A lighthouse in the storm
Minnesota Adult and Teen Challenge faces many struggles among rising COVID-19 cases .
by Elaina Erickson & Courtney McNeill | Reporters
Jessica Koeher would normally wait each week to pick up a young woman who lived on 2nd Avenue Street at the MN Adult and Teen Challenge Women’s Shelter. For the young woman, today could well be Christmas, even though the date is not Dec. 25. She had worked hard to be able to meet with her mentor, Koehler, today. She had to pass certain levels in her treatment to get here. The two women would go out for coffee, dinner, or even a nice walk outside. Kohler, Mrs. Minnesota America winner, remembers a conversation with her mentee one day.
“Well,” she said, “do I look like a drug addict? Or do I sound like a drug addict?”
Koeher was taken aback, “What? What are you talking about?”
The young woman responded, “I don’t know. I’m just so worried about I’m gonna go back out into the public and people are just gonna know.”
“No one knows.” Koeher said. “You will determine your future. You determine how you present yourself. You determine the person you are. You can reinvent yourself at any time. That’s exactly what you’re doing.”
The young woman Koeher mentors is a patient at Adult and Teen Challenge. Since she has been there, the program has gone through two shutdowns due to the coronavirus outbreak.
Other Minnesota Adult and Teen Challenge facilities have also had difficulty with COVID-19 outbreaks. Under Minnesota Law, Adult and Teen challenge is defined as congregate care facilities — a setting that consists of 24-hour supervision — which meant the facility in Rochester had to shut down for about three months due to state regulations.
Tom Truskinski, the center director in Rochester, explained how quarantine affected the recovering addicts, “I mean, imagine being quarantined into your dorm room, from March until June. They were inside from March until May with no contact, and I think that quarenteening was really hard.”
Truskinski said compared to last year, statistics show that deaths caused from an overdose went up over 20 percent, alcohol sales from stores are up around 50 percent, and online alcohol sales went up 250 percent.
“More people in my line of work are more worried about COVID than they are their addiction,” Truskiniski said. “So what they’re doing is isolating themselves. They’re staying inside. They are letting their anxiety, their depression, the darkness just actually rip them apart. The untreated drug and alcohol abuse and mental health is astronomical compared to what we’ve seen in past years.”
Koeher says she has been doing her best to mentor even though she cannot physically visit the young woman she has connected so much with. She recently sent a box filled with puzzles, books and a bracelet-making kit to her mentee.
“I just don’t want her to worry that because of COVID-19 or certain circumstances outside of our control that I’m not going to be a strong resource for her; no matter what,” Koeher said.
Substance abuse and addiction really resonate for Koehler because her adopted children’s mother died from a prescription drug overdose when they were young. Koehler was only 21 when she met her now husband and adopted his two young boys who were 2 and 5 at the time. Taylor, the oldest, had severe Autism at the time and Brandon, the youngest, had just lost his mom.
“It’s a disease of isolation and loneliness and something we really need to focus on, especially during these times,” Koehler said.
While the ability of staff to care for their patients is harder because of lockdowns, the funding to be able to provide for them has also become more difficult. The Rochester Center needs to raise $100,000 to run each month. That money goes to lights, food, salaries and other things. Another fundraiser was singing at churches as a choir on Sundays for funds, but due to the pandemic, that is unable to happen. Without that, their revenue is down 35 percent, said Truszinski.
“We don’t have a product we make,” Truszinski said. “We don’t make baseballs or we don’t make anything like that. We make transformed lives.”
Even though things are hard for Truszinski, he is optimistic about the future.
“You definitely come up with some creative ideas during COVID and, actually, there are some really cool things that have come out of COVID that I hope we don’t steer away from.,” he said. “In fact, I hope we get to keep some of these things.”
Koehler is also navigating the pandemic with her mentee.
“It’s just a constant puzzle that you’re figuring out how to make the best of it. I was referring to it as a lighthouse the other day, like I’m just gonna stand here and be strong for her and project light. Just so she knows I’m here with her because there have been a lot of people in her life who haven’t been.” — Jessica Koehler, Mrs. Minnesota Winner and Mentor at Minnesota Adult & Teen Challenge
“It’s just a constant puzzle that you’re figuring out how to make the best of it,” she said. “I was referring to it as a lighthouse the other day, like I’m just gonna stand here and be strong for her and project light. Just so she knows I’m here with her because there have been a lot of people in her life who haven’t been.”
