The effects of COVID-19 are not limited to illness or death, but manifest in ways that impact even those who never test positive.
For Lacey Elkins, one of those effects is something that is particularly dangerous to the men she works with at Extra Mile Recovery, a small residential addiction treatment center in Mantachie.
“The one thing all of us have been affected by is the isolation COVID-19 has caused,” Elkins told the Columbus Exchange Club during Thursday’s weekly luncheon at Lion Hills Center. “We hate isolation, but for the addict isolation is something they know and love. Addicts prefer isolation when they are using, either isolating with other users or by themselves. It’s a part of their addiction.”
That, she said, is something the staff at Extra Mile Recovery, a 23-bed facility in Itawamba County, is keenly aware of.
“Since COVID-19 started, there’s been a 30 percent increase in overdoses,” said Elkins, the center’s admissions coordinator.
Founded in 2017, Extra Mile is a privately-owned treatment center for men that focuses not only on addiction but the root causes that are often associated with addiction.
“We’ve seen the drug/alcohol treatment industry not help a lot of people during the past decade as the opioid and prescription pills crisis began in the early 2000s,” Elkins said. “What we do that is different is that we focus on the issues, not just the substances. We believe that abuse of alcohol and drugs is a symptom of what’s going on. That’s why a big part of what we do at Extra Mile is therapy-intensive. There is trauma behind almost every addict and we dig deep to address that trauma. It’s not a sober-living facility. We go beyond the drugs or alcohol to get at those issues.”
That strategy, Elkins said, has proven successful.
“It’s hard to define success in the treatment industry,” she said. “There’s not a definite standard to apply, but the success rate for those who complete our 90-day program and do some sort of aftercare is 82 percent after six months. The average is in the 30-percent range.”
Elkins said Extra Mile has started seeing more clients from the Columbus area through its growing relationship with Baptist Memorial Hospital-Golden Triangle.
“We are not a medical facility, so we don’t have a detox program,” Elkins said. “The men we treat are often referrals from hospital detox units. When the hospital in Tupelo (North Mississippi Medical Center) closed its detox unit, Baptist became the closest detox unit and we’re working with them more and more. We get quite a few referrals from Baptist.”
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
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