Good Neighbor Podcast: Tri-Cities
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Good Neighbor Podcast: Tri-Cities
EP# 43: Confronting Addiction and Mental Health: Angela Hagaman's Journey with ETSU Addiction Science Center
What makes Angela Hagaman with The ETSU Addiction Science Center a good neighbor?
How do we confront the complex challenges of mental health and substance use disorders? Join us on the Good Neighbor Podcast as we explore this critical issue with Angela Hagaman, co-director of the ETSU Addiction Science Center. Angela’s personal journey of growing up with a parent struggling with alcohol use disorder offers a unique lens into her passionate work in public health. Learn about the significant strides her team is making through research and community engagement, and find out how including voices from those in recovery has shaped their impactful initiatives.
We also bust widespread myths, highlighting addiction as a chronic disease rather than a moral failing. Angela sheds light on the interplay between addiction, trauma, and mental health conditions, while sharing personal tales of resilience and her love for outdoor adventures. This episode is more than just informative; it’s a call to action. Discover how you can support addiction recovery in your community and celebrate the progress being made through the dedication of individuals like Angela and the ETSU Addiction Science Center. Tune in for a heartfelt conversation that underscores the importance of empathy, understanding, and community support in tackling addiction.
To learn more about The ETSU Addiction Science Center go to:
https://www.etsu.edu/cph/addiction-science-center/
The ETSU Addiction Science Center
(423) 439-4243
This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Skip Monty.
Speaker 2:Well, hello everybody, and welcome to the Good Neighbor Podcast. We are very fortunate today to have a very special guest that I think has something really important to talk about. Mental health is something that is super important to everyone of every walk of life, and so we're very fortunate to have with us today Miss Angela Hagaman, who is the co-director of the ETSU Addiction Science Center. Angela, welcome to the show.
Speaker 3:Thank you, Skip. It's great to be here with you this morning.
Speaker 2:Well, we really appreciate you, Skip, it's great to be here with you this morning. Well, we really appreciate you being here and we're, I know, excited to learn all about you and the ETSU Addiction Science Center. So, if you don't mind, why don't you just tell us a little bit about what you guys do?
Speaker 3:Certainly, certainly Well with Rob Pack.
Speaker 3:Dr Rob Pack of ETSU Addictions, oh goodness, it's been about 11 years now and so our center has gone through various names as the sort of opioid crisis has changed over our region and over Central Appalachia and the nation for several years. So the Addiction Science Address it's now called spends a lot of time partnering with our community folks, community stakeholders and especially people in recovery from substance use disorders to co-produce and design studies, research studies. So about half of our work is funded research to look at how to mitigate the risks of substance use disorder, prevent substance use disorder and get folks that are interested into recovery and treatment. So we spend about half of our work doing that and the rest of it is community outreach and engagement and supporting community partners as they write grants and look to help those in recovery. I think what I'm most proud of is, you know, over the decade or more that I've been doing this work. We really try very hard to learn from the voices of our community members. We engage them in every step of the process.
Speaker 2:Very good.
Speaker 3:We have a monthly working group meeting on the second Tuesday of every month. That's open to any community member. They can come by the ETSU Innovation Lab on Market Street and attend that meeting or join virtually and I have five. We have five full-time staff. We are folks who are in recovery from mental health or substance use disorders, so I do feel pretty good about the fact that we're, you know, as they say, in recovery field, nothing about us without us, and I feel like we really try to honor that value.
Speaker 2:Awesome, Awesome. Now, how exactly, Angela, did you get into mental health, addiction recovery, the industry? How did you get here?
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's funny Well, not funny.
Speaker 3:It's funny that I ended up here because as a young person, I had a parent who struggled with alcohol use disorder.
Speaker 3:I had a parent who struggled with alcohol use disorder, and so it took.
Speaker 3:You know, it set the tone for my early life and upbringing, and just you know there's the chaos and the challenges that come with that, and so I said for a long time that I do not want to work anywhere in this field. I want to be as far away from substance use disorder treatment and recovery and all of that. And then you know, as I worked in nonprofit settings with young people for many years, I had to get high school English teacher. I wasn't a great fit for the public school system, but as I worked with young people and families and communities, I learned about things like coalition building and engaging communities to change communities and that's called public health, and so I found my way into public health and then just naturally found myself into a space where I felt like I could make a difference for other young people so they wouldn't have to go through what I went through. So it's sort of a full circle moment that brought me here to the ETSU Addiction Science Center in 2011.
Speaker 2:Very good, very good, actually it was 2013.
Speaker 3:2013, not 2011.
Speaker 2:It's been 11 years 13, gotcha yeah. Gotcha. So Are there any myths or misconceptions in the addiction recovery field?
Speaker 3:Oh goodness, how long is the podcast?
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's a lot, I'm sure.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, I think folks have really thought of substance use disorder historically as a moral failing, as something folks should just made some choice one day to pick up drugs or alcohol and that automatically they sort of just cruised on through to developing full substance use disorders.
Speaker 3:There's a lot of blame for people that are maybe in the throes of addiction. Their behavior is perhaps erratic, sometimes criminal. You know there's so many things that happen when you're in the throes of addiction. But now, as we've better understood brain science and understand what's happening in the brain and how hard it is to to deal with withdrawal and all of those things, we know that it is a chronic recurring disease, like many others, that simple behavior change is never simple. Understanding the complexity of substance use disorder, often the trauma and mental health conditions that underpin substance use disorder and the challenges in getting into the right kind of treatment, makes us, I think, know a lot about what could work for people and sort of. We're still following stigma around this and some of the services and best gold standard treatments are still stigmatized. But that's the work we're here for.
Speaker 2:Very good. Now let's change gears a little outside of work. What do you like to do for fun?
Speaker 3:Anything in the outdoors. I really really just love being outside, really just love being outside. We do hiking. We call it kayamping and kayamping and bikepacking. So we like to take multiple days and put our gear on a bike or a boat and just get out in the woods, far away from cell phones and electronics.
Speaker 2:When we can Amen, that's me too, I absolutely love it. Love it Obviously, I love the mountains. So the mountains, can you describe personally a hardship or a life challenge that you ever came and it made you stronger in the end?
Speaker 3:think just yeah, I think just growing up, and you know, I had young parents who were unmarried, uh, here in central Appalachia. My dad was a tobacco farmer and my mom, uh, moved around a bit and had lots of full-time jobs. She was a great worker, but she's the person that struggled with alcohol use disorder. So living in sort of two, two places with the challenges of low resources, neither of my parents had much money, neither graduated college, and some of the chaos that came to substance use disorder she didn't get well until I was a parent myself. And so you know, looking back, there were many, many challenges on a daily basis that I experienced. But I think, like many in our communities that came from low resource settings or these challenging family lives, we have an innate resilience and self-assurance that knows that we've been through the tough stuff, we've got this and we're gonna be okay. So I would say that the challenges ended up being beneficial to me, and still are, just every day and in the work that I do.
Speaker 2:Awesome, awesome. So, um, if you could think of one thing that you would want our listeners to remember about the ETSU Addiction Science Center, what would that be?
Speaker 3:Oh that we're approachable and we're here to help. I think, um, you know, when you think of addiction science or a university, it may seem like that they're fancy people that wear blazers and sit in front of computers and crunch numbers. We're a very approachable team. We would love to hear from our community partners. We try to get out there and attend their events. I think Recovery Resources is having a festival soon called Thriving Through the Thicket. We're just out there in the community. We want to be approachable, so never hesitate to reach out. We're here for you.
Speaker 2:Very good and actually we've had recovery resources on our show as well with Tabitha Edwards, I believe is her name.
Speaker 3:Yes, sir, tabitha yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:She's awesome too.
Speaker 1:Well.
Speaker 2:I have one more question, because I know your time is valuable and we don't want to take too much of it, but how can our listeners learn more about the ETSU Addiction Science Center and what you guys do?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think just going to our website, honestly, you could just Google ETSU Addiction Science Center. I guess I could give you a more formal link. But really, google ETSU Addiction Science Center and you'll find us. We have Facebook, the ETSU Addiction Science Center, so just reach out. And that monthly working group we would love to have community members attend. So just emailing me at hegeman H-A-G-A-M-A-N at ETSUedu, I can get you signed up for that working group and we just love to hear from our community partners that they can attend that.
Speaker 2:Awesome. Well, angela, you don't know how much we appreciate you being on the show. You've been very informative. I'm thankful, and I'm sure our listeners are thankful, that you guys are there and that you're moving us forward and without as much stigma. So thank you so much for what you do and thanks again for being on the show, and we wish you and the ETSU Addiction Science Center team all the best moving forward.
Speaker 3:Thanks so much, Skip. I appreciate you. It's an honor to be here.
Speaker 2:Thank you, we'll have you back.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to the Good Neighbor Podcast. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to gnptry-citiescom. That's gnptry-citiescom, or call 423-719-5873.