HAMILTON, Ohio — Sam Mees lights a cigarette. A few minutes ago, she took a drug test. Every day when she wakes up, there’s a chance she might be required to take another one.
It’s all part of a long journey to keep her nursing license after she lost almost everything to addiction. That's why she’s on her way to see her dad.
“He drove me to literally every appointment, every drug screen, every court date,” Mees said. “He’s a big part of my recovery.”
Recovery that meant digging her way out of felony criminal charges for leading police on a high-speed pursuit in 2020.
“It’s an everyday thing," Mees said. "I have to plan my life around recovery. I have to.”
Hear her explain what changed in the video below:
Mees has been sober for more than three years now. Besides her dad, she said medication that treats anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder is what's helped her get here.
“I can’t tell you whether I’d be clean (without it),” Mees said. “And that’s just me being 100% honest. I don’t know if I’d be clean.”
The Sojourner facility she just left treats mental health and addiction at the same time. It’s something advocates say is crucial to finding a real solution to substance use disorder.
I asked the medical director of its opioid treatment program if it’s possible to treat one without treating the other.
“No,” he said flatly.
Yet Dr. Clifford Cabansag said less than half of these drug treatment programs in the country also provide mental health treatment. A lot of times, Cabansag said, untreated mental illness drives substance use. He knows this because he sees patients like Mees every day.
“In order to properly practice addiction medicine, you have to at least practice some psychiatry,” Cabansag said. “It’s absolutely crucial.”
Mees agrees. Because she’s been there. If she stops taking her medication, Mees tells me, she’ll relapse.
It’s happened before.
And as a detox nurse, she sees some of the same people every other week. People who don’t get their mental illness treated and end up back in the same place. People just like she was.
“We see so much mental health, it’s astounding," Mees said, recalling her own recovery. “If I don’t take my mental health meds, I don’t have recovery. That’s how important it is for me.”
Almost as important as her dad’s support. Sitting in his living room, surrounded by barking dogs, Mees starts to cry.
“I wouldn’t have made it without him,” said Mees.
