COVID-19, HOPE Court and the road to recovery in Portage County

When COVID-19 hit in March 2020, Dustin, a resident of Portage County, was out on bond but still using drugs at the time. 

The pandemic led to the shutdown of most businesses and public spaces, including probation offices, narcotics anonymous meetings and other recovery and court services. According to Dustin, this isolation allowed his addiction to grow.

“When I was using it, it was like, how can I get away with this type thing?” Dustin said. “I didn’t have to go see my PO for who knows how long. So it gave me a window to use more.”

Fast forward to beginning of 2021; Dustin was on probation but continued to use, which ultimately led him to jail. 

Before he went to jail, Grant Sandrock, a certified peer recovery supporter for the Portage County Adult Probation Department, informed Dustin of Portage County’s Help, Opportunity and Progress through Education (HOPE) Court. 

Informing drug offenders in jail of the program was a project Sandrock worked on end of April 2021.

“The four month period that I was doing the pre screens were up 600% as far as making contact with people that are incarcerated and getting the word out about the drug court program,” Sandrock said. “So we’re actually at 30 people now.” 

According to the HOPE Court brochure, the specialized court aims to:

• “To ensure participants remain drug free.
• To introduce new ways to live a clean and sober lifestyle.
• To improve familial and social relationships. 
• To create a healthier lifestyle for the participant. 
• To prepare the participant to lead a law-abiding life upon completion of the program.” 

To Dustin, this program sounded like a great way to get out of jail quicker and to lessen his probation from three years to just 16 months. After beginning the program, Dustin said the accountability has made a huge impact on his life. 

HOPE Court and addiction recovery

Since it first began in 2015, Portage County’s HOPE Court has helped individuals arrested for drug-related charges recover from their addiction.

The specialized court, started by Judge Becky Doherty of the Portage County Common Pleas Court, provides offenders with an alternative form of probation. 

“When I became a judge, I knew I wanted to start a drug court here,” Doherty said. “Portage county had nothing like that. They had no community partnership with the treatment agencies or that kind of thing. The court and the agencies were just completely separate. So I knew I wanted to start a drug court and sort of mirror it after the drug courts in Mahoning and Summit County.”

Participants have to choose to be in the program, Doherty said. Once they decide they want to take part, they sign a participation agreement, which agrees to everything the court program is asking them to do. 

The program is structured in four phases, with the first phase being the most intensive, Doherty said. The amount of programming a participant must attend lessens in each phase. 

In the first phase, participants are in programming every day, Doherty said.

“They have IOP, which is intensive outpatient programming,” Doherty said. “So they are doing that three hours a day, three times a week. They have to see probation two times a week. They are drug screened at least once to twice a week, usually more. They are in group counseling and individual counseling. A lot of them have trauma counseling that they have to do. They also have to attend a minimum of three sober support meetings per week.”

Dustin is in phase two of the program, he said.

“The second phase, if they’re doing well, they’re allowed to get a job at that point,” Doherty said. “They are usually done with IOP, but they’re in aftercare. They’re still doing group. They’re still doing their individual. They’re still doing the EMDR or trauma counseling, but we cut their court appearances down to one every other week.”

The program focuses on helping people recover from their addiction, and when they’re constantly in some sort of treatment, their minds are occupied from indulding in their addictions, Doherty said. 

During the initial shutdown in March 2020, HOPE Court faced many challenges.  

“In my opinion, it was harder to do a group meeting when you have everybody on zoom,” Doherty said. “I think the biggest downfall for us was that they could no longer go to in-person sober support meetings. And they became really detached. We saw a lot of relapses during that time. They didn’t have any human connection.”

The COVID-19 pandemic’s affect on opioid addiction

While the opioid epidemic has been a big problem specifically in the 2010s, COVID-19 caused a sharp rise in the number of overdoses.

According to the Mental Health and Recovery Board of Portage County, “overdose deaths rose by 33% … from 33 deaths in 2019 to 44 deaths from 2020.”

The rise in overdoses could in part have been from the isolation that came with the shutdown, said Sandrock.
“They were used to going to in-person meetings and getting that human interaction and face-to-face contact,” Sandrock said. “All of a sudden they all shut down and then you’re on zoom. You don’t get that human contact with your recovery community. A lot of people struggled with it. I feel like from my recovery aspect too, it was rough having just zoom meetings.” 

Services for those struggling with addiction

The people involved in aiding the road to recovery try to do as much as the can to help, Sandrock said.

At the Portage County Adult Probation Department, offenders are supplied with necessities such as clothes, shelter, transportation, rent help and even cell phones if they are in need of it, Sandrock said.

“Coming from the addiction side of things and being in like the legal system, there’s that stigma,” Sandrock said. “You’re just a grimy drug addict. You’re a thief, you’re a liar, you’re a junkie. There’s that stigma that people in addiction have to overcome and realize that, especially in this, in this program, no one is here to try to hurt you. This is designed to help get you into the recovery community. So when you graduate, you’re not just going out blind, you have supports.”