State uses online map to help people find help for substance abuse

LANSING – A digital map linking residents to resources for substance use disorders is now accessible on MI Bridges, a government benefits website. 

Over 800 providers are listed on the website, according to Lynn Sutfin, a public information officer in the Department of Health and Human Services. As of Feb. 27, the site has been visited more than 9,600 times by almost 5,000 people. 

Initially, the map was available only on the department’s website but was added to the MI Bridges website to expand access, Sutfin said.

MI Bridges also contains information on health care costs, emergency relief, cash and food assistance.

The map of substance abuse-related resources was created using data from the Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs, she said.

“A substance use disorder is the utilization of a substance that disproportionately affects the reward system of the brain,” said Corey Waller. 

Based in Ann Arbor, Waller is a physician and the editor-in-chief of the American Society of Addiction Medicine’s Criteria, a set of standards related to the treatment of patients with addiction.

The reward system is how a brain receives dopamine, a chemical produced when someone does something pleasurable, according to Waller. 

One program listed on the map is Self-Help Addiction Rehabilitation Inc. in Detroit.

Its chief executive officer, Dwight Vaughter, said increasing access to find resources would benefit communities.

“You would be surprised. People don’t know what’s in their neighborhoods. They don’t know about the resources for food or housing or mental health,” said Vaughter.

The rehabilitation organization began in 1969 and serves an estimated 6,000 people annually, according to the nonprofit’s website.

Vaughter said some people seeking addiction services want to talk with someone who has experienced recovery themselves. 

Peer support should be used in combination with medical treatment, with medicine being the most effective way to treat most substance use disorders, Waller said. 

“Medical providers who don’t help people connect with other people in recovery are not doing a good job,” he said. 

“For organizations only using the peer model, I think they’re inadvertently increasing the risk of death for those people seeking care,” he said.

Vaughter said in addition to using peer support, program participants are connected with “social workers, psychologists or others in counseling fields.”

Vaughter began working with the program a year into his own recovery.

Now, almost 41 years sober, Vaughter said, “I’ve learned over the years that I help myself by helping others, and the more I give this thing called recovery away to others, the better off I am. I love what I do.” 

One of the organization’s major projects Vaughter oversaw was renovating a former Detroit Public School building into a recovery community center.

“The recovery community center is open 24 hours a day, where people can go in for self-help groups and meetings,” said Vaughter. 

“We probably have about 15 to 17 self-help group meetings there a week. We have a recovery housing unit on the lower level where men have recovery housing, and we’re developing a recovery housing unit for women upstairs on the third floor,” he said.

Recovery housing gives people “a safe environment to live in while they decide what they want to do with their life,” said Vaughter.

One challenge with providing housing services for addiction treatment is insufficient state funding, he added.

“We aren’t paid enough for that level of care,” said Vaughter. “The money that the state will give you for recovery housing is basically about $30 a day per person.”

“You can’t even go to the Red Roof Inn or the Holiday Inn or other places and get a bed for that kind of money,” he said.

Waller said funding for addiction treatment has typically been outside of standard health care delivery. 

Waller said his transition from working in emergency medicine to addiction medicine is an example of insufficient funding, as his salary dropped 30% “to do what is ostensibly a harder job with more complex patients.”