They come to the emergency room on the verge of death, broken by opioid abuse.
Dr. Dee Bonney has seen too many of these men and women in his role as an emergency department physician for Franciscan Health Indianapolis. They’re suffering physically and mentally in their addiction.
Bonney talks with them, and they know they’re in trouble. But they don’t know how to escape the drugs.
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“I try to come to them at the bedside, and talk to them like they had value,” Bonney said. “We’re not throwing shame and guilt at people because they’re an opiate addict. But when opiates take over your brain chemistry, you’re kind of stuck. I want to start showing them that maybe this is a way that they might find peace.”
These encounters inspired Bonney, and his wife, Megan Bonney, a registered nurse to open Alpha Omega Elevations. The Greenwood addiction treatment center approaches the opioid epidemic from two distinct directions.
Clients are prescribed medication to help relieve symptoms of withdrawal, in order to medically treat the way addiction has changed their brain chemistry. At the same time, Alpha Omega Elevations uses Christian counseling and group therapy to heal the spiritual void that opioids have left inside them.
Biblical teaching is the foundation of their teachings and discussions. But people of all different belief systems come to the group therapy meetings, and they don’t all agree on faith.
“This is not church. It’s not all worship and God. This is a group of atheists and agnostics and angry, bitter drug addicts,” said Tate Short, a staff member at Alpha Omega Elevations. “But that’s what (Jesus) taught. This is one of the most biblical things we do.”
Anthony Phelps first met Bonney in the emergency room when he was recovering from an illness. The Waverly resident had struggled with heroin, meth and other opioid drugs throughout his life, and at first, Bonney just wanted to talk with him about his addiction.
Phelps was caught off guard about his genuine concern.
“I could tell from the first time I met (Bonney) that he cared,” he said.
After a formal interview and description of the program, Phelps started his recovery. He has become a regular participant in the counseling and small group work at Alpha Omega Elevations, and credits it with changing his entire life.
“Having someone who tries to work with you so much, who cares about you so much is so empowering,” he said. “Just knowing that, I’ve had to keep going.”
One of the main focuses at Alpha Omega Elevations is walking alongside clients in their recovery. They try to be available to answer questions or have doubts, or just for someone to talk to. Bonney and others at the center give out their cell phone numbers and tell them to call directly.
They check in on occasion if they don’t hear from someone in a few weeks. If someone wants to go to church but feels intimidated going by themselves, they offer to go along with them.
Those at the treatment center want their clients to feel like they have a support system in place if they need it.
“One of the things that is so different here is that we really focus on relationships. Medical practices in general are not about relationships. I don’t mean that in a bad way — you’re the patient, you go see the doctor, and you leave,” Bonney said. “It doesn’t extend beyond the office. That’s something we do differently.”
Short had struggled throughout his life with alcohol and drugs, but following major back surgery, he developed a crippling addiction to opioid painkillers. He had tried recovery in different ways before, but always found himself back under the influence of his addiction. He believed that drugs would kill him.
But four years ago, he found God. That spiritual awakening was life-changing. He’s remained sober ever since.
He had been involved with several intensive, months-long spiritual programs aimed at addiction. At the same time, he’d also been in clinical recovery centers and had used Suboxone himself in trying to get sober.
When he met Bonney at their church, he was immediately intrigued by the marriage of the two approaches.
“I was really searching. I knew I was supposed to do something, but wasn’t sure what,” he said. “We had lunch together, and prayed about it. God has used this in a wonderful way to grow me and mature me.”
Short works in the small groups meeting with the clients. He sits with them and shares his own story of addiction, as well as how faith has been instrumental in his recovery.
“What better thing can you give than hope?” he said. “I love it. I was sitting there at one time. I don’t know what people want out of life — maybe it’s not what I have. But freedom in Christ is how to get it.”
The genesis of Alpha Omega Elevations started more than a year ago, as Dee and Megan Bonney were struggling with a difficult time in their marriage. The experience helped both deepen their own faith and relationship to God, which strengthened their own union.
As a result, Bonney, who already worked as a physician, started classes to earn his master’s degree in pastoral counseling with a focus on marriage and family. The couple’s goal was to create a marriage ministry.
He finished his classes, and decided that he would take an additional course to get a waiver so that he could prescribe Suboxone, a combination of buprenorphine and naloxone.
The idea coagulated: they would open a counseling center and addiction treatment program that combined medically assisted therapy with spiritual-based guidance.
“I started seeing that what was missing was faith, a relationship with God. We’re not going to beat anybody over the head with the Bible. We’re just here to have a spiritual discussion,” Bonney said. “We don’t want to come at someone, we just want to come alongside them.”
Treatment at Alpha Omega Elevations starts with medication-assisted therapy to help clients break the chains of addiction. They are prescribed Suboxone to help stabilize the amount of dopamine produced by the brain.
Opioid addiction short-circuits the dopamine release system in the brain, producing unnaturally high spikes in the hormone key to the body’s reward-motivation system. As those pathways are changed and the normal function of the brain altered, people no longer feel as good when they take drugs. Instead, they use drugs simply to avoid withdrawal symptoms such as irritability, cramps, nausea and vomiting.
The drugs shape the brain’s memory center, inhibitions and motivational systems, essentially hijacking the entire function of the brain to focus on the next hit.
By using Suboxone, they stop bouncing between the dizzying euphoric highs and crippling withdrawal of addiction. Instead, they “even out,” Bonney said.
Medication-assisted treatment has shown to incredibly effective in helping people in recovery to avoid relapse. According to a study by the National Institute of Drug Abuse, heroin overdose deaths decreased by 37 percent once Suboxone was made available to patients.
“We can normalize the dopamine in the brain and get them feeling back to normal,” Bonney said.
But Bonney and others working with Alpha Omega Elevations felt that an additional component was necessary to approach addiction. Licensed addiction counselors lead group therapy, and offer one-on-one meetings if the client desires it, Bonney said.
The cornerstone of the counseling is that people need to live according to their own design, not simply from trying to escape pain but by being able to handle the challenges that come at you throughout life.
That is where the faith-based aspect comes in, Bonney said.
“Everyone, all around us, has at some point used something unhealthy to deal with the pain of living life not as we were designed to. Whether that’s alcohol or opiates or porn or buying that new car you can’t afford, whatever to get that little dopamine surge to feel better,” he said. “We’re all trying to fix this thing inside.”
Alpha Omega Elevations has about 25 consistent, regular attendees. Some people have come to a session and not returned. Not everyone who comes to the office is truly ready for recovery, Bonney said.
But those regular clients have remained sober since starting.
“We have a weird business model. I want to get everyone off of Suboxone and out of our groups,” Bonney said. “I want them to be fixed inside, to change how they go through their lives, and plugged into other small groups.”
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What: An addiction treatment center that combines medication-assisted treatment, which controls withdrawal symptoms, and spiritual counseling to help people in recovery from opioid misuse and abuse.
Where: 1700 W. Smith Valley Road, Suite C-1, Greenwood
Hours: Appointments are available days, evenings and weekends.
Schedule an appointment: Call (317) 300-4091
More information: opiateaddictiontreatmentcenter.com
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