supervisor, County Board Chair and RSW Authority Board member Dan Murray was there to offer support along with County Administrator and fellow Jail Authority Board member Doug Stanley); Constitutional Officers (sheriff, commonwealth attorney, treasurer, commissioner of the revenue – the one present was Democratic Sheriff’s candidate Jorge Amselle); or Town Special Election (mayor – none); was present to hear the stories of success in the first year of implementation of the McShin Foundation-led Virginia Recovery and Rehab (VRR) Program at RSW Regional Jail.

Warren County Democratic Sheriff’s candidate Jorge Amselle, left, chats with McShin Foundation CEO John Shinholser during the informal meet and greet to start Thursday’s summit of hope.

And if you factor in the absence of any candidate for any office in either Rappahannock or Shenandoah County, which have their own forthcoming elections on the November horizon, the lack of political candidate interest is even more distressing.

But then why would any candidate for municipal, law enforcement, judicial, or financial office want to hear about a system that could reduce taxpayer costs budgeted annually to support the local and state bureaucracy necessary to repeatedly arrest, prosecute and house the large number of criminals whose criminality is steeped heavily in substance abuse?

McShin Foundation president Shinholser made a profound point near the conclusion of the two-hour celebration of life being given a second chance at RSW and other jails across the commonwealth. That point regarded recent court rulings and settlement offers in the nationwide pattern of lawsuits against pharmaceutical companies accused of pushing what they knew were highly-addictive opioids into the mainstream prescription market for profit.

As state court rulings of hundreds of millions of dollars of liability mount and offers to settle out of court in the billions of dollars by at least one major drug company are heard across the country, Shinholser told those present that if some of that state-recovered money was not channeled into the type of peer-based substance-abuse Recovery and Rehabilitation programs the McShin Foundation model is based on, then the American public from state to state where the opioid crisis has deepened under the legalized corporate distribution of heavily addictive narcotics, “was being ripped off again”.

As RSW Jail Authority Board members Doug Stanley, Dan Murray and RSW Captain Josh Jacobson listen, RSW Deputy Superintendent Steve Weaver addresses the positives jail staff have witnessed from implementation of the inmate recovery-rehab program last December.

RSW Jail was represented by Deputy Superintendent Steve Weaver and Captain Josh Jacobson. RSW, its staff and Superintendent Russ Gilkison were repeatedly lauded for the facility’s highly proactive adoption of the McShin-led VRR Program.

McShin Assistant Director of Operations Chris Ronquest, a key player in the RSW implementation from his home base at the McShin Foundation in Richmond, and Shinholser pointed out that RSW has created segregated male and female inmate pods for implementation and ongoing support for the recovery and rehab effort.

In contrast it was noted some jails implementing the program only separate VRR inmates during the visit of McShin counselors. After the counselor’s departure those inmates are returned to the general population where the level of a crucial initial support base of like-minded participants evaporates into normal jailhouse life.

McShin Assistant Director of Operations Chris Ronquest, aka ‘Cricket’, introduces key program personnel Diana Lieber, left, and Hannah Newsome.

Perhaps such a basic difference helps explain the overwhelming number of program scholarship recipients being recognized – 22 of 23 as noted above – graduating out of RSW.

But implementation, like recovery is an ongoing process that all involved can continue to learn from. However it is a lesson that, as the day’s scholarship graduates repeatedly stressed, has to want to be learned.

And it may be at the grassroots level that such a lesson must be pushed into the consciousness of local and state municipal, correctional, judicial and administrative officials. Because as noted above, thus far that interest at the local and state political and administrative levels seems to be lagging behind the awareness on the ground in facilities such as RSW Jail.

Maybe in the wake of its first months of success in implementation of the VRR substance abuse recovery-rehab program RSW, above, should consider a name change – how about ‘Hotel Hope’? Below center, Virginia AG Mark Herring, being greeted by Shinholser and RSW Superintendent Russ Gilkison, was present for the December launch of the McShin-led VRR Program. It may be up to constituents to remind public officials at all levels not to forget the program’s successes and future potential.

But it is a message with implications for all of us as taxpayers, as potential victims of addict-based crime, and even as people in a position to lose a loved one to addiction.

So it is a message ignored at our own risk and expense, not to mention at the peril of our society as a socially-cohesive and efficiently-managed whole.

The McShin Recovery Resource Foundation was established in 2004 and is Virginia’s leading non-profit, full-service Recovery Community Organization (RCO), committed to serving individuals and families in their fight against Substance Use Disorders. The VRR Program at RSW and Riverside Jail was enabled by a matching grant from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA)’s Building Communities of Recovery initiative.

More information on the McShin Foundation may be found at its website: <www.mcshin.org> – And don’t forget to alert your elected officials at all levels if you like what you find.

In an idyllic setting Ronquest reads letters written collectively by inmates in RSW’s male and female VRR pods describing their experience and newfound hope for real change in their lives.

Above, County Board Chair Dan Murray praises the VRR program and RSW’s commitment to it. Below, County Administrator Doug Stanley joined in the praise, urging program participants to stay on track – ‘We don’t want you back,’ he told them speaking with his RSW Authority Board hat on.

Above, County Board Chair Dan Murray praises the VRR program and RSW’s commitment to it. Below, County Administrator Doug Stanley joined in the praise, urging program participants to stay on track – ‘We don’t want you back,’ he told them speaking with his RSW Authority Board hat on.