Civic Dispatch: Making a Home – Jasper’s Recovery Den
Jean O’Connor-Snyder intern Olivia Goble explains how a community member transformed her own hardships into passion and a purpose to create a safe haven in her hometown of Jasper.
Walker County has and will always be home to Paige Britton. Though her home is a reminder of the past, she uses it as motivation to change her future.
Through the Jean O’Connor-Snyder Internship Program, I have spent my summer living in Paige’s hometown, working for the Walker County Community Foundation in partnership with New College at the University of Alabama and the Mathews Center. The Foundation’s decision to place me with Paige and the new nonprofit she is starting has been nothing but beneficial. With great pleasure, I have watched her use this motivation to not only change her future, but also the future of many Walker Countians.
Paige grew up here in Jasper, Alabama, with two sisters and a loving mother. This place holds countless memories for her. Though she does not dwell on each memory, Paige acknowledges the hardships that have brought her to where she is at now. From an early age, mental health played a large role in her life. Dealing with ADHD, depression and anxiety, Paige continually faced confliction within her own thoughts and emotions. This was what caused her initial appeal to drugs, but nothing would prepare her for the feelings that came after the birth of her first daughter.
Postpartum depression is caused by hormonal and psychological changes after childbirth resulting in an array of emotions and anxiety. Paige’s substance use heightened at this time as a way to cope with her body’s reaction to giving birth. She began a cycle of using, recovering, and relapsing. In this time, she lost custody of her daughter, faced homelessness for months, and suffered through the same postpartum depression with her next child. Life was handing Paige an assortment of challenges, but she kept fighting. It was not until she was prescribed benzodiazepine after getting dental work done that she began her last years of using. During this period, Paige was arrested and put in jail for possession of narcotics and was forced through withdrawal—which she describes as the hardest experience she has yet faced.
After five years on probation, Paige made a realization: her daughters were growing up without her. She received help from the nonprofit, Hope for Women, and was put through a court referral program which is mandated for drug offenders in Alabama. This program includes education, treatment, drug screenings, and most importantly, counseling. This was the first time Paige ever received counseling, which would ultimately be her saving grace. Paige is now eight years into her recovery and has not used since entering this program in 2015.
Paige always knew that if she could find passion in her work, sobriety would never be an issue. Three years into her recovery in August of 2018, she received a call asking if she would like to begin working for Recovery Organization of Support Specialists (ROSS). She started the job the next day beginning her passion of working in the recovery community. For the next five years, Paige would work with multiple organizations in Walker County including ROSS, Capstone Rural Health, and the Recovery Resource Center. She was able to use her own experiences to help other individuals overcome the same struggles she had once been through herself. Paige believed Walker County could be a place where people could recover and stay, not somewhere people had to leave to remain sober. This was her inspiration for the work she is doing today.
In February of this year, with support of the community, Paige received the opportunity to start her own recovery community center. And for the past five months, Paige has put endless effort into this new center. Located on 6th Avenue in downtown Jasper, this center, known as The Recovery Den, will be a place full of support and resources for anyone who has suffered from substance use disorder. The center will include a clothing closet, support groups, access to laundry and cleaning supplies, events for the community, and so much more. So, whether individuals are in need of physical resources or even just a place to hang out with other people navigating recovery, The Recovery Den will meet their needs.
The most important part of The Recovery Den to Paige is that the center will be a place without barriers. She hopes to work towards destigmatizing substance use through informational materials and meetings to make The Recovery Den a place without judgement. Paige’s own experience taught her the difficulty of growing in an unsupportive environment and wants to eliminate that experience to all those that she helps. She also hopes to connect every resource and program to assure all recovery needs are accessible and met within Walker County.
Paige accredits her ability to take on this project to the help she has received from the people in her life. She is grateful to her friend Rachel Puckett who made her feel that she could have passion despite her past. She appreciates her husband in sticking with her through the best and worst of times. She thanks the Walker Area Community Foundation for the support they have given her throughout her work in the recovery community. And, she even acknowledges her counselors who have helped her remain sober for the past eight years. Paige fully believes that “when we all come together, we are better able to help the people we serve.”
Paige is one of the strongest women I have ever met, and I am honored to be working for her this summer. She has taken on this project and has worked unceasingly to create a place that feels safe for everyone in Walker County. She could have easily chosen to go through her own recovery and never look back, but instead she has used her own experience to change the lives of so many others. Her story contains endless inspiration, and I hope that those who read learn that your past is the best motivation for your future.
From Dallas, Texas, Olivia is a senior at the University of Alabama studying an interdisciplinary major focusing on medicine and society on the pre-med track through the New College Program.
This photo of Olivia was taken by the Walker Area Community Foundation as part of the students’ internship with them over the summer.