Sisters of Solace breaks stigmas in Recovery 101 sessions

By Kendra Simpson

Sisters of Solace is working to change the stigma about addiction and its rehabilitation process through their “Recovery 101” sessions.

Every Thursday in October, the nonprofit invites the public to join the conversation about how to best support those in rehabilitation.

“We realized that so many people in the community need a broader understanding of what recovery looks like,” Sisters of Solace Executive Director Trina Clark said. “What drug addiction is and what it’s not. And we feel like the more information they have that people know the why behind something, they’re really able to be more effective in helping and really want to increase the compassion for people that are struggling, in our community. And there’s a lot of them.”

The goal of the Oct. 17 session was to educate the public about harm reduction, a method to help addicts reduce their use of substances rather than strictly forbid use altogether. This method can be seen through common practices such as drinking water as well as alcohol at a party and smokers using a nicotine patch. Harm reduction encourages progress over perfection.

While every recovery center varies in the methods they prefer, those who attended the session agreed that one is never better than other, but rather, it’s the combination that produces the best results. Cassy Thornton, treatment court administrator for the 5th Judicial Circuit, said she attended the session to pass along the knowledge to her team, which works directly with addicts.

“From my treatment court perspective, we all have the same goal,” she said. “It just may look differently based on, the entity in the program. But in the, in the end result, it’s all about getting people clean, sober, living productive lives.”

The Recovery 101 sessions are open to the public and continue at noon Oct. 24 and 31 at the Sisters of Solace coffee shop, 3024 Fredrick Ave. All are encouraged to come to these sessions, whether they’ve directly dealt with addiction and rehabilitation or not.

“I think our community and our state, our nation, our world as a whole, really struggles with the lack of information about addiction and recovery and what that looks like,” Thornton said. “I think that is a great point to get people here and get them informed about what they can be doing here in St. Joe to either help the addiction problem that we have or just inform them of just the basic things to be able to communicate with people and not give judgment.”

St. Joseph has several rehabilitation centers and support systems such as the Family Guidance Center, Denovo Recovery and Sisters of Solace. To learn more about harm reduction, visit the National Harm Reduction Coalition website at https://harmreduction.org/.