One Neighborhood at a Time

[Upbeat Guitar Music]

Mike: Welcome, everybody. This is Avoiding the Addiction Affliction brought to you by Westwords Consulting and the Kenosha County Substance Use Disorder Coalition. I'm Mike McGowan.

Mike: While substance use disorders don't discriminate, there are some communities that are hit harder than others. We're going to talk about one of those groups that has lost a disproportionate number of people to substance use disorders with our guest Desilynn Smith.

Mike: Desilynn is the Executive Director of Uniting Garden Homes Incorporated in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Criminal Justice, a Bachelor's in Special Education, a Master's in Mental Health Counseling, specializing in Substance Abuse Counseling. She has over 20 years dedicated service to her community and she is focused on addressing the injustices within our justice system, advocating for individuals with mental health issues, and tackling community trauma.

Mike: Welcome, Desilynn.

Desilynn: Hi, hello, hello. Thanks for having me.

Mike: Well, I'm so glad you could join us. I'm going to start out with something that's a little hard, but we'll get right into it. A lot of people, contrary to what some people may believe, research done by several metropolitan newspapers show that the group born between 1951 and 1970 experienced drug fatality rates higher than any other group, and older black men died up to 20 times the rate of any other subgroup.

Mike: And your husband, Hamid, was in that group, and you lost him to drugs in 2021.

Desilynn: Yes. Fentanyl poisoning.

Mike: Yeah, I love the way you put that. Fentanyl poisoning. We've changed it, right?

Desilynn: Yes.

Mike: Let's stop calling it an overdose and call it what it is.

Desilynn: Right, right. Because people don't know, and that's one of the things that I'm trying to push now is the education part around people that have an addiction to cocaine, they're not expecting to have fentanyl in it.

Desilynn: And I hear people that say, well, they keep going back. Well, because now that's a different addiction to their body is an opioid that has a different withdrawal, a different effect. So they're not even realizing what's going on with their bodies. They just know now that that withdrawal is very severe compared to the cocaine one. So now we're dealing with a different beast. And even the people that are wanting opioids, that addiction, they're still not expecting to get the fentanyl.

Mike: Yeah. Desilynn, when older Black men are lost to drugs at rates 14 to 20 times higher than all people nationally, something else is in play.

Mike: Is it economics, culture, lack of help, shame? What do you think it is?

Desilynn: I believe it's a combination of the lack of resources, economics around, if we really look and break down those, the economics, as well as shame that goes with the stigma.

Mike: Yeah, I heard you talk about Hamid's shame and how he carried it after his relapse.

Desilynn: Right. And it was difficult for me. And that's another reason why I wanted and appreciate the platforms because as a, the wife, then I carry different kind of shame. And he was not his addiction. He was not a drug addict. He was not that, but that's all that he felt he would be reduced to for all of the hard work that he had put in.

Desilynn: To rebuild himself and really show his character. So now how can I face someone that has looked up to me? So it kind of goes back to where is the support for the helpers? Who supports the supporters? And things like that. So he began to even start withdrawing from me.

Mike: Yeah, well, he probably carried shame because of what you do for a living, right?

Mike: He didn't want to embarrass you.

Desilynn: And he did, and he said that. And in the closed doors, I'm like, I don't care. Like, we need to get help. I'm going to go with you. But it really like light bulbs went off afterwards because I started asking myself a lot of questions. Like, well, why didn't I push more for more people to help?

Desilynn: Because then now I'm looking at the subconscious that I'm not realizing of my own stigmas that I still held on to the shame, the guilt, how am I out here helping everyone else and can't even help my husband. What are people going to say about me, which I shouldn't have to think that as well as he shouldn't have.

Desilynn: So then I know that's how other people feel.

Mike: Well, you and I, and many people would say, ah, this is a terrible disease. We don't treat it like a disease.

Desilynn: No.

Mike: I mean, we wouldn't be having this conversation if he had relapsed with cancer.

Desilynn: Exactly. Exactly.

Desilynn: And that's the next thing that, you know, is. I push. It's like we talk about mental wellness. Substance abuse is in the DSM 5, the diagnostic tool to diagnose someone with a mental illness or issue or whatever they're going through and what is our mental well being is our thinking. I don't think anyone that is addicted thinks very clearly. That's one of the things that we're teaching. So to start making these household words, the mental wellness, mental wellness, mental wellness. And really breaking down what addiction is, get outside the box. Addiction does not just mean drugs. Recovery is not just related to drugs or alcohol.

Desilynn: I go to the hospital for a broken arm. I get a recovery plan for it. If I do not follow that recovery plan, my arm will not heal properly. So people relapse. My dad was a diabetic. I tell this story. He would he did everything. He was on three shots and a pill. They followed the regimen.

Desilynn: He went and joined the Y. My mom cooked different, everything. He was off shots and everything. What did he do? He relapsed. He had my mom make him a pound cake, his favorite. And what happened? Blood sugar shot up. So when, if we start really talking about it, like you put it in layman's terms, it's just like any other disease, cancer, treated as such. Get us outside the mind frame of just having that stigma of addiction goes with drugs and alcohol because it does not and really understand what the definition of recovery is and why it's important to stick to your recovery plan so you do not relapse.

Desilynn: That's where we really need to get back to or start up, so then people can start feeling a lot better. We will look at it then as a disease, really.

Mike: Is there stigma within the Black community, especially among Black men?

Desilynn: I believe Black men have the biggest stigma, from my experience, in working.

Desilynn: And I don't go into, like, historical, but unfortunately that plays a part. They're beat up in every which way. So now, trying to even know what the definition of a Black man is. So now when we have a Black man that is afflicted with this disease I can guarantee at least eight, maybe even nine out of 10 have been through the injustice system.

Desilynn: So now they're beat up even more. Us as Black women, and I speak as even for myself, a majority of us don't understand how to build up our own self esteem. So it's hard to build up their self esteem. So now they're treated unfairly everywhere they go. They have the shame of what society has told us a man is supposed to be.

Desilynn: They don't live up to that based on what society says. But a man is what I'm able to do like, unless we got to rebuild that. So I do believe the stigma of being a Black man is hard. It's very hard.

Mike: In your introduction, I said, you come from special ed. I did a podcast Desilynn probably about a year and a half ago with a young woman who said that if you look at special ed kids, or kids in general, that the same behavior that a girl exhibits in a classroom or a Caucasian girl exhibits in a classroom is treated totally different than if an African American boy does the same behavior.

Desilynn: Exactly. And I worked in the schools. As teacher, and then as I grew in my career, I went back and I was working with Milwaukee public schools for their school community partnership for mental health. And I had a five year old and an eight year old that really stood out to me and their behaviors.

Desilynn: Again, there were females that exhibited those behaviors and white males in the class. Those two, and they want to label them so fast without looking at what is the real root cause. But that's where I come in. So I'm going to tell you the root cause. Have a five year old that doesn't go to sleep till three in the morning, but then he's up at six in the morning.

Desilynn: Sleep deprivation is the worst thing ever. That's the worst mental abuse we could do to ourselves as an adult. So imagine a five year old, he's going to be fighting his sleep. His behavior is going to come out. There's no one really trained to reroute that. Then their experiences are different because that particular five year old lost an uncle to gun violence.

Desilynn: So now the family, we're now teaching some trauma because now our trauma is pushed on to them, where he may not even understand what's going on, but now there's a lot of anger in the home. The eight year old, when I'm working with kids, I say, what's going on? How you doing? Since the last time I saw you, oh, I'm good.

Desilynn: Well, what made your week good? The eight year old looked around, he goes, I didn't hear any gunshots and nobody I knew got shot. He's eight. So how does he know how to handle those emotions? I don't know how to handle them half of the time. So now they're dealt with different situations that they don't know how to deal with.

Desilynn: There's absolutely really no emotional regulations taught to teachers. I went through the class and I'm like, okay, wait a minute. This is not teaching me how to deal with these kids. I just know because what my other background is. I just wanted to get into the class.

Desilynn: I don't feel I was effective working in those classes, and the way they're set up, and the Black, they're taught at an early age, and they're just kind of pushed to the side. My classrooms will look different, because hey, that's not how you act here. It's not being fake. It's not being phony.

Desilynn: There's a time and a place and everything. I don't act like this on my porch. I'm, I'm here teaching, so I have to be the teacher, Ms. Smith. And it's taught at an early age, and it's sad, it's disheartening and the way that our country is going now is even sadder to know, like, the same fights my mom had in the 50s are fights that we're still trying to have it's unfortunate because Black males do have to be taught certain different things.

Desilynn: So you look at that age group that we're looking at that was raised in the 60s and the 70s when things were kind of worse for them as treatment. What outlet did they have? And then boom, COVID hits.

Mike: And then on top of all that, I think all men still are told, I'm good, as you said, don't talk about it.

Mike: Well, how do you learn new stuff? Cause substance use disorders are not a one time through the drive through trip. There's going to be ups and downs. So if you're going down the path of relapse and You're not talking to your wife,

Desilynn: Right.

Mike: You're not talking to your buddies. You're not going to the meetings, right?

Mike: Then how, how do you learn those skills to deal with that stuff?

Desilynn: How do I learn a new way of thinking? And that's when you're put to the test of time. That's when your recovery plan is going to be put to the test. How does this work? It's building boundaries.

Desilynn: But again, like you said, all men, I think, I don't care what race they are, are taught that you're good. You don't, you know, none of that. Like, and I always laugh because. My dad was a very strong presence. I had both parents in the home and I was taught that so to show emotions was like, No, you're good.

Desilynn: You're good. You're okay. You're gonna be okay. You know, I feel blessed that I was taught coping mechanisms, though. It was kind of a twofold. You're good. But now what do you need to do to get better? That's what was taught. So that's how I work. But that is so true with like, so there's no, and then there's no support afterwards.

Desilynn: You go, treatment is almost treated like, this is what I gotta do but then half of the providers don't know what to do, how to deal with certain things, because it's not a cookie cutter. Unfortunately, we have a cookie cutter book, but the book wasn't written for the Black males. I mean, that's, it was not studied on a Black males.

Desilynn: One of the biggest things that they took most of our practices from was Vietnam back when Huron first started. So I started researching, I'm like, look, this is the same thing, but a Vietnam man is totally different than an African American man, Black male, whatever you want to call it. Born in between the sixties and seventies or late fifties.

Desilynn: You know what I'm saying? So the practitioner needs to learn and develop ways to learn that individual that they're working with to make it fit. The evidence base is awesome, but the evidence base was not driven off of Black males or the Black culture, period. It was not, and it's no shock to it because I love it.

Desilynn: I love the guide. It's a guide for me. So I learned my foundation, but then I have to learn the culture that I'm working with, which I've worked with Hispanics, Latinos, white males, white women, but everybody, I cannot use the same approach.

Mike: That's right.

Desilynn: I can't, you know, and that's what else needs to be taught in these schools when people go through. (chuckle)

Mike: That's what you all at Uniting Garden Homes are trying to do, right? I mean, it's a really unique place. Talk about what you all do.

Desilynn: So we are a community based organization. It started with I'm gonna say his name, Joe Bova, right? I love Joe. And he's the unofficial mayor of the Garden Homes area in Milwaukee.

Desilynn: And he had the idea he really wants to help his community. So building off of him, when I came on board, I went and talked to him about the mental wellness piece. Joe is a tough cookie, and people like, no, you don't want to talk to him. I said, well, I got to, I have to plead my case because I still give very much homage and respect to him for starting this organization.

Desilynn: He was no longer with it, but if I'm going to step up to the plate, I want to live in his shoes and I let them know that. The importance of mental wellness, what it meant to me, as well as how it dominoes affect everything. You will never end or talk about interrupting violence without talking about mental wellness.

Desilynn: You will never stop addiction or interrupt that cycle without talking about mental wellness. So we formed it. So now we now have a training academy that we do substance abuse counselor training. And that's my main focus out every class at the end. We talk about now, how are you going to apply this? We do unique things.

Desilynn: We do a lot of informal sessions here. That's one thing to get bring people together. If I don't think it's something I have to do or it's a treatment that you're going to be building my insurance for or telling somebody because that's another thing why people won't get help because now it's on my insurance.

Mike: Yep.

Desilynn: And that's a track record and they use it against us. And that's sad. And that keeps a lot of people from getting help. We also do community violence interruption. We have a critical response team here, and we actually go out. We're doing a pop up next week out on one of our busiest, I say busiest blocks.

Desilynn: 27th and Atkinson in Milwaukee. Some people call it the hot spot area. We don't care. We go to the people because it's hard to get the people to come to us just out the gate. So we want to show that presence when we go out. We give out some things, of course, food because we love to eat. And then we just do trainings around mental health first day.

Desilynn: We do a gun safety training. We just have on board a national firearm safety instructor and we've just developed one for kids, a safety class for kids. So now we're just putting that together so we could go out in the community because unfortunately, all of those things is like a circle. We will not.

Desilynn: So we have to kind of... We're not trying to save the world. We're trying to get to the people we could get to and whoever will listen because eventually we do believe that's going to be the infectious disease, the positivity to show that we're here and we go out in the winter months because we don't want to just show up in the summer and then hibernate in the winter.

Desilynn: We want to be out there. So it's a slow build. We have a lot of support within the stakeholders in this area that we're actually in. We're looking to expand. I work very closely with the County of Milwaukee, with their Better Ways To Cope grant. So that's been a huge support for me.

Desilynn: And getting out there, just, we just got to get out there. They're not going to come to our door, that shame, that guilt, the embarrassment. They're not going to come to us. So we go to them with a smile and here you go, I don't care, take it, whatever, here secretly handing off cards and then they call.

Mike: I got to ask you because of the time we're living in. The funding, you mentioned some of it, the county working with the grants, but you got to be concerned.

Desilynn: Very concerned. I'm extremely concerned. I do have a federal grant from, it's a cohort that they started through City United and the CAPS grant, which have been very good to me for that.

Desilynn: We have started our behavioral health clinic, which will kind of really be good, but now the Medicaid is being threatened. So yeah, I'm a bit worried. I'm a bit worried on that tip and mostly for the employees I've had to lay off. I lost funding from the city here formerly Office of Violence Prevention at OCWS, they pulled everything from us which really they didn't fund my organization, but they did pay my staff.

Desilynn: So that got pulled. I'm unsure of how that's going to go. So yeah, I'm worried mostly for the people that I employ. Because I only employ high risk individuals that wouldn't have an opportunity any other place and we work through every obstacle that we can. So yeah making it a safe place. So yeah, the concern is there.

Mike: And you know Desilynn you and I know this and I think people who listen to the program know this. The alternative is more expensive.

Mike: Relapse is more expensive. Incarceration is more expensive. If community programs go away, it's not like the drugs are going away.

Desilynn: Not at all. Yeah. Cause unfortunately the community isn't making the drugs. They're getting in somehow. I mean, fighting a border, it doesn't matter because it's the wrong border 'cause the fentanyl's coming from China. So it's, I mean, you know what I'm saying? It's like everywhere you look or every... My mom used to say locks are made for honest people. You could build all of these rules all you on to, but unless we have something to help the people in need, it's going to get worse.

Desilynn: I didn't learn even the work that I do until my husband died, that the 06 zip code was the hardest hit in Milwaukee. Not only was it the hardest hit, Black males was the hardest hit, but we had the lack of access to the resources, the lack of knowledge of even I didn't have the knowledge, which was hurtful.

Desilynn: And I sat and I think I was talking to him like, well, what do I do with this? Like. This is just ridiculous. So I started making calls and what was kind of disheartening to me in Milwaukee is my biggest support came from Madison, Wisconsin. Wisconsin Voices For Recovery. That was my biggest support. That's who brought Narcan down.

Desilynn: That's who educated me on it. That's who allowed me to go out and get it put in bars. Like whoever would listen to me, I did the pavement, did the work. They were my biggest supporters. I'm sorry. That's Madison. That's hours 45 minutes away. But right here in Milwaukee, we have things and resources that it was hard for me to get access to, and no slight intended to anyone.

Desilynn: I don't know what they're reasoning. I don't know what their job. I don't know their reasoning. I just know that my efforts to get that support and resources was halted. I had to go all the way to Madison, Wisconsin, and they, to this day, still support me on everything. They will come down and do an event for me.

Desilynn: They will support my events around everything. So I just been like, okay, but that was disheartening. That here, right, we have a whole city health department. You get this data. You should have been out on these blocks before me, so yeah, so I just still go out.

Desilynn: We're actually going out. It's going to be nice here tomorrow. We'll be passing out educational material cards and Narcan. We really talk though, because we can hand you a piece of paper. Are you going to read it? Maybe, but so we have those conversations. Yep.

Mike: And for those of you listening in other parts of the country, when Desilynn says, it's going to be nice here tomorrow, she means 36 and not snowing. (laugh)

Desilynn: (laugh) Well, actually, I think it's going to be 50 in Milwaukee tomorrow.

Mike: Let's have a, have a, we'll have a picnic.

Desilynn: Yeah!

Mike: I know that you do this in honor of Hamid. I'll let you go with this. I love the line in your bio because it fits with what you're talking about. Committed to being the advocate that she once needed.

Desilynn: Yep. Yes. And I come from a very supportive family. Unfortunately for that family line, mental wellness and substance abuse was not talked about. It was there, was not talked about. So when I first actually got into the work because of my son, which is Hamid's son, started dealing with some mental wellness issues, as well as some substance abuse issues.

Desilynn: I didn't know where to turn and it was good, bad and ugly for where I had to go. And I just want to make sure people have the best experience ever, and we tackle those bad experiences the best that I can.

Mike: Oh, that's great. What a great way to end this. Desilynn, I could talk to you all day.

Desilynn: Thank you.

Mike: Thanks for your story, your dedication, your work.

Mike: For those of you listening and watching, I hope you find support where you are. We thank you for listening. Be safe. And as Desilynn would say, you might be good, but what can you do to be better?

Desilynn: (laugh) That's right. Thanks.