Though much of the infrastructure is there, Ann Arbor is far from being the perfect Healing Forest. “Ann Arbor is a very judgmental place,” Engelbert said.

She added, “Even if I’m gonna say the word ‘heroin use,’ I’m gonna lower my voice right? Because you can’t just say that. Somebody can’t just walk down the street and tell anybody they want, ‘Hey I haven’t used heroin in 6 months.’ People would be like, ‘Woah, you’re a freak.’ ”

That may be true anywhere else too. For that reason, how Ann Arbor’s Healing Forest has grown has to be analyzed.

“Maybe it’s more happenstance than deliberate,” Engelbert said.

Making sense of Engelbert’s comment is complicated. Even as recently as four years ago, the answer would likely lean toward happenstance. But as the opioid crisis gained more attention, the answer has slowly shifted in the opposite direction. Efforts to bring the community together and address addiction in Washtenaw County have been gaining steam. In 2013, the Washtenaw Health Initiative Opioid Project was organized to reduce opioid overdoses and deaths.

“What we do is pull together all of the relevant stakeholders in the community, whether that’s emergency department physicians, treatment providers, law enforcement agencies, county government, people in recovery, and other organizations that work on this issue,” said Theresa Dreyer, who facilitated the project until this June.

“Our goal is to align the services that are available in the community, align the policies in the community, so that no matter where a person presents, whether that’s in the emergency department or a treatment facility. If that particular organization can serve their needs, great. If they need to be referred to a different organization, they know who to refer, which organizations provide which services, and how to make that transition seamless.”

These efforts led to a 25 percent reduction in opioid overdoses in 2015 from the previous year. But this only tells part of the story. WHIOP holds meetings each month, but community members who don’t have a direct connection to addiction like small business owners haven’t attended.

That’s where the Washtenaw Recovery Advocacy Project, or WRAP, comes in, a nonprofit that formed last year, whose goal it is to educate the community about recovery.

Debbie Wright, secretary for WRAP, said, “I think one of those ways we’re trying to (reduce stigma) is to really put a face on recovery and let people know in the community that people do recover and that people do move on and people do flourish in recovery and that there’s a lot of people here in recovery. We’re not going anywhere.”

WRAP has been working to educate Washtenaw County through community events. For example, last year there was a recovery advocacy walk in downtown Ann Arbor and another occurred this May.

WRAP is still in its infant stages, though, meaning there is plenty of work left to be done to keep bridging the gap between those involved and not involved with addiction on a daily basis. The recovery community needs allies to reduce the stigma surrounding addiction. With more allies, the progress toward integrating into the community and not being labeled as an “other” can accelerate.

Growing a Healing Forest is a mentality.

The Healing Forest is a book store realizing, without ever directly reaching out to the recovery community, that there should be more alternatives to going to the bar.

“We simply pride ourselves on being a welcoming, safe, friendly atmosphere for all,” Mike Gustafson, owner of Literati Bookstore in Ann Arbor, wrote over e-mail. “Almost all of our events and live readings (we host many live readings throughout the year, upwards of 150) are free and open to all. We are also open later in comparison to other retailers in the area, specifically because we believe people sometimes want an alternative to noisy bars. I’ve worked with a few student groups in the past to spread awareness about our live readings among undergraduates, simply because I feel like in college so many social events involve or are centered around alcohol.”

The Healing Forest is also Nic Sims, who opened Brillig Dry Bar, an alcohol-free bar that serves tasty non-alcoholic beverages. It began as a pop-up venture but will now have regular hours starting in the fall.

Most places aren’t like Ann Arbor, though. There aren’t universities, treatment centers, functioning bus systems, and countless meetings everywhere that are accessible. But remove all that, and the common theme of valuing the individual and their experiences remains. That said, some cities and towns may be more well-positioned than others to instill those values.

What does a Healing Forest look like in a rural town or a poverty-stricken city like Flint that is working through another crisis?

The mechanisms may ultimately look different, but a Healing Forest is possible anywhere if the community decides to attempt to rid itself of the stigma surrounding addiction. That’s where government leadership can come in. Whether it’s through passing a resolution in support of the recovery or anti-discrimination legislation, there’s an opportunity to set the standard, recognize that treating addiction also takes place outside a treatment facility, and make a Healing Forest deliberate rather than happenstance.

A Healing Forest is possible anywhere if the community decides to attempt to rid itself of the stigma surrounding addiction.

The Healing Forest of Ann Arbor has many faces like Wright, Dreyer, Schwartz, Statman, Gratopp, Roberts, Parson, Byberg, Weinzweig, and Engelbert. With time and efforts to change people’s perspectives, there could be more communities supportive of recovery. Values will change, the soil would get even healthier, and maybe more people will be able to heal.

Part 8: Reducing the stigma and growing more Healing Forests was originally published in The Healing Forest Project on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

When the other needs of getting into recovery are met, for some, the last card on the table may be beginning or continuing education. A recent study found Ann Arbor to be the most educated city in America. That’s partly because the area is home to two elite universities: Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti and the University of Michigan. To support students in recovery, the University of Michigan has a thriving, staffed Collegiate Recovery Program while one is in the works at Eastern Michigan.

CRPs work to provide students in recovery a support system, in addition to the one they may have already developed, and ultimately provide another resource to live successfully while getting educated.

“We need to create spaces on college campuses where students who are in recovery can feel like they are part of the college experience and also safe from the madness that can really threaten their recoveries,” Statman, the program director of Michigan’s CRP, said.

By being a university town, seeing older people pursuing their education can serve as an inspiration for people new into recovery, according to Statman.

“It makes it so that people who are in recovery have something to aspire toward,” Statman explained. “You know, they see other people getting educations and it looks more realistic for them — that kind of thing.”

To read Part 8 on growing more Healing Forests, click here.

Part 7: Access to education can be instrumental for recovery was originally published in The Healing Forest Project on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

At the Sweetwaters Coffee and Tea on Liberty Street, Melvin Parson sipped from his own thermos and slowly ate his peanut butter and jelly sandwich wrapped in tin foil.

“I don’t want to treat the individual and help the individual get better and then put them back in the same soil that got them sick in the first place,” he explained. “I want to do something with the soil.”

Parson is quite literally doing something with the soil. Last year, he started We The People Growers Association, a farming nonprofit organization that he hopes will one day “create a sustainable system that can support a workforce” in places that lack resources. What started as a single vegetable bed he inherited from an elderly woman who passed away has evolved to a couple of large gardens, with one being a hoop house at Dawn Farm.

Farming on Dawn Farm was no accident. Parson is in recovery himself and said he wants to give back to the recovery community.

“I’m thinking as I flesh this thing out, I’m thinking that that space out there (Dawn Farm) can be specifically targeted for the recovery community,” he said.

He continued later in the interview: “I’ve been sober for the past six years now and my philosophy is that I’m not sober for my entertainment purposes only. I’m sober and I think one of the ways in which I stay sober is figuring out how to give (the mentality of giving back to the community) away to someone in the recovery community or to be kind to people in general as a whole.”

“I’m not sober for my entertainment purposes only.”

When talking to Parson, it’s easy to see the effects a Healing Forest has had on him. The passion he has for community is hard to miss, as he sees it as a central tenet to his existence as a man in recovery.

“From an individual perspective, community was huge for me, ’cause community is what supports when I’m unsure about things,” he said. “Community is what supports me when I’m struggling. It supports me when I’m victorious.”

“Community is what supports me when I’m struggling. It supports me when I’m victorious.”

And Parson maintains that the recovery community is not separate from the Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti communities at large. He called Alcoholics Anonymous — though his point extends to all forms of addiction — “entrenched” in the community.

“When I say that, I mean a lot of people in the recovery community also work in the community,” he said. “They go to school in the community. They live in the community. So it’s really intertwined. And as a result, employers don’t shun those applicants.”

One of those employers is Ari Weinzweig, the co-founder of Zingerman’s — one of the most famous businesses born in Ann Arbor. What started as a deli in 1982, and still exists in Ann Arbor’s Kerrytown district, has now expanded to 10 different businesses.

Zingerman’s is known for its positive workplace environment and giving significant responsibility to its employees, such as the server in charge of breakfast sales at one of their restaurants. At its core, Zingerman’s philosophy is one that believes in the abilities of all people, no matter their education level or previous life experiences. As a result, that’s led to a workforce dotted with people in recovery.

“I would say we’re open to everybody and then we have a lot of people in recovery that have done really well here,” Weinzweig said. “So then it’s sort of natural that in the same way that word of mouth works with everything, which is always the best marketing, and social media just makes it go a little faster or wider more quickly … you know, the word spreads.”

“From day one, I feel like there was a strong recovery representation in Zingerman’s,” Betty Gratopp said, who has worked for Zingerman’s Mail Order for nearly two decades. “There was somebody here I knew I could talk to.”

No one’s recovery is the same. For some, employment may just be a means to an end. But Lisa Roberts, who also works at Mail Order, sees the connection between her job and her life in recovery.

“I got a job (at Zingerman’s) two weeks after I got sober, so my recovery has been very tied to my employment here,” she said. “I feel like I owe a huge debt of gratitude.”

“Likewise,” Gratopp added. “I only had one other job and I was there for two weeks before I started here. And it’s very tied to my recovery for certain.”

Recognizing the impact Zingerman’s has had on their recovery, Roberts and Gratopp, who are close friends, believe they have a role to “pay-it-forward” when new employees in recovery start to work with them.

“We should be here to provide the same kind of experience that was to us when we got here — and just keep it going,” Roberts said.

“Hopefully we can make them feel safe and secure and embraced,” Gratopp continued.

Why Zingerman’s hires people in recovery like Gratopp and Roberts comes down to two questions for Weinzweig.

“A) Why not?” Weinzweig said. “B) I don’t know anybody who hasn’t messed up a lot in their life, certainly me — high on the list. So why would I not want to give people a chance?”

“I have long believed that the line between what people consider success and mainstream and what turns into failure is very fine,” Weinzweig explained. “And that many of us have hovered near that line and ended up on the right (side) of it and others on the wrong side of it.”

A minute or so later, he added, “The more I paid attention, the more I found out how many people had substance abuse issues. So then I started to just believe that almost everybody has a substance abuse issue. And then I started to believe at least the ones that I knew were in recovery were dealing with it. So I actually started to to look at those people as being ahead of the game, not behind. So that’s where a shift in beliefs changes one’s perspective.”

Just a short walk from Zingerman’s Deli in Kerrytown sits The Lunch Room, a popular vegan restaurant in Ann Arbor. Co-owner Phillis Engelbert, formerly a community organizer before moving into the restaurant business, has worked like Weinzweig to cultivate an inclusive culture and positive workplace, which may explain why 11 out of 27 of her employees are in recovery.

“Well I think with the first (employee in recovery), it probably was just building that personal relationship,” Engelbert said. “But then everyone who came after, the word was out: Lunch Room will support you. Or you know, there’s no stigma here. Or like, if you need to go to court dates, they’ll give you time off. Or if you end up going to a court date and you get thrown in jail for a couple days and then come back out, you won’t lose your job. Or like, they’ll celebrate your sobriety anniversaries. Or, just whatever, they’ll understand and there won’t be a stigma.”

But removing stigma in a workplace can’t just be an effort from top leadership. The mentality must make its way into the minds of every employee. One of the ways in which Engelbert is able to maintain a stigma-free culture and family atmosphere is through a careful hiring process.

Removing stigma in a workplace can’t just be an effort from top leadership. The mentality must make its way into the minds of every employee.

“I’m also really really careful about who I hire because I don’t want to wreck (the inclusive, stigma-free culture),” Engelbert explained. “So I tell people when they’re interviewing, I say, ‘We have people here from all walks of life. We have people here of different income backgrounds, education levels, prison history, lesbian, gay, trans, whatever. You have to be happy about that or you can’t work here. Like you have to look at that as a positive and help us embrace all that or this isn’t the place for you.’”

The result of Engelbert’s efforts is an environment in which recovery is able to be discussed openly among the staff. Conversations about recovery occur often at The Lunch Room.

“Everyday. All the time. It’s just like talking about the weather,” Engelbert said.

One Lunch Room employee put it this way: “It’s nice to be open about (recovery), have a boss that understands and just not have like a drug-fueled kitchen environment ’cause that’s just not what I want to be around.”

Every Saturday night, The Lunch Room donates 10 percent of its sales to a local nonprofit. In March, partly because of the prevalence of recovery at The Lunch Room, Dawn Farm was the chosen organization.

Other business owners in Ann Arbor may not give opportunities to people in recovery because of their criminal history or don’t try to foster an environment that lets people be open about their personal lives. But when trying to grow a Healing Forest, is making people live two separate lives, where recovery has to remain out of the office, a best practice?

To read Part 7 on education, click here.

Part 6: Zingerman’s and The Lunch Room: An examination of inclusive work cultures was originally published in The Healing Forest Project on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Meetings are not all one in the same, and the meetings a person goes to can ultimately come to define one’s recovery experience.

“There are AA meetings, NA meetings, (Overeaters Anonymous) meetings, (Marijuana Anonymous) meetings, all different types of 12-step meetings,” Byberg explained. “But there are also LGBT meetings, young people’s meetings, health professionals meetings. There are huge meetings that happen in an auditorium with 200 people. There are tiny meetings that happen just in someone’s living room. So we feel super confident, honestly, that when we’re encouraging clients to find a place in the recovering community, that’s kind of your tribe, that they’ll be able to do that because we have such a richness in the recovering community here.”

Meetings can be found all over the city, often in churches and community centers. But in order to attend those meetings, figuring out how to get there cannot be overlooked.

Transportation is a major factor in creating a successful Healing Forest. Ann Arbor is a walkable and bikeable city. It also has an efficient bus system to assist people in recovery, who may no longer be able to drive due to health or legal reasons or simply don’t have a vehicle, access meetings, grocery stores, and other services they may need.

Ann Arbor is a walkable and bikeable city, and it also has an efficient bus system to assist people in recovery.

Creating more public transportation is often viewed through the lens of trying to become a more efficient, environmentally friendly city. However, understanding the impact it has on people in recovery sheds light on its implications as social justice and public health issues.

To read Part 6 on employment, click here.

Part 5: Finding a support group and how to get there was originally published in The Healing Forest Project on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

According to Rent Jungle, the average rent for a one-bedroom apartment is $1229, and last year the city was named the ninth-hottest real estate market in the United States. Professionals earning upper-middle class and upper class salaries may be able to afford living in Ann Arbor. For those who can’t, the cost of rent can lead to people in recovery (and of course those who aren’t) to be priced out of the city.

The lack of affordability begs the question if people who could benefit from a community supportive of recovery are unable to afford living in the city, then really how supportive is it? Sure, it’s possible to live in Ypsilanti, Dexter, or Saline, cities in Washtenaw County that are more affordable, but that doesn’t solve the impact of economic privilege on recovery in Ann Arbor.

It’s possible to live in Ypsilanti, Dexter, or Saline, cities in Washtenaw County that are more affordable, but that doesn’t solve the impact of economic privilege on the recovery community in Ann Arbor.

One low income community that receives considerable attention from local government and nonprofit organizations is the homeless community. Avalon Housing is one of the main organizations focused on housing the homeless community in Ann Arbor and owns 260 housing units, serving 650 individuals. Along with their own properties, they also serve people living with rental subsidies throughout Washtenaw County.

According to Aubrey Patino, director of tenant programs, Avalon specifically targets those “who have experienced four episodes of homelessness in the last three years or have been homeless for a year or more and have a disabling condition which can be a substance abuse disorder.”

Avalon employs a “Housing First” philosophy, which means that people need to have housing in order to recover from life’s issues. “We don’t screen out,” Patino said. “We screen in. We don’t screen out for anything.” In addition to providing housing, Avalon also dispenses an array of resources to assist its tenants, including addiction support.

“We do a lot to really help people sort of access recovery supports,” Patino said. “We provide a lot of linkages to treatment, a lot of linkages to mutual aid groups. We have peer support specialists who are in recovery themselves that work with our folks.”

Avalon predominantly works with Dawn Farm and Home of New Vision, another popular treatment provider. Even still, Avalon only works with the population earning 30 percent or below the median income, which often qualifies for government assistance. This leaves another population vulnerable to Ann Arbor’s real estate boom, the so-called “workforce” population that earns 60–120 percent of median income and is unsupported by the government. Though conversations have begun on developing affordable, workforce housing, little has materialized on a government-supported front.

And to make matters more complex, the issue of having a criminal record can affect the ability of people in recovery to acquire housing on the private market.

The issue of having a criminal record can affect the ability of people in recovery to acquire housing on the private market.

“A lot of the private landlord market is absolutely gonna screen out like a host of criminal offenses,” Patino said. “A lot of the private landlord market is gonna screen out bad credit and a lot of the private rental market is going to screen out obviously income thresholds and that kind of thing.

“So it’s really challenging for people, particularly for people who want to maintain sobriety depending on what their substance abuse looked like for them, it can be really difficult for them to end up kind of pigeonholed into housing options that aren’t ideal and/or can be triggers for them.”

There has been recent progress, though. The ability to deny housing to someone because of a criminal offense has been weakened. The Department of Housing and Urban Development announced on April 4 that landlords or home sellers who deny housing to potential tenants or buyers may be violating the Fair Housing Act. While the department says this new guidance is to address racial and ethnic discrimination, there’s no ignoring the impact it could have on the recovery community, which is affected by discrimination due to past alcohol- or drug-related legal issues.

With this ruling, the recovery community may see another barrier broken. In Ann Arbor, the rent will be still be high, but there should be more opportunities for people in recovery to find homes conducive to their needs.

To read Part 5 on support groups, click here.

Part 4: The housing issue was originally published in The Healing Forest Project on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Treatment centers play a crucial role in fostering the Healing Forest.

Just off Stony Creek road, a two-lane road that cuts through the south side of Ypsilanti, a city just a few miles apart from Ann Arbor, there’s a small sign advertising fresh eggs for $3. These eggs are collected by patients of Dawn Farm’s 36-bed residential treatment program. Here, patients, or residents as Clinical Director Jason Schwartz calls them, will likely spend a minimum of three months working to get sober from substance abuse. In his time at Dawn Farm, Schwartz has witnessed the opioid epidemic up close.

“When I started at Dawn Farm in 1994, I think fewer than 10 percent of our admissions were opiate addicts,” Schwartz said. “And today, half of our admissions are opiate addicts and we’re seeing overdoses like I’ve never seen in 22 years and I don’t think Dawn Farm has ever seen in in its entire existence (43 years).”

Dawn Farm is not just a creative name for a treatment center — it’s really a farm. Chickens, llamas, goats, sheep, pigs, donkeys, turkeys, rabbits, ducks, and a miniature pony can be found behind a large gated field. There are hoop houses for gardening. And of course, there are barns.

Chickens, llamas, goats, sheep, pigs, donkeys, turkeys, rabbits, ducks, and a miniature pony can be found behind a large gated field.

The connection to nature is all part of Dawn Farm’s plan. Schwartz explained that patients start their chores for the day by 7 a.m. Breakfast is at 8 a.m. with group activities and meetings following the meal. After lunch at noon, there’s another group meeting in the afternoon and two to three days a week, GED classes are also offered and attended during this time. Chores are then done again until 4 p.m. when there is a break.

And then, after dinner around 5:30 p.m., the core mission of Dawn Farm plays out: integrating patients into the recovery community—the subset of the population in recovery.

“Every evening, there are cars streaming in and out of here, people coming here, picking up our residents and taking them to meetings,” Schwartz said.

In order to take a resident to a meetings, a community member must be at least six months sober. Often times, it’s someone who was formerly in a Dawn Farm program who returns the favor down the road during the recovery process.

“A lot of people once they hit that six month point are like, ‘I can’t wait to do that because somebody did that for me when I was here,’ ” Byberg said.

Dawn Farm works diligently to ensure patients don’t wade through the uncharted territory of sobriety alone. Having ride outs to meetings is a crucial chance for residents to begin building their support systems for post-residential treatment life. Ride outs also occur at their 13-bed downtown Ann Arbor residential treatment facility and Spera Recovery Center, which is part of Dawn Farm’s continuum of care.

In many cases, to further cement entry into the recovery community, residents also move into one of Dawn Farm’s 175 beds of transitional housing throughout Ann Arbor. They can stay for up to two years; though according to Schwartz, the average stay is about a year. And some of those residents even go on to become house managers, who, in addition to fulfilling some administrative duties, serve as a mentor for residents.

The rules of living in a transitional home are strict: Daily attendance to meetings and having a job are required.

But, not everyone in recovery in Ann Arbor lives in Dawn Farm’s transitional homes and even for those who do, it’s only temporary. Ann Arbor is home to an expensive housing market, so finding affordable housing remains one of the biggest barriers to remaining in Ann Arbor and staying part of the recovery community.

To read Part 4 on housing, click here.

Part 3: Access to treatment: A look at Dawn Farm and the role of treatment centers in the Healing… was originally published in The Healing Forest Project on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The Healing Forest is a model for community-based recovery, meaning everybody — not just people directed affected by addiction — have a role in getting addicts back on their feet. Its history is rooted in the Native American Wellbriety movement, a combination of being sober and well.

Don Coyhis has been sober for nearly three decades and is the founder of White Bison, a nonprofit dedicated to addressing alcoholism in Native American communities. He has been at the forefront of promoting the Healing Forest Model.

The model approaches addiction treatment by seeing the community as the patient, and the addict as the byproduct of community values. “Alcohol is not the cause of something, it’s the symptom of something,” Coyhis said.

The Healing Forest Model says the life force of the soil — the values that make a community what it is — must change. In the Native American context, anger, guilt, shame, and fear must be replaced by more positive values and traditions such as healing, spirituality, ceremonies, language, and interconnectedness. Doing so will lead to a healthier community.

Within that same vein comes the understanding of how those with substance abuse disorders can become sober temporarily, but ultimately fall back into the same habits of addiction.

A 2013 research paper written by Arthur Evans, Roland Lamb, and William White frames it this way: “The clinical treatment of addiction is seen as analogous to digging up a sick and dying tree, transplanting it into an environment of rich soil, sunshine, water, and fertilizer only to return it to its original deprived location once its health has been restored and subsequently lost again.

“What’s called for in this metaphor is treating the soil — creating a Healing Forest within which the health of the individual, family, neighborhood, community, and beyond are simultaneously elevated. The Healing Forest is a community in recovery.”

But what does a “community in recovery” look like in practice?

Evans, Lamb, and White say creating a community in recovery requires “strategies of outreach (extending the reach of treatment organizations into the community), inreach (involving indigenous community recovery support resources within the treatment environment), and community-based resource development (facilitating broader processes of community healing).”

In layman’s terms, the tangible aspects of what Evans, Lamb, and White present can perhaps best be encapsulated by access: access to treatment, support groups, housing, jobs, and education.

The intangible aspects could be defined as a community practicing and valuing equality and inclusivity, where individuals are given second, third, even fourth chances, and there is value seen in someone working to overcome tremendous adversity to get healthy and into recovery.

Today, it may be impossible to find full-fledged Healing Forests in the United States. Laws and lack of resources stained by stigma have made it challenging for them to fully take root.

That said, some communities have moved toward growing a Healing Forest.

Ann Arbor, Michigan, a city with nearly 114,000 residents and home to the renowned University of Michigan, is one of those communities. Though it might not seem like it at first glance.

Like many sports-obsessed college towns, when the football team is playing on a Saturday afternoon, the smell of alcohol permeates the air. With the loud music blasting, thousands of college students sip on red cups filled with vodka or beer cans. And when it’s all over, those containers make their way onto the ground.

On any given weekend night, lines slither outside the doorways into the many bars and clubs. There are liquor stores on nearly every corner close to campus. It’s not hard to find someone stumbling home from a night out.

It would be disingenuous to suggest there aren’t ways to escape drinking for students who choose not to imbibe. Nearly every night, there are concerts and other events near campus. The University of Michigan hosts UMix, an event that provides students with an alternative night of drug-free fun.

But the results of a National College Health Assessment in February 2014 suggest the extent of drinking on campus. Forty-one percent of undergraduates reported at least one occasion of consuming five or more alcoholics in the two weeks prior to taking the survey. Forty-three percent of undergraduates said they did something because of their drinking they later regretted.

Matt Statman is the program director for the Collegiate Recovery Program at the University of Michigan, the hub of recovery life for students. According to him, the drinking culture of Ann Arbor makes it way into nearly every aspect of college living, going beyond students and Ann Arborites drinking heavily in the evening.

“Pretty much any Friday Night when it’s above 32 degrees, if you’re downtown at night, it looks crazy,“ Statman said. “But it’s also just, what are people talking about in the classroom? Where are the networking opportunities? Students all the time say you gotta go to the bar if you want to make connections.”

“What are people talking about in the classroom? Where are the networking opportunities? Students all the time say you gotta go to the bar if you want to make connections.”

And yet, the drinking culture isn’t the only story. Ann Arbor, for the most part, is a community supportive of recovery — a Healing Forest.

“I live in Ann Arbor. I walk down Main St. I can’t ever go downtown and not run into people in recovery,” Anna Byberg, program coordinator of Spera Recovery Center, a detox facility in Ann Arbor, said. “And it’s kind of amazing, but there’s no sign on your forehead that says, ‘I’m a person in recovery.’ You just know because you’ve seen people at meetings or see people around.”

“I really consider Ann Arbor very healthy soil for people,” she continued. “And that isn’t to say that everyone needs to move to Ann Arbor and live here forever. But part of it is how can we replicate what we have in Ann Arbor that is healing soil? What are the components of that?”

To read Part 3 on treatment centers, click here.

Part 2: What, exactly, is a Healing Forest? was originally published in The Healing Forest Project on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The opioid epidemic in the United States has left the nation searching for answers.

The numbers are staggering: Nearly two million people “abused or were dependent on prescription opioids” in 2014. From 1999 to 2014, the number of deaths from prescription opioids quadrupled.

One of things that makes prescription painkillers terrifying is the chemical connection they have to heroin — which is also an opioid. When access to painkillers dries up or the price simply becomes too high, heroin can become the drug of choice for opioid users. Four out of five heroin users today started their opioid addiction by using prescription drugs first. And now, 78 Americans die every single day from opioid overdoses.

78 Americans die every day from opioid overdoses.

The dramatic rise in opiate addiction has left the Obama Administration with no choice but to address it — and it has tried. As part of President Barack Obama’s Fiscal Year 2017 budget proposal, $1.1 billion will go toward fighting the opioid epidemic, with much of the funding focused on working with states to improve access to medication-assisted treatment — a form of treatment where patients use medication to help decrease and eventually eliminate their dependency on opioids. President Obama also recently signed the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act that takes similar, but less expansive steps to his budget proposal since there is no guaranteed funding.

Of course, neither CARA or Obama’s proposal addresses the millions of Americans who have reported dependencies on substances other than opioids. Alcohol addiction, for example, remains a persistent epidemic as well. According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, an estimated 17 million people reported to be “dependent on or abused” alcohol in 2014. Of that 17 million, only approximately 1.3 million people received treatment for their alcohol use in 2014 and nine of 10 “did not perceive a need for treatment for their alcohol use.” In the United States, 88,000 individuals die every year from alcohol-related causes, according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.

And yet, where is the urgency? These statistics demonstrate that seeking ways to reduce opioid overdoses is only the beginning to addressing addiction in the United States. Promoting recovery from all forms of substance use has to be part of the conversation.

There are 23.5 million people in recovery in the United States, but a dark cloud still overhangs the discussion of substance abuse. For decades, the perception of substance abuse was that of a moral failure of the individual — being labeled an addict made you lesser than the average person. It may be why mutual aid groups like Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous are just that: anonymous. The combination of anonymity and public perception has made it difficult to change the conversation, reduce the stigma on local and national levels, and work to answer questions like these:

After people get sober, how will they make the transition into long-term recovery? What role does community — even among people in a community that aren’t directly connected to addiction through their work or personal lives — have in working to ensure the long term health of former addicts? And what should healing look like?

What role does community — even among people in a community that aren’t directly connected to addiction through their work or personal lives — have in working to ensure the long term health of former addicts?

Obama’s budget proposal and CARA address none of these questions, with no initiatives to aid in creating support systems for addicts attempting to get into recovery. There are no calls for more affordable housing or greater access to entry-level jobs that give those in recovery a chance to work again even if they have a criminal record. Current restrictions on housing and employment are a discriminatory product borne of viewing substance abuse as a moral failure.

Fostering communities supportive of recovery needs to be a national priority, and it requires looking beyond just getting people sober. A supportive community is one that gives substance abusers their lives back and a chance to assimilate back into society without facing the backlash of stigma. To achieve this, a Healing Forests need to be grown.

To read Part 2, click here.

Part 1: Addiction and Recovery in America was originally published in The Healing Forest Project on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.