Our Stories
Share the power of long-term recovery. If you are in recovery, a family member, friend or ally of someone in recovery, we want to hear your recovery story!
Learn more...
Voice of the Recovery Community Award
Connecticut Community for Addiction Recovery (CCAR) is the recipient of The Joel Hernandez Voice of the Recovery Community Award!
Learn more…
|
Recovery in the News
Now on the air, drug therapy
Meghan E. Irons
Boston Globe
November 18, 2007
A former user provides forum
As the guest on "Recovery Expressions" drove home a point last week about the state's criminal records law and substance abuse, the phone lines lit up.
You've got to get the housing equation in there, the caller said. "If you are homeless and jobless - that alone makes you want to go back to prison."
Lawrence Dugan, the show's host, interjected. "Why do you want to go back to prison?"
"I'm just saying," the caller responded, "if you have no home, no income, how [are] you going to survive?"
Dugan's guest, Loren E. Roberts, a former addict, ex-offender, and now therapist, chimed in: "We do have an option, and one option is not to go back to jail. We have to get out of that mindset."
It's typical chatter for this Sunday morning talk show, which focuses on addiction and recovery. From 9 to 10 in a small studio in Grove Hall, Dugan listens as former addicts call in to talk about life in recovery, the dating scene, raising children, or how the penal system let them down.
A big guy, with broad shoulders, a raspy voice, and a long, difficult past on the streets, Dugan wants to hear their problems.
Those who run the weekly show - broadcast on WTCH-FM (106.1) and streamed live on the Internet - say there isn't anything else like it in the Boston area that allows addicts to phone in and talk to people who have also struggled to stay drug free.
"It's radio that is projecting therapy," said Roberts, who is also the show's executive producer.
Calls ring in from Boston to South Carolina to Atlanta. Some callers fire off questions, others praises; some simply want to talk.
The "Recovery Expressions" team knows about the hard road to getting clean. Dugan, who grew up in Roxbury and Dorchester, spent 31 of his 54 years in and out of prison and on drugs; Roberts spent 30 of his 57 years in similar straits. Both are now drug free.
Dugan began hosting the show in January, after the station recognized a need to reach out to a struggling segment of a community, where liquor stores dot street corners and drug use and violence from drug crimes are rampant.
"We needed a show that dealt with substance abuse . . . a place where people can vent," said Charles Clemmons, the station's cofounder.
Now sharing the mike with cohost Kevin Thomas, Dugan said he wants to help empower others to build themselves up.
Dugan started using when he was 15. Back then he and friends stole cash registers, took the money, and bought clothes and marijuana. He later went on to use heroin, cocaine, and crack. He has been clean many times before, sometimes a year, other times longer. He got married, had a son, became a minister, and held down steady jobs. But when his wife left him, he returned to drugs.
The turning point came for him in a Columbia Road crack house.
As Dugan and other addicts used crack in one room of the apartment, the teenagers who sold them the drugs waited for new orders in another, Dugan said. The teens would send a 10-year-old boy to check on the addicts.
At one point, the boy asked Dugan for his car keys so the teens could joy ride; Dugan handed them over - for pieces of crack. When they returned, he told them to drive it longer - in exchange for more crack. Some days later, still high and walking on Columbia Road, he saw the boys rolling by in his car as rain pelted him.
That was his final wake-up call, seven years ago, he said. He checked in to a 12-step program, surrendered to his addiction, and has been clean since.
"Recovery Expressions" is Dugan's chance for redemption.
"I feel inside that I let people down," said Dugan, now a mental health counselor at Bournewood Hospital in Brookline, where Roberts also works as a youth therapist.
"Every Sunday morning, I feel I have an obligation to do this show," said Dugan. "I know what it's like to be messed up. What's different is I have a lot more information and I have a lot more motivation. I've been to the point where I feel like I might use something. But if I use, where would I be?
"Whatever happens from doing the show happens, as long as I am staying clean - and helping others stay clean."
© Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company
If you are interested in this show and would like more information, please visit our multimedia resource page.