Berkshire Eagle
PITTSFIELD — Judge Charles W. Groce III brings his life experience to work with him every day.
Groce, who runs a specialty court in Springfield for people living with substance use disorder, said rather than seeing those he encounters as “others,” he sees in them his own family, friends and those he grew up with.
“I’m a child of addiction,” he said. “But because I’m here, I’m also a child of recovery.”
He spoke to a group of about 80 people who work in addiction recovery in Berkshire County who were in attendance Monday for a Berkshire Opioid Awareness Summit event at the Berkshire Innovation Center.
The disease of addiction can be generational, he said, passed down through nature and nurture. But Groce, the presiding justice of the Springfield Drug Court for the past seven years, said that treatment can also be conveyed.
He’s seen it firsthand at drug court, a specialty court aimed at fostering recovery. There are 28 drug courts operating within Massachusetts district courts, including one in Pittsfield. Its participants do the work of recovery in the very same courthouse where many have previously experienced traumas like being separated from family or sentenced to jail, he said.
The scene at drug court at times seems like therapy, at others like Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous and even occasionally like a comedy club, he said. It’s an environment aimed at tackling an addiction that feeds off the human spirit.
“The opposite of addiction is relationship,” he said.
He called on the providers at Monday’s session to be nimble in their practices, to recognize what works and what doesn’t, then be ready to make changes accordingly.
In the Berkshires, the number of fatal opioid overdoses fell 24 percent in 2022, then remained mostly flat the following year, said Andy Ottoson, senior planner for the Berkshire Overdose Addiction Prevention Collaborative.
With the aim of preventing fatal overdoses and bringing that number down to zero, Ottoson stressed the importance of harm reduction initiatives such as providing free naloxone and test strips for screening substances for the presence of fentanyl. Addressing the addiction crisis also requires tackling root causes of chronic stress, like access to mental health care and housing.
Full article HERE.