(mellow music) - There is a lot of addiction in Wyoming because of our isolation.

You go through these small towns, and four o'clock on a Saturday afternoon, the only option you have is a bar.

- Humans are social creatures, and Wyoming is the least populated state in the country.

(dogs barking) - Wyoming absolutely has a drinking culture.

I grew up on a ranch, and everyone drank at every family function, every branding, every gathering, every rodeo.

- Alcohol is a major problem, and people start drinking very young here.

- When it comes to small towns, there's not a lot for people like my age to do, other than really drink and do drugs.

- I started IV drug use when I was 14, and I wasn't the only one.

So many people have passed away from fentanyl, heroin overdoses, so many young people like myself.

- I see a lot of students with mental health challenges.

Some of my friends have addictions to drugs.

- I lost my brother to addiction, cirrhosis and meth.

He had demons.

- Addiction is usually a symptom of something else.

- I had no clue what addiction was.

I had no clue how it affects your brain.

- A lot of people do believe that addiction is a choice.

There's a growing mindset that it's really a disease.

- What's happening in the brain during an addiction is a change in chemistry.

- When you have an addiction, it's not the chemical piece that you're dealing with, there's issues that go much deeper.

- People who suffer from addiction and substance abuse, they're suffering from mental health issues as well.

- There's a lot of evidence to show that individuals who struggle with addiction have trauma backgrounds and trauma history.

- I was physically abused when I was growing up, so it played a huge role in my drinking.

- I was using methamphetamine for 23 years, since I've been 17, and I'll be 40.

- I robbed a convenience store with a gun, and I realized I needed to get clean and sober.

- When you are feeding this addiction, you're not healing.

- People with addiction need some form of connection, and that connection is both physical and spiritual.

Without it, I think you're kind of a lost human being.

- [Announcer] Funding for this program is provided by the Hughes Charitable Foundation.

Energized by love and faith, and inspired by the vibrant community around us, Hughes Charitable Foundation supports organizations that are directly helping those across the state of Wyoming who need it most.

A private donation from Jack and Carole Nunn.

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Wyoming, a proud partner with Wyoming PBS and other community organizations to provide funding for education to raise awareness of the mental health crisis in Wyoming, reduce stigma around mental health, and connect people to available care that promotes positive mental health and hopefully saves lives.

(ominous music) - My husband was suicidal at the time.

The domestic violence was almost every day.

I actually was preparing to kill myself the night before I got arrested.

Had a shot loaded to kill myself, and my three-year-old son came in the room and said, "Mom, I wanna hold you."

And I picked him up instead of that shot.

And the next morning, woke up, and my daughter said, "The cops are here."

I really hated what I was doing, and I know my husband did too.

(sniffing) We were drug dealers as well as users.

We sold Oxys and pain pills.

Then we also sold meth.

There were times where I'd be standing in front of my dresser where the drugs were, in needles and in baggies in the drawer, and I wanted so badly to get high, but at the same time, I didn't, like, "I don't want to do this."

We just couldn't get out of it.

One of us would be ready to get clean and sober and the other wouldn't, and it was just like this teeter-totter back and forth.

When they came to arrest us, it literally was the first moment of my life that I felt free.

Nothing could be worse than what we're living in right now.

(faint radio chattering) - Addiction is a diagnosable mental health condition.

- You often hear individuals talk about it being a choice.

For some people, it's not a choice.

Some individuals, they are born with a chemical imbalance, something that they can't control.

More and more, science is demonstrating that.

(ominous music) - It often has a pretty benign kind of start, "Things are rough, you have a drink," kind of approach, or if you're in pain and you have a prescription for an opioid, and it ends after 10 days and you're still in pain, and your doctor won't give you more, what are you gonna do about that?

But then it really is an insidious disease that catches up with you.

- I went to college down in Laramie.

I was a total hippie chick, had a bandana and everything, and was a tree hugger and (laughing) all of that stuff.

I actually did meth on accident the first time.

I thought it was cocaine, and I didn't do it again for seven years.

I had started taking Adderall to stay up for night shifts.

A friend of mine had Adderall.

Then that ran out.

She lost her prescription for that, and ended up saying that she had some meth.

So I started using that to work double shifts.

I was newly divorced and I needed to support myself and my daughter.

And then it turned to the, "If I sleep with the guy who's selling it, then I'll get it for free."

(car engine whirring) - My dad died when I was three.

A family member would smoke weed with me and drink.

I was about five years old.

And then when I turned nine, another family member smoked meth with me for the first time.

By the time I was 12, I was using it intravenously.

So I started using drugs and drinking really young.

- What we know from research about addiction is that mental health and addiction go hand in hand.

They are connected.

- For people that are suffering from addiction, over 80% of those have mental health dual diagnoses as well.

And what we know is, you can't treat one and not the other, or you won't be successful.

(drummers chanting) (upbeat drumming music) - A lot of people in substance abuse and addiction, they turn to that to help them cope with what they're going through in their life.

- In social media, they're putting down Native people so much, and a lot of our people believe it.

- A lot of people are carrying around their traumas.

They're carrying it around silently a lot of the time.

- Wyoming is also facing some very big financial struggles.

We're at a very high unemployment rate right now.

- Historically, in Wyoming, there are a lot of families who have depended financially on coal mining, generations of coal miners.

And when those mines start to shut down, or they're not as lucrative, or people get laid off, in some of these towns, there's nothing else to do.

There are no other industries, there are no other jobs.

And so these families struggle, and the youth see their families struggling.

And it could be just their family, it could be the entire town.

- In Wyoming in particular, we are really geographically challenged.

- So many people come to us who have been isolated.

There's this huge problem with isolation.

- You have individuals on vast swaths of land that need help, that may not know that, one, services exist, that may not be able to get to those services.

- We've got 99 cities and towns in Wyoming, and half of them are less than 500 people.

So one of our biggest strengths is your communities and knowing your communities.

- We're social creatures.

That's our biology.

We can't change that.

We gather together, and when we don't do that, we end up being something like a lone wolf, which I hate to say it, but lone wolves, everybody thinks that's a really great place to be, but generally, the lone wolf dies, the pack survives.

(wolf howling) - When I was in jail, it wrecked me.

"I love my children.

My youngest son is four, and I have four other children that are older than him.

I'm gonna literally miss everything."

It broke every resistance that I had to getting clean and sober.

"I want my kids back, I want my life back."

(mellow music) (turkeys clucking) When I first got to treatment, I did not want to be judged for everything I'd done.

I was good enough at judging myself and condemning myself.

When I quit using drugs, I was still the problem, and I needed to learn how to manage my emotions and my thoughts, and overcome my trauma and learn to trust again.

- I'm very blessed to be given a last chance by the courts.

Since being here, I have forgiven myself, because I know that God has forgiven me.

- I'm tired.

I'm so tired of carrying the load that was never meant to be mine.

So today, I'm surrendering my guilt, my shame, my addiction to drugs.

(attendees clapping) (water trickling) - I ended up using drugs because of things that happened to me as a child, to escape and create a new reality.

(attendees cheering) But what had happened to me was always there anyway, so it didn't actually cover anything up.

- In Wyoming, I think there's a desire to live deeper, and I think that's shared across the different cultures that you find here in Wyoming.

- I think when you talk about addiction and whether it impacts mental health, it absolutely does.

It's not a perfect metaphor, but you think about an old wound, and if you're battling addiction, you have no time to tend for that wound.

And so if you have a cut on your arm and it gets infected, and pretty soon the infection can spread, the same thing happens with your mental health, I think, if you're battling with addiction.

- What it really truly should be about is addressing the entire wellbeing of an individual, physical, spiritual, mental and emotional.

Fortunately, I work for a place where we focus on that, and we're trying to get people to work on themselves.

Addiction is seen as a secondary thing.

- Volunteers of America, nationally, has been around for 126 years.

- We figure out how to serve people in their darkest moments.

My name's Samantha Satchel, and I'm the clinical program director for Sheridan, Wyoming, for Volunteers of America, Northern Rockies.

(keys clicking) We have three tracks.

The first is our Native American Cultural Enhancement Program, the second is our Christian Enhancement Program, and then the third is the traditional 12 Step track.

- Okay, a couple small ones.

- [Samantha] There is a text, and we have a cultural navigator on staff, who's responsible for implementing that.

- My tribe gave me a chance.

They gave me an opportunity to come to treatment, and to be honest, I never looked back.

My name's Michael O'Brien.

I'm an enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa, and I'm also a descendant of Fort Peck Assiniboine.

A couple big ones, and then we should be good.

I ended up getting an opportunity to work here, and so now I get to be an example of what recovery can look like.

And I'm not perfect, and I let them know that it's progress, not perfection.

I facilitate the sweat ceremonies here at the VOA.

- We go up into the mountains here above Sheridan, and we collect these rocks, which we call grandfathers.

Each rock has a spirit.

- We bless the rocks with tobacco, and then stack, and then the fire is lit.

And while we're doing that, we're getting the water ready to go.

(buckets clanking) Then we just wait for the rocks to get ready.

I can't really give you a timeframe on that.

They're ready when they're ready.

And that's the nice thing about this too, is there's really no time that's associated with it.

Time is kind of a secondary thing.

And that's what it's about, is being in the moment and being present.

- We know the rocks are hot enough when the ashes turn to a grayish, blackish tone and the rocks are glowing red.

(laughing) - It's all buzzing now.

- Yeah.

- [Michael] And so when all that stuff is ready, we go into the lodge and pray.

People, when they go in there, they're revealing things that are close to their heart, being emotionally vulnerable.

It's personal.

- [Group Member] You got one real sacred stuff.

it's called gasoline.

(everybody laughing) - The sweat, it's my own physical sacrifice so I can have a more deeper, sincere and honest connection with my creator.

(singing in foreign language) (shovel scraping) - This one's a little wobbly, Michael.

- [Michael] It's alright.

Bring her in.

(indistinct speech) - We have four rounds.

We just had a prayer round.

We're able to have our visitors here, so we listened to their prayers, and we prayed for our family and the people who are still struggling with addiction.

I've been sober for 95 days.

Came off of a five-year drinking spree after my mother died.

- It was good.

- Yeah?

- Peaceful.

- Yeah?

- Yeah.

A lot of prayers, a lot of good words said, a lot of spirituality, growth, and a lot of encouragement.

This is what it's about.

- I'm from Poplar, Montana.

- Same place.

- Background is Sioux.

Yeah, there's a lot of Wyoming people here, mostly Wyoming.

- One from New Mexico.

I'm from Nebraska myself.

Santee Sioux.

- Come down and see how hot their rocks are.

(chuckling) - Ready for the rock?

- Not quite.

- We're going on to the third round now.

I believe that prayer is greater with strength in numbers.

- We have Assiniboine, both bands of Sioux, Dakota and Lakota, Crow, Cheyenne, Tewa, Arapaho, Shoshone.

We've got Navajos here.

It's kind of a hodgepodge mix, which is really cool, because then they all get to share their own traditions and culture.

Non-natives are allowed, because in this way everybody is related.

And I'm grateful to have people want to come and learn, regardless of what their race is.

I don't care.

Sharing it is something beautiful, and it's something to make the guys and the gals proud of, and it's really good for them to see that they can share their culture, because for a while there we weren't able to.

(gentle piano music) - Ceremony teaches you how to live life.

That's what I always got told.

The ceremonial aspect of Native American culture has been kept really strong, and it's really helpful to a lot of people, especially in our community.

- It was great.

- Good?

- Yeah, the last one was a little bit tough, but we made it.

Yeah, we're finished.

It was my last round with the brothers here.

So, you know, staying sober.

I hope in the future I can run across their paths again, 'cause I use them for strength, you know?

The opposite of addiction is connection.

(gentle piano music continuing) - Because of my mental health issues, if I isolate, then I only have myself to talk to, and that can be pretty dangerous.

I was homeless a lot.

I was a street kid for a while, and I was suicidal.

I robbed a convenience store with a gun, and was sentenced to prison.

I used a lot in prison, and when I got out, I started checking myself into treatment centers.

I believed God took my father, and if he hadn't taken my father, then all of the other stuff in my life wouldn't have happened.

So I was pretty mad.

I realized in that time that all of these people that I had pushed away were essentially on my team, and that really changed the course of my recovery.

- It's really common for people with addiction to feel like they don't have support, and, especially if that addiction has really overridden their normal functioning in life, they lose relationships, they lose jobs, they lose stability.

Support can take a lot of different forms.

It can be community, it can be groups, a therapist, a case worker, an intensive outpatient program.

It could be a residential program.

It depends on how much help they need.

There's a lot of research that shows that when you have a good therapist and you're working with them on a regular basis and you have medication that might be helping with your particular neurochemical imbalance, your brain has a better ability to heal itself.

- In the beginning, and for the first four years of my recovery, I was on medication.

And I took it like I was supposed to take it, and eventually I was able to taper down until I was off medication.

Medication did help.

(gentle music) - I think we are in a mental health crisis.

Coming out of a period of pandemic, that just compounds the problem.

- People are so fearful and full of anxiety.

People are are hurting.

We need that community piece.

And there's something about touch, there's something about being in the midst of others, that helps to bring you out of that isolation.

- I think the most important aspect of mental health is access to spaces where you can express what's going on without fear of judgment.

- When you start connecting with spirituality, you actually start connecting with other people, and that's what it's all about.

That's what people with mental health issues, that's what people with addiction, in my opinion, need.

- So we're 40 Acres.

We have one women's facility, one men's facility.

The one time that individuals from across campus come together is in chapel, and that's on Saturday evenings.

It's not required, but it's something we invite everyone to.

- So much of the recovery work we do is based on understanding, "I need others around me."

Without asking for help, without surrendering in some way and being vulnerable, they're not gonna get better.

There has to be the physical, the mental, and the spiritual that come together.

I have a handful of people who do ministry work specifically, who have had amazing life transformations.

(uplifting guitar music) They've been through so much.

Joe is a guy who's walked through huge tragedies in his life.

- I became a commissioned minister in 2017.

I have six kids and a wife.

I have a six-year old, a 10-year old, a 13-year old, a 15-year old, and a 31-year old.

Because of the person I was, it was all about me, and now I try to spend as much time with my family.

- We're gonna sing you a couple of songs, so if you like to stand up and join us-- - Christina Pettyjohn is another one.

She came through our program here, and now she's back here and she's actually our pastoral care coordinator.

She works right on the campus.

- In my psychedelic life, I was really into coincidences.

And those synchronicities, or coincidences, started happening through Scripture.

And now I call it, "It's not odd, it's God."

I don't have to have it all figured out.

I just need to be looking for the opportunities that are in front of me.

And choosing to do the right thing, rather than what's easy, is really hard sometimes, but it's never let me down.

My husband went to a different treatment center than VOA.

After eight-and-a-half months, we were actually able to talk again, and discovered that the other one had found a spirituality, had found a higher power.

We decided, "If we really have done this, if really what has happened to me has happened to you, we could be together."

We had a judge, we had probation, we had therapists, and we had to ask permission to even see each other.

The most rebellious people you could ever have met actually have to have permission, you know, ask.

It was very humbling.

We just did it right for the first time, which made everything possible.

We got our kids back.

We did get married, and the same judge that sentenced us is the judge who married us.

Eight years ago, we had a needle in our arm.

And now we're ministry leaders.

♪ That saved a wretch like me ♪ ♪ I once was lost ♪ ♪ But now I'm found ♪ ♪ Was blind, but now I see ♪ We offer rededications or baptisms for our men and women patients.

A rededication is for someone who has already professed faith, but they have turned away.

- Rededication.

Ever since I was very small, I've done and seen it all.

Raised around fights, drugs and alcohol.

Was a little sad.

I was physically abused by my dad pretty bad.

I was sexually abused by this one lady, who always made me feel a little shady.

I chose not to stay.

I ran away and became a stray.

- So, Joey, in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, we rededicate you to Jesus Christ.

God bless you.

(attendees applauding) - We've almost had a thousand baptisms now in our chapel.

- What we really believe here is that it's about a renewal.

So when you're being lowered beneath the water, there's kind of a death to your old self, your old ways, and when you rise again out of the water, there's a renewal.

(gentle music) - We celebrate recovery.

We celebrate the fact that they're doing something to better their lives.

They want to be there, be present in the moment, and be present for their family, be present for their community, and that's the opposite of isolation.

- Addiction is a lifelong struggle.

It's a chemical imbalance in the brain, like a lot of mental health issues that we address.

It means that you have to learn to live with it, and that requires a lot of support.

I think it's important for people to have options in the resources.

One thing is not going to work for everyone.

It's not a one-size-fits-all approach.

- We do have pretty robust mental health resources in the State.

We have community mental health centers, and that's really the backbone to making sure that everybody can receive care, regardless of their financial status or their ability to pay.

Community mental health centers provide outpatient services in mental health and in substance abuse in all 23 counties.

We cover the entire State.

And then they provide residential treatment for mental health, transitional housing, or residential substance use disorder.

During the pandemic, we have seen this unprecedented amount of people struggling with both mental health and substance use.

- Wyoming does kinda have that mentality of pull yourself up by the bootstraps, cowboy up.

Sometimes that can be helpful, but it can also be very harmful.

So it's finding the balance of how to use that internal strength for recovery and wellness, and how to put it aside when it prevents you from getting the support and the help you need.

(gently uplifting music) - Even if you're in this big wide open space, you're not alone.

You're never alone in Wyoming.

There's always a neighbor down the road, which is, again, what we love about Wyoming, is there's always somebody there to help.

(gently uplifting music continuing) - To this day, I still think of myself as this little girl who got abused.

And if I knew of a girl that that happened to, I would be completely compassionate and have empathy for her and want to be kind and gentle with her, rather than, you know, "You've screwed up," or, "You've done something wrong, and no one will love you, and you'll never get over this."

I would never say that to someone else.

And in treatment, I really learned to talk to myself that way.

- If I wouldn't have been offered help, I would probably be dead now.

I don't think I would've made it this far.

I think the conversation has already started in Wyoming about mental health, but I think we need to foster that.

I think we need to fight the stigma everywhere, not just in Wyoming.

- Being able to openly and honestly admit that I'm an alcoholic and addict, that's the cowboy way.

That is truly the cowboy way.

Standing up for who you are, what you believe, standing up for the people you care about, (laughing) that's the cowboy way.

(gentle music)