Question 1

Transcript

Accepted Answer

Chris Budnick
B. Reeves: [00:00:00] Good morning, everybody. This is B Reeves. I'm the director of business development here at new waters recovery with my colleague, Thomas Hogshead, who is the director of admissions and also facilities. And our guest today is Chris Budnick, who is the executive director at healing transitions. Here in Raleigh 
Chris Budnick: morning guys morning.
Thank you for being here. Thanks for the invitation i'll 
B. Reeves: just start off by saying that thomas Came to new waters from working with chris at healing transition So i'm going to let him say how that 
Thomas Hogshead: transition happened I think Chris and I met back in 2008. I was introduced to you all by a mutual friend, and fresh out of recovery, and ended up working at Healing Transitions for 10 years, and the rest is history.
And how did you find your way 
B. Reeves: into this world, and specifically Healing 
Chris Budnick: Transitions? Yeah it's, A pretty interesting story that's recovery based, so, I'll try to tell it very quickly, [00:01:00] but childhood, some difficult things, difficult head injury, depression, divorce with my parents.
Grew up going to counselors, went to my first mutual aid meeting when I was 16, went to outpatient treatment when I was 18, inpatient treatment as I was turning 19. I majored in psychology as an undergrad and with a little bit of recovery I started to understand that I chose psychology as a major because I was familiar with as I was getting ready to graduate, I didn't really know what it meant to have a psychology degree.
And my advisor said we could have you do an internship. And so, of the three places I interviewed the only one that accepted me was a residential. Treatment program in Rhode Island. And so, I did an internship there in September of 1993. And then in December of 93, they hired me and in 94, I interviewed for some jobs in North Carolina.
I was seeing a young woman who was going to school down here and The [00:02:00] job that I ended up ultimately accepting was at a place called Charter Northridge. When I showed up for the job interview, the director of nursing was incredibly underwhelmed by me. My experience, my lack of credentials, but with me being from Rhode Island, she wanted me to come back to meet the woman whose position I was interviewing for. She was going from inpatient to outpatient. And she was from Rhode Island and homesick. And so, that led to a second interview and within that first 90 seconds of meeting Nancy learned that she worked at the treatment center I'd gone through and had known my outpatient counselor and so forth.
This woman in Rhode Island, Chance Encounter leads me to get hired at Charter Northridge. The person she was going to work for was the director of the outpatient program and he would become the founding executive director for Healing Transitions, Dennis Parnell. [00:03:00] And Dennis we got to know each other and when he was new in his role, reached out to me about doing my social work internship with him in 1999 and then he ended up hiring me in 2000.
Tragically Nancy who was the woman from Rhode Island her son is on our detox wall having succumbed to his alcoholism. So just lots of intersections and it was for me being able to look in the rear view mirror and see power greater than myself, playing a role in guiding and directing my path.
Yeah. And 
B. Reeves: that leads me to something is, I know something we want to talk to you about today is, we. All three of us are in recovery and we all work in the treatment field and kind of the beautiful part of it and then the tragic part of it is not only seeing, clients come and go and sadly not make it and die, but ones who are really close to, but also in our, in our personal recovery people, we know from [00:04:00] the rooms, the 12 step rooms and beyond who don't make it.
But then also the beautiful thing, like I know you talked about somebody that, That we all three know who came through healing transitions and is now a judge. So we talk a little bit about like just the, the real ups and downs of not only being in recovery, but working in the field. 
Chris Budnick: Yeah.
Thanks. It's something I've I spent a lot of time wrestling with and thinking about I am 33 years in my own recovery, which seems unfathomable, when I came into recovery, the thought of staying for a year, seemed to. Like, that seemed like a good goal. The work that I started in the settings were very crisis stabilization based.
And so, what I found to be very different about working at Healing Transitions is that It's a long term program. It's one where you may work with people multiple times. And it's one where, for me, I've developed [00:05:00] relationships with people that, are approaching, 23 years next month.
And the other thing that's a real strength for us is, 75 percent of our staff currently are alumni of the program. So you go from somebody who's showing up to receive services to becoming a colleague, and so there's this kind of always this. Evolution of what the roles are and the relationships and because of that and because of the just the volume of people that we serve we're subjected to some of the most inspirational stories and some of the most heartbreaking losses and those losses are, compounded by.
Knowing their families, in many situations seeing the pain that and suffering that, family, friends, a lot of our alumni who work for us experience. So it's just, it's a little bit of extreme emotions that. encounter in more of a short term kind of crisis [00:06:00] stabilization when I worked for Holly Hill and Dorothea Dix and Charter Northridge and things like that.
And so, I'm frequently You know, contemplating, like, how do you, how do I personally stay in this work and how do I support others and, a couple of things from a work perspective is, we created informed consent for employment for any applicant to really think about.
Here are the potential benefits and potential risks that come from working in this environment that not only may you encounter, crisis situations or loss of life, but you also may come to care for people very deeply who then end up passing. On the other hand, you may see somebody who was so hopeless and understanding that person's family mother was really hurting for them to see 13 years later the mother holding a Bible while he's being sworn in as a, as an attorney, by the state bar.
So, so we tried to do that and we've really [00:07:00] tried to invest in mentoring Part of my, professional experience has been seeing some of the risks that can happen when you become a siloed organization and how important it is to be connected to others outside of your organization for perspective to avoid developing, a myopic view or lens of the problem and the solution and to get outside perspective and support.
And so I've really been thrilled to see How we've invested in mentors for employees and how that's benefited them, their personal recovery, their professional development and so forth. And, I think, Thomas knows, very well, we lost somebody very close to us in August and it was something that I think many of us anticipated and, Bill White talks about anticipatory grief for families, like when you're anticipating the loss and what that's like to live with that and It's very complicated, somebody that first met in 2006, somebody [00:08:00] that, worked for somebody who I knew their family in different ways and got to know their their son and where I ended up, at the end of a 17 year relationship was like, all I can do is just, let him know that he's loved.
Like, I love you, and if today's a good day, I'm going to celebrate that. And it was interesting leaving his service which was like the 60th funeral I'd been to for one of our alumni. I ended up stopping at a restaurant with co worker of mine just either was really hungry, but just needed some space to cause I'd sat in that same I'd sat in that same funeral home, uh, two and a half years before when they buried his sister.
And I'd sat in that same funeral home almost three years ago when they buried his fiance. All from overdoses, right? And so we're sitting at this restaurant [00:09:00] and just trying to get some space and so forth. And we look over and there's two alumni and they're grabbing something to eat and they're getting ready to go pick up guys for a meeting, and then a third guy walks in who's an alumni who had just celebrated. 12 years of recovery that week and then I realized that one of the two that are earlier in recovery, about three years in, I'd connected one of them with the guy with 12 years because this guy was on his path to school and wanted to figure out a pathway from Wake Tech to NC State and this other alumni had done it.
And then I was just freaking amazed this week to learn that this guy started working for you guys three weeks ago. That, 
Thomas Hogshead: wow. 
B. Reeves: I want to let Thomas talk to you more directly about this, but you said 75 percent of your employees are alumni of Healing Transitions. We, I don't know what the percentage of them here is, but it's 
Thomas Hogshead: fairly high.
Pretty high. We're about 25%. Yeah. Yeah. So the intersectionality between providers in a different [00:10:00] space, we're all tied together in a profound way. Yeah. 
B. Reeves: And our Healing Transitions alum employees are, they're amazing. I don't want to say they're better than anybody else because that, that, but they are.
They are amazing. 
Chris Budnick: We appreciate it so much. It, it warms my heart, right, to see the opportunity that's being afforded to so many of our alumni that are in recovery through coming to work at New Waters. It's really one of the It's an uplifting thing. It's all of all those things that you need to counter the laws, right?
You start putting in the other ledger column, like you just 
B. Reeves: said just that encounter in the restaurant It was this sad thing think about the 60 funerals you've been to been in the exact same funeral home But then not only was it countered when you run into that There's the twosome at the table, but then the other guys coming in.
Yeah, we were on their way. It's just Yeah, it's a, it's definitely like a ledger, of the pluses and minuses, unfortunately. But you mentioned Bill White and I don't know too much about Bill White. I know that he was a,[00:11:00] wrote the book on treatment. And I also know you're a big historian of N.
A., Narcotics Anonymous. Will you talk about? 
Chris Budnick: Yeah. So, this is interesting. The way that pharmaceutical companies used to engage with doctors was often, like holding events and, really treating them well, so, a physician, psychiatrist friend of mine was being asked by, I don't know, Pfizer or something to host a event at a Mad Hatter's, and this was like maybe around 98.
And I crashed it and and I, it was interesting cause I watched like the doctors that are getting so many like items to go and just the culture around this sort of stuff is they're marketing their medications. And I got a 25 gift card to Barnes and Noble. That was my gift for coming to this event, which I wasn't invited to.
And I used it to buy slaying the dragon the history of addiction treatment and recovery in America. And It was a profound read, and [00:12:00] that was my introduction to Bill White. It was my introduction to his writings and his trainings and his writing style, which was very accessible. And I had emailed with him some as I started teaching at NC State and just wanting some feedback on some topics and things like that.
buT what struck me was a couple things. This kind of overlapped and coincided with starting at the healing transitions, which at the time was the Healing Place of Wake County. And it was very much an AA oriented. group of people that were involved with the founding and very heavy AA orientation.
And that led me to become interested in learning more about the history of AA, in addition to learning about everything that Bill had written about in Slaying the Dragon. And and then also just noticing some of the additional stigma that individuals who are addicted to drugs other than [00:13:00] alcohol face in society.
That even, it's not uncommon for somebody with a history of addiction if they're trying to explain part of their history to substitute, well, I have a history of alcoholism because it's a little more, people can tend to wrap their head around that or be more accepting or less judgmental of it.
So I became pretty interested in just the experience of individuals with addiction and the, How more marginalized and stigmatized they have been historically than just people with alcoholism. And so I, I got very interested in the history of Alcoholics Anonymous. And I became very interested in something called the Narcotic Farm, which was one of the few resources that was really created as an alternative to federal prisons for individuals who are addicted.
And it was because in the 20s the wardens were saying, these Addicts who were coming to our prisons or disrupting our prisons. We need to get these addicts out of our prisons. People saying they're the worst prisoners you can have. And so they set up these two narcotic farms. [00:14:00] The medical director for our detox for many years, Dr.
Al Mooney, what I came to discover is that the things I was researching around the narcotic farm his father had been a patient there. He had first gone there voluntarily and then he'd been probated there in 1959. And The whole story of the first alternative 12 step group to Alcoholics Anonymous, one called Addicts Anonymous that formed in 1947.
It had been formed at the narcotic farm and Dr. Mooney's father, John, had been a member of that group and that was his introduction to recovery. And what was most fascinating about it and listening to a talk by John Mooney is that when he went there the doctors said, we're going to give you the psychotherapy that we have, the best.
Psychotherapy we have to offer, but you need to agree to stay for however long it takes. And he knew he was only probated there for a certain period of time and he knew he wouldn't stay. Once that was expired and so he turned it down [00:15:00] and they said if you're not going to take the best then the only other thing we can suggest is you go to the Addicts Anonymous group.
And so what's fascinating about this to me is that the Addicts Anonymous group introduced so many people to Alcoholics Anonymous. And also led to the creation of other 12 step groups for individuals addicted to drugs other than alcohol. So, by Dr. John Mooney turning down The doctor said is the best.
he Actually got introduced to something that turned out to actually be a lifelong solution for him. Did Addicts Anonymous become Narcotics Anonymous or were they two separate? Two separate things. Does that exist today? Addicts Anonymous? Nope. There's been, no, that Addicts Anonymous does not exist today.
It existed while the narcotic farm was open from 47 until the early late 60s. But a lot of people left there and if they couldn't get assimilated into Alcoholics Anonymous they would start things like Drug Addicts Anonymous in Chicago [00:16:00] in the early 50s, Narcotics Anonymous in New York, which that branch folded and so forth.
But all this stuff was It was just incredibly fascinating to me and also making me think about, the experience of folks who were addicted to drugs other than alcohol in the 40s, 50s, 60s, and what their. what their fate was, which was usually one that did not end in recovery and also robbed their families and their communities of the benefits that recovery can bring.
I ended up getting introduced to Boyd in 2007, as he was interested in learning more about the history of recovery for individuals with addiction. We. We're, particularly focused on the narcotics anonymous story since that's a more it's one of the largest fellowships for individuals addicted to drugs other than alcohol and and in 2009 in trying to make some sense and get some guidance out of our[00:17:00] consulted with Bill White and he said he wanted to collaborate with us.
And so that led to a article in 2011 on the history and culture of Narcotics Anonymous. And then mostly rewarding for me was he asked us to contribute to the second edition of Slaying the Dragon. And so when I had gotten the first edition of Slaying the Dragon, it had a chapter on alcoholic, Alcoholics Anonymous and it had a page and a half on Narcotics Anonymous.
And what he wanted was to create a chapter of its own substance and so we were able to contribute that to the 2014 second edition of Slaying the Dragon, which was really pretty remarkable and And then aside from that, like, Bill's just had a tremendous influence on so many people on our field and helping us think about how to better serve.
individuals, families, and communities and for me what my experience, my entry into the field and what my early experience was was really this acute [00:18:00] care response to a chronic condition and there's so many kind of mistakes or things that I feel like I've had to unlearn and a lot of his teachings helped me a lot of his writings helped me.
With some of that unlearning and to, come to recognize multiple pathways to recovery and to think about different recovery management principles, things that have had kind of a profound influence on how we have evolved our services and our culture at Healing Transitions. 
Thomas Hogshead: And to that point, Chris, I think about the chronicity.
And we had a detox client at HT that I think he had come through. You can speak to the exact count, but the families and the frustration for the staff, for their loved ones and you made a good point. To staff that was frustrated. He said, well, what if that was your father? Would you have that same level of frustration as he came in and out and in and out and this individual has a unique story?
I didn't know if you could touch on that for a little bit. [00:19:00] Yeah, 
Chris Budnick: you know what's there's a lot of dynamics to that So staff frustration is a universal thing that has gone back decades and decades. The Narcotic Farm started off with this kind of vision of we're going to bring people out to a farm with fresh air and activities and we're going to invest all this into them.
And the Narcotic Farm staff got very disillusioned because people would end up using when they went back to their communities. And there was You know, 95 percent relapse rate of people that went to the narcotic farm. So there's this long history of people saying, well, why is this person back here?
What, what isn't working? We've given them this, we've invested in this and they seem to be doing well and so forth. And so, understanding people's communities, Bill talks about Don Coyus and this idea of treating the soil and a healing forest and analogies about that.
And, we. [00:20:00] Bring a tree into good conditions. It does well. We put it back in its old conditions and it starts to deteriorate and we seem surprised. anD then just with the individuals that we serve, regardless of the community, they all differ too, so, one of the things that was very helpful to conceptualize was the idea of problem severity, problem complexity, and recovery capital and how those, uh, impact folks.
But it's You know, it's an understandable, but also difficult thing for the staff who get frustrated. So a lot of times for our staff, this unique frustration was, I'm an alumni of this program. I did these things that were laid out. It worked for me. If this person just does what I did. It will work for them, and that may not be how it's articulated, but that's really the understandable way of trying to make sense of why am I in recovery, but this person's not.
And so there's a couple individuals that come to mind. One is a person [00:21:00] is Thomas was referring to who had just You know, so many frequent detox admissions and then another was one who, when I was doing a crisis intervention team training this week, I always describe like some of these real extreme cases and how perplexing they can be.
And I always, I use code. Which is I say, I'll say, the kind of guy that when he ends up at wake med, they take the hand sanitizer out of the bay and then like the paramedics in there, like I'll watch. And on Tuesday, the two paramedics were like, Oh yeah, like they know who these people are.
And then I was able to say, Oh, by the way, that. That guy's got three years of recovery. He's in Kentucky right now, doing well. The other guy, in 2012, he stayed with us for 90 days. That was working then. Yeah. And And it was like he's never stayed for 90 days before and so what was going on?
Well, the staff were doing different things with him. They kept him in detox for a month. They gave him, they lessened the expectations for him to fit into what everyone else [00:22:00] was doing who was there. That naturally creates some tension. Why does this person not have to do what the majority is doing?
And part of my thinking on it was do you want it? His type of alcoholism, do you want his, would you want to switch places with him? Would you want his brain, because I believe his brain is, just based on research that shows, that people who relapse after treatment tend to have, smaller volume, certain parts of the reward pathway.
And so, so, and looking at this stuff, it was helpful. to staff who understandably you're dealing with somebody who's at their worst, who's not necessarily, filled with gratitude or making the type of change that kind of feels like our experience is paying off, but what we started to do was we I started to think about how do we define success a little bit differently, and maybe for one person it's, in 13 years they'll become an attorney, and maybe for another one it's just that they're not on the street and they're [00:23:00] not being responded to by EMS and and the EMS thing was, In particular of interest to me, so I said, well, do you sign a release for Wake County EMS?
I'd like to know about your transport history. And so EMS could go back to half of 2010. They said, we can give you half of 2010, which was 76 responses and 70 transports and half a year. And and the year that he was with us in 2012. It was down to 18 transports and so it was Hey staff, this may be difficult and frustrating, but guess what, each day that he's here, he's less likely to be being transported by the paramedics to the hospital.
What was particularly impactful and again, this. cOmmunity partnership is so important and our paramedic friends have been so important. They would send new recruits and they would send advanced practice paramedics to spend time with us. And so one day they're visiting with us and they said, Oh my God, he's here.
We had been so worried that something had happened to [00:24:00] him. We haven't been seeing him. And you start seeing this. perspective of the paramedic world where they're like, we know that he doesn't like turkey sandwiches. Right. Right. And so you start seeing those people on the front lines and understanding their experience and their worldview a little bit differently and really seeing so much of the compassion that they have for some of the people that can be challenging and difficult to work with.
So we kept tracking this every year. Email EMS and I'll say any transports this year and for the last seven or eight years, no transports. The other thing is no admissions with us. All right. And we are in touch with them. Yeah. And we were able on his 60th birthday to put the word out there and some of the paramedics and other people.
Thomas and folks were able to reach out to him and wish him happy birthday and so forth. But his path of recovery is somebody that never completed our program. Somebody's probably wasn't going to be capable of completing in the way that we had it designed. But it [00:25:00] spoke to making some adjustments.
And the only thing that was a little bit ironic about it all was he came to me in 2012 at one point and said, hey, I just got a bill. And so like me asking to reach out to EMS for this data, it triggered a generation of a bill and we did a small podcast series a few years back called Voices from the Village and we did one with a One of our advanced practice paramedic friends and we asked this person to come in and record the intro and it was like, Hey, do you know what a podcast is now?
Well, it's it's like the radio, and we just want you to talk a little bit at the beginning of that and we'll add it to the podcast. So number one. When he showed up, he said, I want to donate some clothes because for so many years, I was getting clothes from you guys and so very touching.
And then number two is we're doing this intro to the podcast. It was, hey, do you remember that bill? And we had different recollections of it. His recollection was it was [00:26:00] half a million. Mine was it was 250, 000. So I've always had a little twinge of guilt that, like me asking him to share data generated this huge bill that was outstanding for him.
But. Anyways it's one of the ways, I think it's been a learning opportunity for staff, who, and again I've heard it from paramedics, like we're administering Narcan and then we're back administering Narcan to the same person. Like there's a certain sense of like, are, is what we're doing effective?
Does it matter? Why do we keep doing this? And with the paramedic friends, we, were able to launch this post overdose response. And, basically said maybe if we paired some people with lived experience with you that it could get some people out of that cycle. And so that project's over five years old now and in addition to serving the individual, it's also giving the paramedics a sense of like, we have some resources, so we don't feel like we're so helpless to make any type of impact or change.
We had another guy who. [00:27:00] Between 2017 and 2021 had 54 detox admissions. And my usual sense was if he's not here with us if he's with somebody else, he's giving us a break. And if he's with us, he's giving some other provider a break. And four o'clock today he's invited me to come for a brick placement at our Memorial Garden.
And he's got over two years of, sobriety now, and I ended up writing a blog which I don't do that often, but I've got some really good colleagues, Jason Schwartz, Shane Phillips, Matt Statman, Brian Kuhn. And they've, through Jason's leadership, have this blog site called Recovery Review Blog.
And I don't contribute often, but I was in a supervision session and the woman who runs our family. Support an education program said, Oh, did you hear that his mom sold the suit? for his funeral and those, that those eight words or whatever, I was like, Oh my God, like [00:28:00] that is, you could spend a semester on that.
And with him, I did this kind of blog post, about what does that mean? Like what does it mean for a family to get to a place where they say, We need to go ahead and buy a funeral to bury our son and then the way he learned that his mom had sold the suit was he was going to speak at a recovery meeting and said, Hey mom, I think.
My sponsor said if I wore that suit that you bought for my funeral, it would be impactful, and she said, but we sold it. Wow. We're not worried about having to bury you, so at four o'clock today, I'll be there as they do this brick placement for you. That's awesome. 
Thomas Hogshead: Another commonality is these folks that we engage with over and over again, they're all deeply affable, right?
Like in the recovery rooms, the 12 step rooms, like It's a pretty nice group of people. Yeah. And I think our struggles are what bind us together and staff rooting for those folks that have More so [00:29:00] participants, staff, we can get a little worn down by them. But that kind of cocoon of support is especially existent at HT.
And it's really something special to see, Chris. On that note, maybe you could tell us a little bit, there's some stuff going on down there, I understand. Both at the men's and the women's campus. Could you tell 
Chris Budnick: us about that? Yeah, and what you said just imprompted two other thoughts with me, which is It's somewhat unique in this work where there can be an extreme set of So we had we decided to select two people for staff of the year.
And I said, well, the first, first one we're selecting, he's, his tenure goes back to 2002, but it's really only the last two years that it's been as an employee. So, and what I said was, there were so many amazing things about why this person was nominated and selected, but I said like with seriousness, like, When he's been using, like, I want to hurt him.
Like. Yeah. And [00:30:00] like, that's a huge, like the other thing that's been weird about being in this work is trying to reconcile human, natural human emotions and feelings with, what your professional role is, but that's an, like this guy was such a He just jeopardized other people's recovery the way he came up on campus bringing drugs with them, and things like that So but I love and I've went through this with another guy recently.
I just love how recovery you know how easy it is to See the goodness and the compassion when the person's not impaired by their addiction our Greatest strength and greatest weakness in some ways may be that we provide services on demand and we don't turn people away and the beauty of that is You know, I asked staff yesterday at our holiday luncheon if we didn't operate like that And if healing transitions turned you away when you needed help or if we weren't here What would that have meant and I had two people [00:31:00] talk to me said one person said My sentence would have been until 2040 I wouldn't be sitting here with you right now.
Another person came up to me and said they would be referring to me by a number, not by my name. And so there's some amazing things because we don't turn people away. There's some amazing things because we don't, uh, say there's no room here, call tomorrow. buT there's some tough things with that too, which is severe overcrowding to try to meet the demands.
We are fortunate that the community decided to support us in increasing our capacity so that we could continue the practice of services on demand. And so we're very excited that our women's campus stage one of expansion should be done in early to mid January, which gives us a brand new community room that is large enough to accommodate our growth.
But allows us to move the public and some of the staff out of where the women reside. Excited about that. At the same time, [00:32:00] we should be, our new shelter will be opening up, giving us 80 new beds at our women's campus, but more importantly, creating an infrastructure to support the number of people that we want to serve.
We're averaged 160 women for the month, but that's in a. building designed to support 88 women, right? We'll be going to a capacity of 210, like with the infrastructure, enough restrooms, laundry, dining, and so forth. We'll have some interior renovations that are going on. And then we're really excited that out of this project at the Women's Campus that we've been given an opportunity from a Family Foundation to explore apartment style recovery housing for women and women with their children at our women's campus after they complete the recovery program.
At our men's campus construction is been a little more slow to develop, a lot more coordination because it's property that we lease and working with our partners at the city. So we're expecting to be [00:33:00] done in October of 2024. That expansion is intended to take us from an infrastructure of 165 to an infrastructure of 290.
One of the challenging things is that in October we averaged 347 men a night in our 165 bed campus. And so it's a little difficult that we've exceeded our future capacity. We're getting a little bit of relief St. John's Metropolitan Community Church has opened up White Flag Shelter, but because of the demand has said we'll operate every night whether it's cold weather night or not.
And that's been supported by funding from the city and the county. And that's alleviating some of the demand for our services primarily for those who would end up in our detox if we weren't providing the drop in shelter. Chris, if 
Thomas Hogshead: you had to, do you have a number of how many unique clients you guys have served since opening in 2001?
Chris Budnick: Yeah, so if you look at our database, there's about I want to say about 24, 25, [00:34:00] 000 unduplicated. You got to back out four from there, which are the cats. We got four cat entries in the database from some previous cats that we've served. 
Thomas Hogshead: If you think about that, not only you have those individuals, but you have their families, their.
Yeah. It the reach that, that has, I would argue is more impactful than probably any organization in the state, recovery standpoint has had I've 
B. Reeves: told Chris this over the last few years, I've been to so many treatment centers around the country that are super nice and some of them, a lot of them have great treatment, beautiful facilities, but I don't think there's a place I respect as much as healing transitions.
It's amazing what it does for this community. Just the ripple effect of 25, 000 ish people is probably in the millions of lives 
Chris Budnick: touched in some way. Thank you for the kind words and the respect. Yeah. Well, and 
B. Reeves: also we usually do this at the beginning of this. Will you just just tell us exactly nuts and bolts you backed into it of what healing transistors does.
And we already said when it opened, but just, 
Chris Budnick: just the facts. Yeah. [00:35:00] So identified need in the community around alternative to jails and emergency departments. original concept was get a detox that could be that alternative location. The healing place in Louisville was identified and it had more than just the detox.
It had an emergency shelter that provides basic human entitlement. It's a shelter that people can come in under the influence and it can serve as a a cultivating way to cultivate people into the recovery program. So detox, shelter, and then long term recovery program is what most of our beds are devoted to.
And then we've added, we've either had or evolved the additional services that we would say are the ones that support our core services. So again, core services, shelter, detox, recovery program. We've always had transition case management to help at the end of the recovery program with linkage to recovery housing and employment.
We've always had a healthcare coordinator who arranges healthcare professionals to come in and do clinics. And that role has [00:36:00] evolved to do things like prescription assistance. So this year we're I'm going to do about 45, 000 in prescription assistance. Hopefully that'll look different next year with Medicaid expansion referrals to providers in the community and so forth.
When we opened our women's, we added a child and family specialist. I want to say around 2010 we said, we should start this family education support program. And so we've got somebody that oversees that. We added a recovery outreach program with the idea that with expansion if we don't do some other things differently, we're going to continue to outgrow the space.
So we need to do a better job of supporting people when they leave. Previously we would do follow up with you if you completed the program, but we're a whole bunch of people off by not following up with those who don't complete. And so we've got dedicated staff that works with volunteers to help do outreach to people, whether they stay a day or a year.
We added a child and family peer support specialist a couple of years ago, which was very [00:37:00] exciting because it's a woman that had. been through the program and been served by the child family specialist. And so she's able to be in that role with the lived experience. I mentioned the post overdose response team.
We call it the rapid responder program. And then we've been able through some funding to add some care coordinators and case managers for particularly women at our emergency shelter, and they've been able to get. Over 40 women into housing this year, which is a very impactful service that's being offered.
So, that feels like, in a nutshell, what we do, and we do it by, with no cost to the individual, trying to eliminate or reduce barriers, services on demand, work with people as many times as it takes, use a peer oriented a peer orientation, but not at the exclusion of clinical services. So we partner with folks like Caroline Outreach and Monarch and others to do the clinical care when it's identified.
And we believe in linking people to the [00:38:00] larger recovery community. That's where the lifelong support will come from. And we also use this hand up, not hand out model where we match people's investment into their own change. I love that. Yeah. 
Thomas Hogshead: Chris, what would you say the most rewarding moment has been in your career?
tenure at H P, now Healing Transitions. Does anything stand out in particular or is it an overall? 
Chris Budnick: Yeah, so I come back to this one particular story and there's hundreds of these stories, but there's one that I hold closely and a colleague of mine, Terry we have this kind of ongoing thing where I know it makes her cry, so I ask her to talk about it to people and so she always gets angry at me in a way.
But in 2019 there's a series of losses that kind of accumulated and there was a woman that was struck and killed when she was intoxicated who had walked off from our campus. [00:39:00] There was a guy that I was texting with who was wanting to come back, I was working that out, well, swing by and see on Sunday, come Sunday morning, his mom was going to take him to see the sunrise and then bring him in and get notified the next morning that, he died between the time that we had agreed for him to come in and for him to arrive, his mom find him, found him dead of an overdose.
And then seven, 10 days later from that, a close volunteer and supporter, his stepson had an overdose, which eventually became fatal. And I remember that time feeling just a lot of weight. And I took advantage of our EAP program one because it's what I, what we would recommend to other people.
And I met with some people and so forth. And I did all those things, but the thing that made a difference, All the difference in the world was, I was sitting down for a monthly check in with this employee Terry. And it wasn't part of our [00:40:00] conversation. We're meeting to talk about her work and things like that.
And she says, Hey, I want to let you know that my son got married. And I was invited to the wedding and again there's hundreds of these types of stories. She says I didn't know this, but they had a dance for the bride with her father. And then all of a sudden I found out that I was being asked to go out there and have a dance with my son.
And she says and I'm overwhelmed with emotion and I'm crying. I'm, I'm a decade in recovery, but I'm still, feel guilt and remorse for not being there for my children. And as I'm doing that, my son just hugs me and says, it's all okay, mom, and she's having this profound sense of forgiveness and, experiencing something that she didn't think she was going to get to experience.
And then she says to me, the other thing that happened was I got a picture with my parents. I've never had a picture with my parents [00:41:00] before, right? Something that I take for granted, that many of us take for granted. She says, my parents divorced when I was really young and this is, they were both at the wedding.
It was the first time that I was able to get a picture with both of my parents. So there's hundreds of stories like that. But that story is one that at that moment it countered all the grief I was feeling about these recent losses. And I think that if
To this question, what's been the most rewarding thing? I think it's any time that I see the alumni, uh, come together in an act of love and support for one another. Last Sunday, it was at the state farmer's market restaurant where they held a memorial service for one of our alumni. And watching the way the ladies who've been through our program love on her in her [00:42:00] last days and those are the things that are the Most validating.
Thomas Hogshead: That's amazing. Yeah. That's good stuff. One other thought I have too about is our HT alum on staff here. Their ability to connect with our clients is very profound. We talked about the bond that we have with HT. We're set up differently, but our mission is the same, right?
This first step of like getting into recovery, how does that look? And our, those folks I just mentioned, they're able to relate to people, make them feel comfortable. Like we talked about when I worked for you, make people feel valued because we come in wounded, right? It's it's not a moral failure, our disease, our affliction, but collectively.
On your side of town, our side of town, and we're all trying to do the best we can. Yeah. Any way you would if people wanted to help HT in some capacity, what what are you recommending now? I know we're doing a co drive being winter. What else could we do? What else could folks do to support?
Chris Budnick: I just want to thank [00:43:00] you guys for being sponsors of Oakwood 24 and that's coming up next week and there's lots of ways that people can get involved so that, and to be supportive. One of the first things that we recommend is come take a tour. And tours can be scheduled or they can happen anytime during business hours.
Just come in and want to see, learn more about it. We find that is impactful because somebody may encounter somebody that's in need of our services at some time and we'll be glad to know that it exists. It may lead to them wanting to contribute in some way, either through their talents or services or to contribute financially.
So about 45 percent of our annual revenue is fundraising, so not, grants or government sources and things like that. So we've got a big ask, or big lift every year to try to raise money. And one of the things that drives that for me is wanting to be a living wage organization. We want our employees, again, 75 percent who are alumni, to be able to afford housing in the community that they serve.[00:44:00] 
Well, Chris, 
Thomas Hogshead: we're very grateful for you coming out. Thank you for being here 
Chris Budnick: and for everything you do. Yeah. Thank you for everything you do. I'm a big supporter of you guys. Thank you. Always willing to help out and it's very, warms my heart to think of the people that you hire here and the work that you do.
​

Question 2

Show Notes

Accepted Answer

In this impactful episode of Finding New Waters Podcast, we are privileged to have Chris Budnick, a seasoned professional in addiction treatment and recovery, as our guest. Chris, who is the Executive Director at Healing Transitions, shares his extensive experience and insights into addiction recovery. Having worked in the field since 1993, Chris brings a wealth of knowledge and personal experience to our discussion.

Throughout the episode, Chris Budnick talks about the transformative journey of addiction recovery, both from a personal and a professional perspective. His involvement with Healing Transitions since its inception has been instrumental in driving forward the organization's mission. Chris's role as an Adjunct Instructor at North Carolina State University's Department of Social Work also highlights his commitment to education and mentoring in the field of addiction treatment.

Healing Transitions, under Chris's leadership, offers a range of services aimed at assisting individuals with addiction. These services include long-term recovery programs, overnight shelters, and non-medical detox. The organization operates two campuses – a Men’s Campus located at 1251 Goode St, Raleigh, NC, and a Women’s Campus at 3304 Glen Royal Rd, Raleigh, NC. They also run the Recovered Treasures Thrift Store at 4011 Capital Blvd, Ste 109, Raleigh, NC.

Listeners interested in learning more about Chris Budnick's work or Healing Transitions can reach out via email at cbudnick@healing-transitions.org or by phone at 919-821-1140. For more information about Healing Transitions and their various programs and services, visit their website: [Healing Transitions](⁠https://healing-transitions.org/⁠(https://healing-transitions.org/)

Join us in this compelling conversation with Chris Budnick on the Finding New Waters Podcast, where we delve into the human aspect of addiction and the path to healing and recovery.

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A Recovery Journey with Chris Budnick: A Healing Transitions Story