Elijah Rising
Elijah Rising
Breaking the Bonds: Addiction and Human Trafficking - w/ Recovery Specialist Jessica Gobble Ep. 73
Why and how do we address recovery in Elijah Rising Restorative Care?
In this episode, Jessica Gobble, Elijah Rising’s Recovery Specialist, explains how addiction feeds trafficking and trafficking feeds addiction.
Traffickers have learned that they are able to make more profit off of an exploited individual when they exploit them in multiple ways.
For instance, if a trafficker coerces a woman into transporting drugs across the border, distributing them, and then engaging in prostitution, they generate more profit compared to solely exploiting them for sex. This overlap between addiction and trafficking is prevalent for numerous reasons.
Jessica also discusses:
- The distinction between forced and voluntary drug use, and their distinct impacts on individuals.
- The significance of medical detox and its role in the recovery process.
- The importance of empowering individuals to direct their own healing journey and providing support as allies.
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Hello and welcome back to the Elijah Rising podcast. Today we have a very special episode that's going to kick off a series specifically around drug trends, addiction and recovery in the anti-trafficking community. So today I'm joined by the amazing and wonderful Jessica Gobble. Jessica is our recovery specialist here at Elijah Rising and she covers so much. You are responsible for so much and so much implementation around substance abuse, around addiction and recovery in the home, in the safe home specifically. We're really glad to have you, jessica.
Speaker 2:Thank you, Micah.
Speaker 1:I'm glad to be here. I'm excited about this and nervous about this and nervous You're going to do amazing, so let's just jump right in. So why, in your opinion? Why do we cover? Why do we even address addiction and recovery and substance abuse in the work of anti-trafficking, isn't it just, you know, open a safe home, get the women in, get on some therapy and then they'll be good to go Like. Why do we cover it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, it's not, and we cover it because they cross in so many ways. They're really a nexus. So addiction and trafficking feed each other and they both have to be addressed if we want to be successful in the fight to end trafficking. So the first thing is that addiction to substances dramatically increases the risk of being trafficked, for both the person addicted and their offspring or family members.
Speaker 2:So we want to address the fact that people who are addicted are not only higher at risk for being trafficked, but their children are, so we are trying to break cycles here. So we want to be aware of how this impacts multi-generations. Also, 84% of survivors self-reported being given drugs or using drugs during their exploitation.
Speaker 2:Self-reported means the numbers are probably higher because a lot of people, for fear of criminalization, do not self-report, and over 90% of survivors are impacted by addiction, whether it's their own or someone in their family's addiction, and that includes whether they were forced to take drugs or whether they willingly took drugs. They were forced to take drugs or whether they willingly took drugs, and trafficking significantly increases the risk for substance use issues, even after being freed from the life. So once someone has been freed from the life, a survivor suffers from extreme physical ailments and complex PTSD, and they're at a higher risk for developing a substance use disorder even after they're freed. So we want to make sure that we're supporting in that way. Trafficking feeds addiction and addiction feeds trafficking. So we have to address them both to decrease the risk and increase long-term survival, and we want to break the cycle.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so what? I heard you say something that I want to make sure we kind of go back to for those who may not have caught it. You said who are who willingly take drugs or who are forced to take drugs or substances. Can you touch on that a little bit for our listeners?
Speaker 2:so traffickers weaponize drugs.
Speaker 2:They they use drugs to try and control the people that they're trafficking and they use force, fraud and coercion to give drugs to people who have not yet been trafficked, oftentimes to get them in a situation where they're vulnerable, like a grooming situation.
Speaker 2:Yes, like a grooming situation. Once someone has been trafficked, if they are under the influence of substances, they're much less likely to try and escape from the life. When someone is under the influence of stimulants, they're able to be more productive for the trafficker, so they can stay up with no sleep, so it's more money for the trafficker. Also, I read an article that was produced by the DEA and they were talking about how large criminal organizations have recognized that they can make the most money off of people that they use for human trafficking in multiple ways. So they're going to use them for labor as mules to bring drugs across the border. Across the border, they're going to use them to distribute drugs so that the people that are actually doing the crimes are not at risk for, or at high risk for, getting arrested, and then, once they are done with them or they're a little bit older, they're going to use them for sex trafficking.
Speaker 1:Wow. So, yeah, so it seems like I mean there's not really a separation, like there's so much overlap that you really can't divide out the population, the people that we're serving, right into like this camp or this camp or this camp. It's all kind of merging together, is what you're saying?
Speaker 2:Yes, and the solution, the need for recovery is going to be there, whether someone willingly used substances or whether the substances were forced on them. So, someone that has a physical addiction. The addiction is not discriminating. It does not care if you were given drugs against your will or you willingly took drugs. You still are going to need recovery. You still are going to need all of the services that we need to provide.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I can imagine that's very complex. Yeah, it is as you weed through that.
Speaker 2:Oh, my goodness.
Speaker 1:So you know, if we're talking about our safe home, which is 24 hours, seven days a week, 365, right, um, but there's a process to get into the home, like there's a process to even an intake, how we welcome the first kind of few hours that a woman comes to us. So we want to handle that really cautiously and just mindfully. And then obviously we can you know, as she progresses through the her time in her home, whether that's a few months or a year. But can you talk to our listeners a little bit about what does it look like, what does her journey look like when she's about to come into a safe home? Maybe she's applied, she's been admitted. What does that process look like as she's coming in, possibly with an addiction or multiple addictions or substance issues? How do you sort through that Sure?
Speaker 2:So in the very beginning, part of our application process is a screening and interview and we look at in-depth at their substance use history and a lot of times if someone is being trafficked they may not even know what substances are included in their substance use history.
Speaker 1:Wow, that makes it so complex.
Speaker 2:Yes, so they can describe how they felt. They can say I was physically paralyzed, maybe, or I felt like a zombie, but they may not even know what their drug. So we try to assess as much as we possibly can what their needs are, based on their drug history. We need to assess if they are gonna need medical detox when they come to us, if there's going to be a need for rehab because they'll need some kind of medical supervision. We wanna make sure that when they arrive to us we are capable of meeting all of their needs.
Speaker 1:Can I pause you just for a second? Can you speak to what is medical detox for those who don't know anything about it?
Speaker 2:So some substances, when you are, when they're removed from your body and you stop taking them, you're physically dependent on them and it can be harmful and even life threatening if you're not medically supervised. So there's different classes of drugs. Alcohol is one of them, but also yeah, I know people don't realize that it can be really dangerous if someone is physically addicted to alcohol, so they need medical supervision while they're detoxing.
Speaker 2:But there are other benzodiazepines I think a lot of people know about opiate withdrawal and that's very painful and uncomfortable. It's not actually as life-threatening as some other medications, so it would need to be medically supervised for their safety while they detoxed and that could be, you know, like 3 to 14 days, and a lot of times the medical professionals will give them medication to help ease that process and make sure that they're safe.
Speaker 1:So you know, one of our key I don't know goals or like the values that we hold at the safe home is safety physical safety, felt safety, emotional safety, all of these things. So what I hear you saying is you know, as a safe home, as someone who's running a safe home like for those of you out there maybe who are listening and you're thinking about opening a safe home this is such a critical aspect because literally, it is life and death.
Speaker 2:It is, and it's not just life and death for the person coming in. Part of what we want to do to ensure the safety of our home is make sure that the person coming in is not presenting a risk for the people who are already in our home.
Speaker 1:Yeah, great point.
Speaker 2:So safe for everyone in the home and for our staff.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So we need to make sure that when they come in, we do a search, especially with things like fentanyl, which is such a tiny amount of fentanyl. It's so potent and it can be deadly for such a small amount. So we have to be really thorough and some of these things can be harmful if they're absorbed through a cut in your skin.
Speaker 1:Wow, so we have to make sure that we're practicing safety.
Speaker 2:So for physical safety, obviously, but also for the residents in the home. If someone were to come in and they were under the influence or they had symptoms of detox, that could be a trigger for someone who is in the home who has a few months removed from their substance and they see that and it triggers them and it could send them into a mental obsession. So we want to provide support for the person coming in for everyone in the home.
Speaker 1:This is very complex. We're making sure that we're mitigating this population, but also this individual who's coming in, and we want to look at all the risks across the board. Wow, oh my goodness. So I'm sure there's so much nuance to how you guys handle you know you're saying you're doing searches and things like that. Can you touch on that just really briefly for our listeners, like what is an intake process and when you're doing those searches, what does that look like?
Speaker 2:So, first and foremost, what it's important for us that it looks like is that it's dignified. So we want to make sure that the women that we are serving, that we truly are serving them, and that everything that we're doing is with dignity and respect, and so when we're doing a search, we don't want to be like a prison guard or a police officer, who do their job very differently than we do. We want to be really respectful. So we have them open their suitcase or their box or their trash bag, whatever their belongings are in and take them out, and they're part of the process with us.
Speaker 2:At the same time, we do want to make sure we're safe. So we're having hawk eyes as we're doing the search for their safety too, and it's been expressed multiple times that they really appreciate that they want it to be a safe place, so they want to know that we're doing a thorough job. So, even though they're participating, they're shaking everything out. We're having to go through all of their medications. A lot of times we have to. Certain medications can't come into the home. There are obviously some things we're not going to allow in, but because so many pills are pressed now and they can look like medications, we have to check everything to make sure it's actually what it says it is. We have to verify that.
Speaker 1:You have to check everything to make sure it's actually what it says it is. We have to verify that. You have to check every pill.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we have to make sure you know. A pill bottle will have a description of what the pill would look like. And we also have it's called like a drug Bible. And it has, you know, a description and a picture of different doses. So we make sure yeah, we have to be really thorough so that we can ensure that it's safe.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so there's not like one or two pills in the bottle that are something else, or vice versa. Gosh, it's so fascinating.
Speaker 2:So even you know, our education coordinator pulled out a pencil and went to turn the lead up one of those mechanical pencils and went to turn the lead up and a needle popped out. So instead of a you know, a lead, there was a needle in it.
Speaker 1:So, having to be careful it was a sewing needle, thankfully, but still that could be self-harm, that could be any kind of drug or substances. There's a whole lot of nuance there, absolutely Wow. So once you go through this intake process and you're like, okay, we're safe, you know, we we graciously pack up all of her things again and we transport her to the actual safe home, so she's entering into the safe home. Once that happens, through her time with us going to meetings and going to the education center and going to counseling all these things right, the services that we offer.
Speaker 1:How do you address addiction and recovery through that process?
Speaker 2:It's a longer term Sure. So we have a holistic approach in that we have various lanes and sometimes there is overlap. But just for the recovery lane, what we do is we provide one-on-one meetings. So they have weekly, sometimes multiple times a week, meetings with a recovery specialist.
Speaker 1:Is that because you know someone may have a higher need for that kind of one-on-one support? Is that how you determine whether it's a once a week or multiple times?
Speaker 2:Yes, so yeah, and usually if it's multiple times in a week, it would be for a limited time, but they need additional support, or they may get bad news and need additional support. Sure, there may be a certain anniversary date that's coming up and there's additional support for that. We also might meet multiple times in a week to celebrate good news. So not just additional support when something has been tragic, but if there's like a recovery milestone coming up, then we might have a special meeting to celebrate that date.
Speaker 1:I love that.
Speaker 2:So or they've accomplished, like they've worked all 12 steps. They've accomplished something, anything like that we want to celebrate. So there's going to be additional meetings for that, okay. And then, in addition to those one-on-one meetings, um, we have recovery groups in-house. We use lots of curriculum, recovery curriculum. We have recovery groups outside of the home that we participate in. That would be specialized. It's really individualized, based on the resident's need. It's not one size fits all with recovery. Everybody is going to have different needs and it also is going to be self-directed. So their level of involvement in their own recovery and desire is going to be part of what's determining how much recovery they're getting while they're in our program. And then we have volunteers that come and lead recovery meetings. We get to go to some recovery meetings in churches and we have celebrations. If someone has like one year clean and sober, we're going to have a party to celebrate.
Speaker 2:They're going to have an opportunity to share their experience, strength and hope, what God has done for them in that year and what that year has meant to them, so that they can share it with the people who may have just come in the house.
Speaker 1:I love that.
Speaker 2:And they get to see what they can hope for. They can hope for and we also have volunteers that come and lead, not just substance use recovery groups, but for codependency like boundaries is one of the things that we go through.
Speaker 1:Because they're all intertwined. Yes, yeah, I mean there's reasons that you maybe have a substance disorder or use history that may be separate from forced violence and coercion and the trafficking space, right, yes, so they're all kind of, yeah, intermeshed. Yes, so you mentioned you touched on that it's self-directed. So how many times maybe this is not the right phrasing is it very frequent that you see a woman coming out of sex trafficking, coming into the safe home program, who doesn't have any addiction or substance abuse history? Number one, and then, if I think the second part of that question is if it's self-directed, do you ever have like situations where somebody maybe does have a substance abuse issue but then denies that they either have that issue or need that kind of help, and how do you navigate that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's kind of a two part question. So the first part is, yes, we have people come. We have had people come into our program and I'm sure we will in the future who have no personal substance use issues at all or very minimal. Sure, and I have never experienced someone who came into our program who did not have a need for recovery in some capacity. So my experience has been that the people that have come in who did not have a need for recovery in some capacity, so my experience has been that the people that have come in who did not have personal substance use issues had loved ones that had substance use history. Okay, so they actually needed recovery from codependency. So people were their drug of choice rather than substances being their drug of choice Totally Okay, but there was still definitely a need for recovery, so it just looks different, that's so fascinating, yeah, okay.
Speaker 2:And then as far as if someone is not recognizing the need or the level of need that we may think that they would benefit from. That's very normal. There are different stages of recovery. That's very normal. There are different stages of recovery. Pre-contemplation would be like not even realizing that you're on a recovery journey or that you need to be on a recovery journey.
Speaker 2:Denial is a very common part of addiction and it even can be in and out of denial. So someone may come in and really want a lot of help with their addiction history and then they may decide I call it back problems. They start to get things back in their life. Good things come back in their life and suddenly it feels like everything is fine. So they have back problems. They don't need recovery because you know everything is as it should be in the world. But things don't stay that way. So we walk with them patiently we're not trying to strong arm them into anything and so we want to present them with the truth. So we help them to recognize a lot of times what is their history, what has happened as a result of using substances in the past, and a lot of times as we we patiently walk asking these sort of strategic questions. We get to watch their eyes get opened and there's kind of an awakening.
Speaker 1:Interesting. So, you're really there as like a champion of their own healing journey.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. I love that.
Speaker 1:That's amazing.
Speaker 2:And it may vary at different times while we're with us. Sometimes there might be a big focus on the case management aspect and that's where all of their energy is focused, Because it can be overwhelming that there are so many different avenues that they are being able to have restoration happen in. And it's hard to focus on all of those at once. Sure.
Speaker 1:And just to clarify what I think you're saying is like I mean, they're growing in so many areas like education. They might be getting their GED or maybe they already have their diploma. I mean they already have like a bachelor's, but they want to go back to school. Or you know, there's education, there's their trauma history, right, they're working through that. You're talking about recovering addiction. You're talking about healthy relationships Like that's all I mean, just those, and that's not all of it, right.
Speaker 2:So you're talking about legal name changes, like having to address if their identity has been sold and reused, and so many different things.
Speaker 1:It's a lot to cover at one time for anyone.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Right, yes, Okay, so you know. We hear this a lot like. The healing journey is not linear. This is the same thing for the recovery.
Speaker 2:I say that about recovery. The recovery journey is not linear.
Speaker 1:It's not linear, don't expect it to be just perfect progression or whatever. Which?
Speaker 2:is why we don't freak out about relapse. Right, which is why we don't freak out about relapse, right, because it's not linear. It's very common for people to take two steps forward, one step back.
Speaker 1:That is such a good point. So I want to give a little teaser, a little plug, because we're going to do two more episodes with you and I think we're going to cover that in another episode about relapse specifically how do we handle that, what do we expect, what are we looking for and watching for, mitigating for? So if you enjoyed this podcast, be sure to like, subscribe, send it to your friends, spread the love. We will be back next time again with Jessica as we cover drug trends that we're seeing in the anti-trafficking space. So thank you so much, jessica no-transcript.