MADISON RECOVERS: Connections Counseling offers peer-support and positivity

Note: The Madison Recovers series is looking at Madison's recovery community, including the increase in opiate abuse in Dane County, local treatment options for those in recovery, and growing initiatives aimed at combatting substance abuse in and around Madison. The first installment looked at the growing problem of opiate use in Madison. The second installment looked at efforts to build a community for recovery. The third installment looked at UW-Madison's approach to working with students in recovery. Last week, we wrote about Aaron's House, which works with college-age people in recovery.

When Shelly Dutch moved back to Wisconsin after traveling around the United States, she was looking for “a place where people could go from hopeless to hopeful.”

"It's not like I had a business plan, it just evolved,” said Dutch, founder and director of Connections Counseling. “I'm in recovery from drugs and alcohol, and when I was in my 20s there wasn't a safe place to go where I felt supported. I felt very alone. I always wanted a place where people could come and feel respected.”

After obtaining a counseling degree and AODA certification, Dutch spent years working with a series of private practices as well as with the University of Wisconsin-Madison, teaching pharmacology and the progression of the disease of addiction. Since founding Connections Counseling in 1993, she has seen it outgrow three locations and has served hundreds of patients with treatment programs that focused on self-determination and peer support.

The center has a wide array of groups including gender-specific and family sessions as well as individual meetings. The programs offered include opiate specific treatments, intensive outpatient programs, suboxone programs, and meditative and behavioral therapy programs.

With a staff of nationally renowned psychologists and therapists, Connections also is one of the two Dane County providers of BASICS and CASICS, two harm-reduction models that help educate at-risk patients about marijuana and alcohol. The center's strong relationships with Madison College, UW-Madison and Edgewood College act as a resource for students who need additional support outside of their campus communities.

“I'm proud of the staff, I'm proud of the hard work the patients do. The thing I'm most proud of in the clinic is our mentor program,” Dutch said. “The longer people are involved in treatment, the better the outcome will be – especially in that first year – so we have a program where after three months of sobriety, we allow people to attend groups and the mentor groups for free. It's really the essential key to what keeps people invested.”

Devin Bakke, one of Connections Counseling's mentors, shared his path to recovery, and how group meetings have allowed him to progress.

“The suboxone program helped,” Bakke said. “I'm happier now, but it's been a journey. Connections has been a huge help with everyday stress. I don't have to take everything on myself. Just listening to what other people have to say and realizing that I'm more alike than I am different than people who are sharing.”

Dutch believes that the mentor program creates a tight-knit community that fosters solidarity, respect, and above all, persistance. The center relies on meetings and outreach as its major sustaining tools instead of advertising.

"We go into schools and businesses, and we're proud about being in recovery. We try to give others permission to embrace recovery,” Dutch said. “When Devin goes to a meeting, he starts talking about his own recovery. He carries the message. That's the power really. It's attraction not promotion.”

Despite the fact that she doesn't use advertising, word-of-mouth keeps Connections groups full. In fact, according to Dutch the need for recovery and addiction treatment in Madison is still not being met, with a shortage of halfway housing, sober housing and holistic peer-support groups.

“We just opened up a satellite in Jefferson County because there are so many communities that need what we have,” Dutch said “Access to treatment is shrinking and becoming more of a problem.”

In addition, HMO limitations, high deductibles and co-pay rates, and a lack of insurance coverage for mental health can limit potential patients as they seek help. Dutch stresses that without better education and public understanding of addiction, treatment for substance abuse – whether it's medication or peer-support groups – will be continually underfunded. 

“Education about the disease (of addiction) opened my mind to the fact that there has to be something bigger to help,” Bakke said. “Meetings are a constant reminder that I need to stay vigilant. Let's say I go over to someone's house. My first instinct would be to check medicine cabinets. When that thought pops up, I kind of play the tape forward. Where is this going to lead me? Taking these Vicodin, it's going to feel good now, but it's going to lead me down to where I've been before.”

Those reminders are what makes Connections so successful according to Dutch. For patients, there are daily social gatherings, events and group meetings in order to avoid isolation and maintain a positive connection and outlook. Above all, Dutch wants to help her patients avoid relapses, and if they do occur, she wants them to come back to open arms. With a wall of photos showing lost friends and patients, most.

“It's a lifetime process. The meetings are so important because they're investing in their recovery, which isn't just something you get right away,” Dutch said. “One of the biggest obstacles is isolation: the fact that so many people try to do this themselves with will power. The concept here is 'together we recover,' and meetings are a huge part of that.”