Today is our final episode with Judge Amber, and it is phenomenal the many tools that her Drug Wellness Court participants receive in their program.
The statistics and the stories of recovery add to my hope that people suffering from the disease of addiction can find help even with their legal consequences.
I appreciate how generous Judge Amber was with her time, this has been such an educational experience for me, and I hope for you.
Treatment is so much more effective than incarceration for people with the disease of addiction!
See full transcript below.
00:01
You’re listening to the Embrace family recovery podcast, a place for real conversations with people who love someone with the disease of addiction. Now here is your host, Margaret Swift Thompson.
Intro: Welcome back friends! Today is our last episode with Judge Amber and she shares about the tools the drug court participants gain in their program while sharing powerful statistics on Drug Wellness Court outcomes and powerful stories of recovery. Let’s continue to learn from Amber.
The Embrace Family Recovery Podcast
Margaret 01:11
So, I can only imagine you have some of the most heartwarming and heartbreaking scenarios in front of you on a regular basis.
Judge Amber Craft 01:20
I love what I do. It’s extremely powerful. But it’s also like what you said, it’s extremely difficult to be the heavy. When I’m sentencing someone, I don’t know, at all. I just know a little bit about their background, this is the crime that they did. These are the sentencing guidelines. Here’s how I’m going to sentence them. Versus someone who I know their wife’s name. I know how old their children are. I know where they work. I know what their struggles are. A lot of times people get to the point where they share really powerful trauma with me. And then, if I have to be the heavy, it’s a lot harder. But it’s so important, though, that there’s that accountability piece to this. I think this sounds kind of cheesy, but I believe that drug court for me is a lot like parenting. And I had a person tell me one time that discipline is every bit as important as affection in loving a child. And I kind of have that same concept in drug court. I want to praise you; and I want to build a connection with you. But I also I’m gonna hold you accountable, because otherwise this process doesn’t work. And as difficult as it is, that’s what I remind myself that I need to do that.
Margaret 02:30
It’s ironic that you took it back to parenting because that’s exactly what flashed in my head when you’re describing it. That if you didn’t have that accountability piece, the disease would be getting off scott free, just like an enabling parent. Is it devastating? Of course, you want everyone who comes to your court to do well, I’m sure just like everyone who I served in a treatment setting. All my family clients, I want the best story outcome possible. I don’t have that power. Nobody does. And it is devastating when the story is different. And it is with this life-threatening illness. very real risk.
Judge Amber Craft 03:05
Yeah. And right now, I just had this conversation this morning in veterans court I asked him what are you most proud of? And he was like I’m clean and he said you know the 23rd it’ll be a year. That’s, that’s a big deal. He smokes, smokes crack, and they lace crack with fentanyl now. Everything’s laced with fentanyl, you smoke marijuana even. It’s Russian roulette. And that’s the game. It’s a different game right now, today, this year. And it gets more and more dangerous, which is another thing that really keeps me motivated. Since I’ve been on a drug court judge. We’ve had two ODS where I’ve lost a participant. And that I mean, I’m sure you can imagine is extremely devastating.
Margaret 03:48
It’s actually pretty remarkable. Amber was wondering the numbers in my head; I would have expected them to be higher. That says a lot for your program.
Judge Amber Craft 03:55
Yeah, so right now we have 86 participants, and I don’t see all 86 every week depends on where they are in the program, but we’ve had 626 graduates from 1998, until last year. Our recidivism rate is about 23%. So only 23% of those people reoffend.
Margaret 04:14
Roughly, what’s recidivism rate for someone who does not go through drug court?
Judge Amber: Oh, my gosh,
Margaret: 70/60%.
Judge Amber Craft 04:23
Yeah, maybe even higher, especially if it’s someone heroin or crack or even meth. People just don’t get better without significant amounts of treatment. And one of the things that I kind of brag about the treatment court, I said, it’s the best treatment possible that you can get, because it’s basically a two-year intensive program with an entire team devoted to you know, we have three probation officers, and 86 participants, and that’s their whole job, is to focus on those. The case manager, that is their whole job is to focus on those people and their recovery, you know, and the accountability of having to come and stand before a judge every week and potentially be sanctioned or that accountability piece, it’s just I don’t know, it just works really well.
.
Margaret 05:06
I love learning new things. I love having perspectives given to me that shift my thinking, because obviously, this is not a world with which I have much experience.
Judge Amber: I didn’t really talk about the fact that in drug court, we don’t just do treatment, we require people to work, they have to get their GED if they don’t have their diploma. If they’re not able to get their GED, because we have some people that are going to come in and in two years’ time, that’s not an achievable goal. We set educational goals for them, or vocational goals. You know, we’re looking at the whole picture too. And that goes to that pride piece, having a sense of pride and worth, you know, I have a job, I’m paying my bills. I hear that all the time when I ask people what they’re proud of. I’m taking care of myself, I’m paying my bills, I have a stable job. I mean, that’s something that a lot of us take for granted. But to these people in recovery, it is everything.
Margaret 05:56
The other piece with that is you’re setting them up to have skill sets, knowledge bases, and experience that helps them alongside recovery, which is huge. Just being sober is enough of a challenge for most people, but it’s also rewarding. We have to know how to apply for a job we have to know how to have the skill sets to get jobs. We have to write resume, you know, so all of that to help people who may not have those skills because they’ve been active in their disease most of their adult life.
Judge Amber Craft 06:26
And our case managers do all that, you know, okay, we’re going to get you set up with the tutor for the GED. We’re going to set you up with some vocational training or if somebody’s trying to get their birth certificate because they also have to come in and do bloodwork. And we make sure that they’re healthy, we found that people come in and they get their bloodwork, and they find out, you know, we’re talking about long term IV drug users. And so, we make sure that that piece is okay, as well, I forgot about all these other things that we do, because we are really focused on drug and alcohol, mental health treatment, but there’s, you know, there’s a lot more to the program.
Margaret 06:58
It’s much more well-rounded, it sounds like a whole person. And the other thing with that is, like you described, they get to come into a program where they have a team that will assist them with all of those needs.
Judge Amber: Right?
Margaret: Where else in the world you get that?
Judge Amber Craft 07:12
You don’t, but assist being the key word, we’re not doing all these things for them. We’re like, alright, this is what you need to do and how you need to do it. And if they don’t do it for themselves, then they don’t do it, but guiding them. And ultimately, we guide them a lot in the beginning. And we back away a little bit as they progress. And you know, it’s interesting, we have graduation in two weeks. And some people, I say, well, how’s it feels to graduate, you’re getting ready to graduate, some people are like, it’s awesome, I can’t wait for this to be over, you know, because it’s, it’s a lot. And I have probably more people than not say, I’m afraid. I say, well, that tells me that you take your recovery very seriously, and that you understand the resources that you have. I said, but I always talk about this, we’re not going anywhere. Two years from now you have a problem. You need to contact somebody, call us we’ll be here, we’ll help you get whatever you need. But what we really hoping is that toolbox that we help you put together, that you’re going to take that with you and your hand out into the world. And you have all those tools there at your disposal to use that you didn’t have when you started this program.
Margaret 08:18
It’s beautiful. It mirrors rehabilitation, when I believe it works to the best that it can possibly work. But almost even more because of the whole person surround of resources, the stepping down the pulling away from the more intensive into the less intensive but creating a toolbox for them to go out and utilize in their home in their world is beautiful. It’s a beautiful program.
Judge Amber: Yes. Yep.
Margaret 08:45
Do you have people come back and share their ongoing journey? I think that would give people also out there listening, a lot of hope to hear, you know, yes, there’s sadly been two losses, which is still remarkably low. On the flip side of that. What are some of your favorite recovery stories of people who’ve gone through the system, the program, and now we’re there at?
Judge Amber Craft 09:07
Well, a lot of times at graduation, we have former graduates come back and speak. So, they speak at graduation, and which is always incredibly powerful, especially people who have a success story. Like for example, we have a gentleman who started a gym, like a health food business that he’s created. A lot of our participants, they go into recovery, and they get their certified recovery specialist certificate. And then they work in recovery, helping other people get to recovery, which is beautiful.
We had one graduate and she was DUI court. She wasn’t one of my graduates, but she came to graduation in a graduation gown and cap because she was so excited to graduate. And she started her own cupcake business. It’s amazing. Her cupcakes are amazing. And I buy them now for any event that I have. And then all of our treatment court graduations we serve her cupcakes to everybody.
I went with two my probation officers to, there was a recovery house and they were having an open mic night. And one of our graduates came to treatment court the week before, to say hey, we’re having this open mic night, we’d love for you to come if you have a talent to share, if you just want to sit and hangout. And he performed so he was a graduate, he plays a guitar. And then we had another graduate who was going to do a rap. He was supposed to rap at graduation, and he chickened out. So, I was like I’m going because I want to see him rap. And he did and I got to watch them both perform. It was just really special to know that they’re both connected to each other and still connected to their recovery network and helping other people.
That’s what I love to see. We do require that participants, they have to attend an alumni panel. So, what happens is we get a couple of alumni to come back and sit in a room with people who are in the program and share their stories, ask questions, answer questions, things of that nature. And that’s a requirement. So, we get people to come back. But every now and then we have graduates who come back. We had one who came back a couple of weeks ago and he just wanted to sit, share his story with everybody and just basically professes his love to the team, you know, thank you so much. And there’s a few things more powerful.
Because so many of them say, if I can do this, anybody can do this. If you would have seen me at the beginning of this program, and where I am now you would know that it works.
11:26
This podcast is made possible by listeners like you.
Margaret
This podcast embrace family recovery has been a joy to make, I have been introduced to some of the most interesting people which I feel, have given such a variety of experiences around the disease of addiction. I hope you’ve enjoyed them to please share the podcast with anyone you think it could benefit, spread the word, tell people about it, post about it, anything you can do to help get more people to hear the hope in the messages of people in recovery as family members. Another thing that would be really helpful is if you could go to Apple podcast and write a review. The algorithms matter, reviews matter, ratings matter. So, if you can go on Apple podcast and rate and review what you found valuable in the podcast, embrace family recovery, it would help this grow and reach more people.
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Margaret 12:37
How prevalent is treatment court in the United States? Gosh,
Judge Amber Craft
Gosh that I honestly don’t know. Not prevalent enough? I mean; I definitely see. And I believe that criminal justice is shifting more towards treatment, because we’re seeing again, prison populations are decreasing, because I think a lot of criminal justice systems are recognizing throwing people in jail doesn’t work, especially with someone who’s struggling with addiction.
Sometimes they come out worse than they went in. I don’t know the statistics. But I see especially in Pennsylvania, I’m seeing that shift away from incarceration towards treatment. And it’s critical. It’s the it’s the criminal justice system of the future. Now, that doesn’t mean we do away with our traditional system. I mean, we have to have that. But being a drug court judge makes me a better regular judge. Because when people come in, I’m just so much more aware of other issues that that I can help. Maybe point people in the right direction, you know, in the process, so that they can get the treatment that they need. A lot of times if you go and you, you get treatment, and you kind of get help the district attorneys are willing to give you a better offer reduce your charges, because that’s what we all want is just people who aren’t going to come back into the system, and the best chance we have at that is getting them treatment.
Margaret 14:01
What is the resistance? Not with participants in your treatment court, but in the world? In the community? I mean, are people on board? Do people see the benefit? Or is there still a need for education and understanding out there of the differences?
Judge Amber Craft 14:18
Oh, no, there’s an incredible need for education. A lot of people refer to treatment courts as hug a thug. Like, all you do is clap, clapping court, you know, and it’s absurd. You know, there’s a lot of people who think that and what I say to those people is come watch my court, come sit in the court, spend an entire day in drug court, and then tell me you feel the same way you do right now. It’s a matter of ignorance, really, of just not knowing how these things really work. It’s kind of been other judges, even in our court, not really buying it, back in the day. In fact, the kind of the Pioneer drug court judge in our county was not a believer, he ended up being not only a huge convert, but he ended up being one of those, kind of like a legend in the state with respect to his impact on the drug wellness core community statewide.
And, you know, I say, hug a thug, and that it sounds terrible. But that’s the concept behind it is just, we’re not going to clap and hug these criminals, and they’re going to stop doing what they’re doing. And that just shows a true ignorance of everything that we’re trying to do in in the wellness courts. To answer your question, there needs to be opened up more education, the shift is slow. But I know that’s a goal that we have our court is just more education and exposure, you know, exposing people to what we do and introducing them to the treatment courts and how they’re helping and benefiting the community.
Margaret 15:46
I would think a way to do that if it doesn’t go against the participants. anonymity would be to have some of your alum share the power of what it was for them and what helped them and how it was different than being locked up.
Judge Amber Craft 16:02
Well, typically our court is private, especially what we do in staffing, what we discussed and staffing. I mean, because there’s a lot of waivers that are signed for us to discuss the information that we do. But as far as what happens in court, we don’t open up that court to the general public. But once someone graduates, they can say whatever they want to say about whatever they want to discuss, and they do, and they, you know, typically, if you’ve graduated from treatment court. It’s two years of blood, sweat and tears, and you’ve made a considerable change in your life. And most of the people that graduate, and they want to share that they want to other people to experience that.
Margaret 16:42
I bet. And they were probably the number one person to help the community at large understand better the positive outcomes. What would you like to see improved or changed in your two and a half years of being in the treatment court?
Judge Amber Craft 16:58
And I remember when I was initially exposed to treatment work, they talked a lot about dental care. Dental care, like don’t we have bigger fish to fry. And I didn’t quite understand it like I do now. And now, we have some two participants, obviously, who smoke meth amphetamine, smoke crack, they’ve destroyed their teeth. And I was like, if I could have like, free dental care to get all of these people and their teeth fixed, because you know, your smile and your confidence, it can’t be undervalued.
I had a participant who she got her new dentures last week. And oh, my gosh, new woman, smiling. And just, it’s amazing the impact those teeth had on her entire being. And it sounds silly and unrelated, but it something like that, I would love to be able to have quicker access to health care. If I had a magic wand, I would have limitless resources, especially when time is of the essence and someone’s in critical need of a bed. And there are none. I wish I could improve the speed in which we received treatment.
One of the things that I think that we could educate the public about from a drug court perspective is medically assisted treatment. A lot of people at the beginning of drug court, they didn’t believe in it. And you know, obviously, since then we’ve seen that suboxone really helps stabilize people. Vivitrol really helps people with problems with alcohol with their urges and helps to stabilize people. And it’s a critical component of treatment courts at this point, a lot of people don’t understand that.
I would definitely like to improve the criminal perception of drug court to get more participants to trust the process.
Margaret 18:47
You’re given great ideas. One of the things I want to circle back to as the teeth.
Judge Amber: Yes. Okay.
Margaret: You know how you said in the beginning, it was like, oh, we have bigger fish to fry. And yet now it’s so, it’s so fundamental. That to me speaks to your willingness to continue to grow and learn as a human being.
And I can say when I walked into Hazelden Betty Ford when I first got into their training program, I had a very different perception of this disease, of the people who had the disease, of what were the issues they faced, where they came from, you know, I had a lot of stereotypes.
And it actually made me quite emotional to hear you talk about, I wish we could have that for people because you’re right. Like you can be doing everything right and healing and doing all those responsibilities. As soon as you smile. There’s an assumption. And there’s a almost a shame connection. Like, I can’t erase that part of my past because it comes out front and center.
And so, you’re saying, look at the work they’re doing? Can we match that physical aspect of recovery along with all of the emotional, educational, career advances that they’re making as a result of recovery? Can we bring that along with it?
Judge Amber Craft 20:03
That was a much more eloquent way of saying that.
Margaret
No, not at all, what you said, really touched my heart, because my God, if we as human beings can’t be more open to understand one another and see the burdens that the disease puts on people on all different aspects of their life, none of which was chosen. You know, I’m sure you could do this with every one of the participants in your treatment court. Did you ever think you’d be sitting here?
Judge Amber: Right?
Margaret: No one would say yes. Even if they saw it in their family, and they swore they would never be like them. The disease doesn’t discriminate,
Judge Amber: Right?
Margaret: I always go back to what a former supervisor said to me that I really hold on to who in our world has not audition for the part of addict?
Judge Amber: Right?
Margaret: Only people out there or someone who has never touched a narcotic, nicotine, alcohol, let’s not even look at behavioral addictions. And thereby the grace of whatever higher power we believe in, some of us were spared.
Judge Amber: Yes.
Margaret: And some of us weren’t. And that is no fault of either side of that. That is purely a fortune on one side to not have the disease and on the other to have the disease.
Judge Amber: Absolutely.
Margaret: And I don’t think we get that in our society. I think a lot of times it’s a very much an assumption of bad behavior, bad parenting poor choices led down this path. And that is the biggest lie and false information out there around addiction.
Judge Amber Craft 21:40
Yeah. And, you know, in all walks of life that we see. It’s not that stereotype that I think that is that perception is changing a little bit with the opioid epidemic.
Margaret 21:49
No, I agree. I agree on the level of society understanding it differently. I do think innately people still find blame. Parents blame the system, blame the courts. And we have to look at it as a no-fault disease, and how do we come around someone and give them the resources to climb their way into the life they deserve, versus being tortured and driven by a disease that doesn’t give a crap about them? Or anyone?
Judge Amber Craft 22:17
Absolutely. And while the unfortunate thing about the wellness courts is you have to commit some pretty serious crimes to get into them. I mean, I wish, you know, can find a way to have this level of treatment for everyone involved.
Margaret 22:30
I wonder Amber, if that would work as effectively because there has to be a level of surrender, to do the work required to get out of this. And I wonder if somebody who hadn’t had more serious consequences that led them to you would have any skin in the game? Because they think eh its not that big a deal?
Judge Amber Craft 22:53
No, you’re exactly right. They wouldn’t have the skin in the game, they wouldn’t have the desperation. In fact, we see that, interestingly enough, although this is somewhat unrelated to what we were just talking about. Sometimes we get dealers, people who deal drugs, who aren’t really addicts, or people who suffering with substance abuse. And they come into the court, playing the game, pretending they’re suffering from addiction, in order to avoid jail, and they never progress in the program. They just don’t, because they don’t have the need, that they weed themselves out pretty quickly. And it’s really interesting to have both of those components, someone who really suffers from substance use and someone who’s really desperate to not go back to jail. And that’s the power of the program, really, ultimately, the driving force.
Margaret 23:41
Well, in my way of thinking about those who have come in pretending they have a substance use disorder, probably looked at this and went, this is way too much work. And I don’t want to deal with my emotions on any level. And I thought this was going to be the easier softer way to deal with my criminal stuff.
Judge Amber Craft 23:58
Yeah, well, people think it’s a check the box program, I come in and do what they want me to do. And I graduate and it is not. I ask people who are successful in the program, what advice do you give to those who are struggling. And a lot of them say the same thing. I came in this program thinking I could do the program the way I wanted to do it. And as soon as I figured out that I just need to surrender to the program. That is when things change for me. And I’m sure you can imagine people come in and want to do the program the way they want to do it. And it just doesn’t work that way. And the sooner they figure that out, the smoother their time is in the drug wellness court.
Margaret 24:36
And then add in the caveat that you mentioned so well, when family are unwittingly undermining the process of treatment or the process of treatment of treatment court. That is such a detriment to the whole family.
Judge Amber Craft 24:51
It absolutely is. And I, I feel sorry, when I see that I feel sorry for those participants. But I liked the way that you framed it, though. And I think I’m going to use that going forward, I’m going to use that. And I’m going to say this is your chance to sit back and relax and let me be the heavy.
Margaret 25:05
You know why they can’t because their drug of choice is sitting in that courtroom. And they’ve done everything around that human being that that human being has done around a substance. And so, to give that up means I have to look at my own fears, pain, sadness, grief, anger, oh, I can’t do that. So, let me stay focused on them?
Judge Amber Craft 25:24
Yes, that’s pretty deep.(laughter)
Margaret 25:27
I think that is exactly why I got into the business I got into is to bring those truths to the table. So, they’re not so hard on themselves or the person with the disease. And they allow themselves the support, knowing that if they could do that switch, they offer so much more to the person they love and want well, then if they stay in that same role the disease has taught them to be in.
Judge Amber Craft 25:48
Absolutely and hopefully this interview will help people realize that from the from my perspective.
Margaret
No doubt. And again, I am reiterating, I’ve said it twice. Now say it again, family members do it out of love and the best of intention. This is not blaming them. But I do believe that disease of addiction comes into a family and changes every family members way of navigating the world. And until we identify that we deserve help for that change that’s happened in us that’s no longer helping us or serving our family. The change in pattern won’t happen.
Judge Amber: 26:22
Yeah, I mean I said to my own parents I mean my parents are wonderful loving humans and with no concept of their actions and the impact that they had on almost killing my brother or allowing him to kill himself but he is doing well and I couldn’t be more grateful
Margaret: Well, and you had it apart plan that you had the courage back to interventions which are very valuable, and I think there’s interventions legally there’s interventions just in a family conversation there’s interventions medically professionally, but I don’t think the person who’s receiving the organized intervention when they happen understands the terror of the families putting that together
Judge Amber: 27:07
Yeah, I was able to compartmentalize it. that’s how I dealt with it to say oK obviously I don’t my brother to die. I and I have to be a hard ass, like this is the only way this is going to happen. I have to do that in drug court to you know. These people that I care about, it’s like all of a sudden, I’m gonna put you in jail, and I’m gonna separate you from your family, and you’re going to lose your job and all these things.
I’m gonna hold you accountable it’s hard, it’s hard for me. But with my brother again I go back to that discipline and affection being equal parts of loving someone and that’s honestly the bottom line.
And if there’s anything I could say to your listeners who might be struggling with that concept. That’s what, you know my visual person I see that in my mind equal parts and not always equal parts. I think it depends on the recipient of the love, you know sometimes you need a little more of one or the other but they’re definitely both equally as important.
Margaret : 28:05
And I think in language I would use around that ’cause I’m a visual person too, is the two thoughts I have in reaction to that are. Learning to separate the person from their disease, huge. Allowing the love for the person to be there while the boundaries against the disease to protect ourselves from it, and not enable it.
So, it’s separating those two out, showing the discipline in the boundaries and the love and the continuing to have a relationship with the person you adore. A lot of people find detaching with love such a tough concept because it’s all black and white, and it isn’t. It’s caring without fixing. It’s saying I’m gonna love you and allow you the dignity to fix yourself. So, I’m gonna not be the fixer, but that’s really hard to do when that’s all you’ve been known to do in this situation.
Judge Amber: 28:54
But also, when you step back, and you let a child do something for themselves they’re gonna value the result of what they’ve done so much more than if you did it for them. And it’s the same concept in recovery. And first of all, you can’t do it for them and trying isn’t helping them but once they do it for themselves, it’s just so much more meaningful.
Margaret:
And well I’m sure you see it much more visibly than any other person ’cause you have a level of separation even though you’re very invested in the participants. You probably watch them stand taller, head higher back, shoulder back. You know like you must see that physical change of feeling good in their skin again.
Judge Amber: Absolutely it is the most powerful thing. I mean I can’t imagine anything more powerful than what I do than getting to see that and it’s amazing!
Margaret: And to know that you’ve been caveat or a carrier or a implementer of offering it, but you’ve given them the dignity of doing it for themselves. Yes, there’s a consequence if they don’t but that’s that boundary piece and so you create these resources. You have this amazing team who are willing to be mentor, guide, a facilitator but they have to do the work which allows them to get that stance.
Judge Amber Craft: 30:07
This is completely off topic. But I wanted to share some statistics that my coordinator gave me, because I think that they’re, they’re really interesting to show some of the results of the treatment work. So, this is for 2021. I’m just going to give you this data, we had 25 graduates in that year, 92% of them were employed at the time of graduation, 96% had their high school diploma or GED at the time of graduation, average clean time in the program was 10 and a half months, jail days saved by participating in the drug wellness court was 9165.
So basically, the time they would have spent in jail, which is the equivalent, and this is more for the politicians out there, the savings of $886,713. And if the cost to participate in drug wellness court for those 25 people was $412,500, for a total cost savings of $474,213.
Overall, which again, not really the purpose of drug wellness court, but when you’re talking about funding and support from a political aspect, it’s important to show that fiscally it benefits of community, as well as all the other things we’ve talked about.
Margaret 31:27
That’s really powerful. I’m glad you had a chance to put those in. And, and I also would say to that, as a taxpayer,
Judge Amber: Right,
Margaret: to hear that.
Judge Amber Craft 31:38
Yeah. And you know, so not only are people completely changing their lives and getting back to who they were, we’re saving taxpayer dollars. But you know, to keep this going forward, and to convince other people, this is the direction we need to be going in for a whole plethora of reasons. Some people they’re going to respond to those statistics more than they would the huggy, feely, fuzzy stuff.
Margaret 32:00
Wow, I am really glad that you had those to offer, and I think that’s really important. Even during COVID. Right, you think about the time that ‘21 Was that was ‘21.
Judge Amber: Yeah, ‘21.
Margaret: Because so many people struggle to maintain sobriety in the times of COVID, the isolation that go into zoom and not having the resources and/or utilizing them.
Judge Amber Craft 32:24
Yeah. And I think you and I spoke about this before, but I was terrified for my treatment court participants during COVID. And one of the things that we did was figured out really quickly how to have zoom Court, I know it’s not the same. But I could look at everybody’s faces every week from my dining room table.
Even though I was at home, and I could still participate, and I mailed incentives from my home. I mailed cards. I mailed gifts to participants who were doing well and got everybody set up with zoom AA meetings NA meetings. We did everything that we possibly could do to keep those people from being any more isolated than they already were.
I’m proud of myself, I really kind of took the ball and ran with it with the zoom because you know we had regular court, it was like months before we had things figured out. But I was like I gotta do something now and of course I had a couple weeks to sit around and do zoom tutorials and figure it out
But then I had an amazing team too, who were able to make sure everyone had cell phones or some kind of computer that they could participate. And I think it was three weeks from the shutdown. We had the whole zoom court setup, where I can see everybody’s face at least on the computer. So, I thought that was really cool that we were able to do that.
Margaret 33:35
I did want to say one thing that you talked about the incentives and the games and the and kind of being cheesy, but cool. You know, what came to mind for me there. And I’d be curious, your input on this was one of the things that the disease of addiction robs from people is a lot of things, you know, sense of worth and value, but also joy and playfulness. And many of them started, probably, I shouldn’t assume this. But you can clarify. They started their exposure to chemicals, some of them in utero, some of them as very young people, so possibly didn’t have those childhood playful experiences. So, there’s a piece of me that thinks how absolutely amazing that, that’s part of your program that not only do you do the serious work, and you offer the resources to do emotional heavy lifting and gaining the skills with your GED and job searching and so forth. But you’re also given some chances to be kids and playful and joyful. That’s kind of well-rounded amazing.
Judge Amber Craft 34:37
Yeah, we have this wheel that we spin, and we actually just implemented it for the first time in veterans court now I’m and veterans court, I was like, we got to, we got to do the wheel. And, you know, you have these grown men, you know, in particular, well, the women too, but anything, haven’t gotten a chance to spin it. Those are the ones that are like I have been waiting six months to spin this wheel because of for whatever reason, like we were spinning the wheel, and then we went to zoom and then we came back, and we had a participant yesterday, one of our females and she was smoking marijuana. So, you smoke marijuana, you’re gonna test positive for that long after you stopped smoking it. Finally, her level started coming down. She finally had a clean week. And she got to spin that wheel. And it was like, you know, and they were all clapping and cheering and being silly. I think it’s an incredibly powerful incentive. I play video sometimes we have a one of our participants whose he likes to dance. And so, his kids are recording his dancing and set it to music and put them on Tik Tok. And they teased him and tricked him. And they, they were I think it was Home Depot. They were there. And they asked somebody there to be like, oh, my gosh, I totally recognize you from Tic Toc to convince him he was a TikTok star. So, he told the story. We were all laughing hysterically. And then he emailed us all these, these videos. And we showed them, and it was oh my gosh, we were it was just it was fun. But also, to illustrate, one of the things we try to talk about is you can have fun, sober.
Margaret 36:02
Yes, and the other thing that I think is so beautiful. And that story of the children videoing this disease destroys trust and security. And those children are seeing their father come back to them. Maybe even for the first time and they’re getting to play and they’re getting to trust and they’re getting to enjoy some of those things that were taken from them by the active disease.
Judge Amber Craft 36:31
Absolutely. it’s kind of hard because sometimes I want to be playful. But then I also want to have to balance that with this is still serious. So, I don’t know, I struggle with that. Some Treatment Court judges don’t wear a robe. And I keep mine on because I still feel like I need that separation, that authority.
Margaret 36:48
You know, you’re willing to share about your brother, and I will wear my judge robe. Right? Like, everybody has a piece there might be others who never share anything about their personal story.
Judge Amber Craft 36:59
My prosecutor will tell you that I overshare, but you know, that’s who I am. That’s, that’s not going to change going forward. And she says it in a loving way. That because to me that’s important to connect with my participants that they know about me too and that I’m human.
Margaret 37:17
We’re all flawed human, perfectly imperfect, doing the best we can and you’re in a different position than them but they’re by the grace of your higher power. Your brother has this disease, you could have easily had it. And so, I think that says something to show a little bit of your story with them to realize that, yes, you have the esteem and the authority and the accomplishments you have, and you can connect.
Judge Amber Craft 37:40
Yes, that’s what I try to do.
Margaret 37:48
I hope you walked away from these three episodes with Judge Amber understanding more about the Drug Wellness Court programs and their benefits. I am so appreciative of Amber and her team for the outstanding work and service to the participants of Drug Wellness Court. I also want to thank Judge Amber for taking time from her busy schedule to be a part of this podcast.
I want to thank my guest for their courage and vulnerability and sharing parts of their story. Please find resources on my website,
embracefamilyrecovery.com
This is Margaret Swift Thompson.
Until next time, please take care of you!
