RICHMOND, Va. (AP) - Kari Grimes, who spent much of the past decade chasing heroin or cocaine, said that at 29, she finally grew tired.
Tired of running to the streets to numb the pain she felt. Tired of the disappointment on her father’s face after finding her doped up in yet another hotel room or slum.
“Life happens on life’s terms,” said Grimes, now 30. “Our way of dealing with it was to run to the streets. At the end of the day, there is nothing left in the streets but to die or end up in jail. We realize that.”
On April 20, Grimes was among a group of eight new graduates of Richmond’s Adult Drug Treatment Court program, an intensive program for nonviolent offenders battling addiction. It’s essentially a diversion program that keeps addicts out of jail and in treatment.
Qualifying for graduation means the participants have maintained sobriety for at least 180 days - Grimes has been sober since Oct. 26, 2016, when she was last locked up - paid court fees, finished community service, and completed a recovery or 12-step program and other drug court requirements, which takes a minimum of 16 months.
“It’s just really like the beginning of a new life for me,” said Grimes, of New Kent County. “It’s not the finish of the hard work I have to continue to put in. I still have to maintain my sobriety, and keep the constant reminder of where I came from to remind myself, I don’t want to go back there. I can’t ever forget where I came from.”
Her father, Rick Grimes, beamed from the audience as his daughter took the stage at the Richmond Police Academy and thanked him for sticking with her through it all. His eyes were still wet as he hugged her after the ceremony.
“It’s kind of a relief,” he said. “It’s been a journey that I wasn’t sure would ever come to an end. But I never gave up on her.”
Kari Grimes said she’d tried several other recovery programs before, but never found the success she’s had in drug court. Her father points to the structure and length of drug court. If not for the program, he fears she may have been one of the thousands in Virginia who’ve died of an overdose in the past decade.
Drug overdoses killed at least 1,534 people in Virginia last year, the fifth straight year the state has seen those figures increase, according to data released earlier this month by the Virginia Department of Health.
Fatal overdoses in the city have risen steadily since 2010. In 2017, 115 people died of a drug overdose in Richmond. That’s more than 50 deaths for every 100,000 people - one of the highest rates in the state and nearly three times the state average, according to the data.
Richmond’s program began in 1997 as one of three pilot programs in Virginia. Today, there are 45 across the state, including in Chesterfield, Hanover and Henrico counties. Last year, Henrico had to temporarily halt referrals to its program because it was over capacity.
Each program differs on how it treats the addiction, and even who can enroll. In Henrico, drug court is designed solely for defendants with probation violations, according to Mike Feinmel, a deputy commonwealth’s attorney who oversees the program.
Richmond’s program is voluntary for nonviolent felons with pending cases in Richmond’s Circuit Court - the referral to the program must come from a judge and be approved by a prosecutor. Dealers, those with prior convictions for distribution, and those with violent felonies are not eligible.
Judges C.N. Jenkins Jr. and W. Reilly Marchant preside over drug court hearings each Friday. Participants are required to complete five phases of outpatient treatment. The supervision relaxes through each stage, but during each, the participants must appear in court on Fridays, attend a certain number of one-on-one counseling and group meetings, submit to scheduled and random drug tests, and perform community service, all while maintaining a job or going to school.
All of the clinical services are offered in-house, which makes Richmond’s program unusual. A relatively new addition to those services is medication-assisted treatment, which uses drugs with less risk for overdose death to wean patients off heroin and prescription painkillers. Critics argue that the replacement drugs in some parts of the state haven’t been well-regulated and have ended up fueling illegal street distribution.
Marchant said completing the program is cathartic, not just for the participants and their families who are just as invested in their loved one’s success, but for him and the staff as well.
He said drugs, along with gun violence, are driving crime in Richmond.
“It’s drugs and guns,” he said of his typical criminal court docket. “All day long.”
The program can accommodate up to 80 participants at a time, which Marchant acknowledged isn’t enough to put a dent in the city’s drug problem. But he and others who work with the court said they hope it’s breaking the cycle for those who complete the program and their families, which over generations could make a significant impact.
“They know that if they come, they’re going to have to work,” Gloria Jones, the program’s longtime coordinator, said of its participants. “I think that reputation has been put out there. But they also see that the staff is fair, we’re not out there to hurt them. It’s a no-nonsense approach.”
Clinical supervisor Jennifer Walker said it’s quickly apparent which people are serious about the program.
“There are so many expectations,” Walker said. “So many of our people come in and they have never even had to schedule a day out before. They’ve never had to get up and be anywhere. It’s just a major culture shock.”
Relapses are not unexpected, but Walker said the staff gets to know the participants so well that they can sometimes see a shift in behaviors before the individual slips.
“We want to get ahold of them before they spiral,” she said.
Over the years, Jones has seen the drug of choice change from cocaine, popular during the ’90s when the program started, to opioids, mostly prescription pills or illegal heroin. But with so much focus on the opioid crisis, those drugs can be harder to find, so many addicts have gone back to cocaine, she said.
Participants are often younger today and have far less family support, as many came from homes where family members also battle addiction, Jones said. Despite that, the program has a measure of success. Only about 1 in 5 graduates are arrested within two years of leaving the program, according to Virginia’s Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission.
“With some, we have to start from scratch,” she said. “Rarely is it that we’re just dealing with their using.”
Khiry Faison said the program not only helped him to fight his addiction but also taught him anger management and coping skills. The 27-year-old had been using since he was 17.
“It gave me a better perspective on how to handle situations,” he said. “I’m better just dealing with things. Rather than, like (Grimes) said, numbing it. The problem is still there, so it’s better to just deal with it head-on.”
Faison and Grimes have been friends for years, they said. They leaned on each other through the program - they were arrested on the same day, the day they both got clean, and on that Friday, graduated together.
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Information from: Richmond Times-Dispatch, http://www.richmond.com
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