April 7 is not a day Patrick Yarboro is going to forget anytime soon.
It’s the day in 2019 when he woke up in an emergency room — on the way to intensive care — after overdosing on the powerful synthetic opioid carfentanil. It also is his sobriety date.
But it wasn’t just Yarboro who needed help and support to come out on the other side of issues with alcohol and other drugs. He met his wife, Lindsey, during several periods of swinging between recovery and relapse.
“I did a lot of damage to our relationship,” he said. “I essentially groomed Lindsey, with the gaslighting, manipulation, half-truths and convincing her everything was OK when even she’d begun to realize it wasn’t.”
Today, the Yarboros both work at the Recovery Centers of America in Monroeville. Yarboro is the center’s alumni coordinator, and Lindsey is an administrative assistant in its outpatient program and works with its family support group, called TEAM (Teaching, Encouraging, Advocating and Meeting).
April is National Alcohol Awareness Month, and having seen the damage it can do along with other drugs, the Yarboros said they’ve come to recognize the crucial roles that individual and family support play in recovery.
“About six months after Patrick’s overdose, I started attending recovery meetings for family members,” Lindsey said. “And that’s when things started to finally get better. It wasn’t overnight, but I stopped fixating on trying to control Patrick and put the focus on me and how I could get better.”
Yarboro — who spent a year away from Lindsey in recovery before returning and undergoing marriage counseling — said Recovery Centers of America’s alumni group was a lifeline he didn’t have in other rehab programs.
“What I experienced was a facility that cut you off from the outside world,” he said. “And when I left, the people at the recovery center weren’t returning my phone calls. When I got to Recovery Centers of America, I saw the alumni support group and the drastic difference from what I’d experienced.”
Recovery Centers of America has an alumni coordinator at its locations in Pennsylvania, Maryland, New Jersey, Illinois, Indiana, Massachusetts and South Carolina, reaching out to clients and checking in.
“They host on-site support meetings every week, they get together every month and host events in the community where alumni and family members are able to come together and just have fun,” Yarboro said. “I started as a case manager, and I ended up volunteering on Tuesday nights at the alumni group, even though it wasn’t part of my job.”
Now it’s his full-time job. And that’s how he met Jaya Persaud of Penn Hills.
“I knew I was getting out of control,” said Persaud, who held his 5-year-old daughter, Marissa, as he spoke about his struggle with recovery. Persaud was already battling addiction when he was furloughed from his job in 2021, during the covid-19 pandemic.
“I started to notice big changes at home,” said Marissa’s mother, Mary Schandel. “I noticed Jaya lying, I saw on our car’s GPS that he was going places he shouldn’t be going.”
Schandel convinced Persaud to spend 30 days at Recovery Centers of America. He went, but relapsed a month after leaving the program, getting into a crash and totaling his car. Schandel decided enough was enough.
“Mary moved out and took Marissa, and I knew I was on the wrong path,” said Persaud, who eventually spent another 30 days. He then briefly moved to New Jersey when he found a recovery halfway house there where his insurance would pay for a two-month stay. When he returned home, he began attending an intensive outpatient program.
“Mary is in recovery herself, because I put her through so much,” Persaud said.
That is where the TEAM family support group comes in.
“As addicts and family members are recovering in their own ways, they’re brought together to work on themselves so they can restore that relationship, whether it’s spousal, or a parent and child,” Lindsey said. “That family recovery aspect is so important.”
Yarboro said the opposite of addiction is not recovery; it is connection.
“Addiction creates isolation — isolation from other people, and emotional isolation even when you’re with other people,” he said. “I thought the more I drank and used, the more I connected with people around me, but it was the opposite. And when I got sober, I had to run toward honest, real connection to get away from drugs.”
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Yarboro said there is a lack of intensive post-recovery support services in the rehabilitation community.
“In eastern Pennsylvania, where there are more higher-end recovery facilities, it’s a little more common,” he said. “But typically, places around here are set up for 30-day stays and outpatient services.”
Schandel said the support she, Persaud and Marissa have all received has been crucial in their family’s recovery.
“Lindsey pushed me to come to the TEAM family group, and it’s been so wonderful and helpful,” she said. “People from the group reach out to me every single day. I would love to become a peer specialist and help families someday, because I’ve been there.”
Yarboro appreciates the holistic approach to recovery.
“Family members need recovery, knowing how to set boundaries, how to put the focus on themselves, how to avoid enabling,” he said. “And in the same way that the alumni association gives addicts a place to reach out and call, the TEAM family group offers that support for family members.”
Schandel agreed.
“The group is amazing,” she said. “It really is our new family.”