Lakeisha Pannell loves being sober.
Pannell, 44, has been at Grace House, a transitional sober living housing program for women in Jackson, since October. Pannell was sent there after she got out of prison. She began using drugs at age 14, and her addiction led to her losing communication with her family.
“I went to prison and caught that charge, and I got five and a half years over my head. So yeah, I got to get myself together,” she said, adding that she also wanted to be there for her granddaughter.
Now in recovery, Pannell says she has changed a lot. She’s happy to be sober, though she struggles finding work because of the felony on her record.
“I’m glad I’m doing my recovery because I was going down a bad road. Now that I’ve stopped my drug use I’m better now. I’m doing a whole lot different.”
Pannell, along with several other people impacted by addiction, visited the Mississippi Capitol on Thursday for Mississippi Recovery Day.
Mississippi Recovery Day allows those impacted by addiction to share their stories and advocate for policies that support recovery.
This year’s event was co-sponsored by End It For Good, a Mississippi-based non-profit that advocates for a health-centered approach to addiction rather than a strategy focused on criminal justice.
Christina Dent is the founder of End It For Good. A conservative Christian and foster mother, Dent changed her views on addiction after meeting the biological mother of one of her foster children.
“She had been struggling with an addiction for many years, and through getting to know her and seeing her, I realized she is a mom like me, who loves her son just as much as I love my sons.”
Dent and her fellow advocates see addiction as a medical issue, not a moral or criminal justice one, and want policies that address it that way. Prior events focused on specific policies such as decriminalizing fentanyl testing strips and expanding access to Narcan. Both of those policies are now law.
Several other organizations sponsored the event, such as United Way of the Capitol Area and Mississippi Harm Reduction Initiative.
The Mississippi Senate formally recognized Recovery Day in the Senate Chamber. The attendees had a little over an hour to tour the Capitol, network and meet with their legislators before a press conference on the inner rotunda steps. After the press conference and lunch, some gathered at the All Recovery Meeting to share their experiences and connect with others.
Like Pannell, several attendees were either residents or graduates of Grace House. Emilee Shell is the director of Grace House and is a graduate of Grace House herself.
Last year, Grace House submitted a proposal to the Mississippi Opioid Settlement Advisory Council, but did not make the final list of recommended projects the state’s Opioid Settlement Fund Advisory Council shared with the Legislature. Shell hoped for Grace House to be reconsidered and to talk to lawmakers about increased access to detox programs and recovery residences.
“People that are in recovery are some of the hardest workers, the biggest go-getters if you just give them a chance,” she said.
Like Pannell, Jerica Hill, 36, is a resident at Grace House who was inspired to get sober because of prison.
“I had a son. He’s six years-old right now, and when I lost custody of him and went to prison and everything, that’s when I realized I need to get sober,” she said.
Hill said her addiction also caused her to lose communication and trust with the rest of her family. She said that being sober is great, and that “you can actually really enjoy life.”
Stacey Spiehler, 45, fell into addiction after a traumatic childhood and several complicated pregnancies as an adult. Several members of her family struggled with addiction.
“I didn’t know how to handle my emotions. I didn’t know how to handle my fear. I didn’t know how to handle anything,” she said.
“There was one day where it was either a big bottle of vodka or a gun,” Spiehler said, and she chose the vodka.
Her addiction led to her becoming homeless. Over the next several years, she went to Matt’s House Shelter for Women and Children, brief stints in Brentwood Behavioral Health and St. Dominic’s Hospital, her mother’s house, a rehab in Chicago, Harbor House Chemical Dependency Services and finally Grace House.
She said Grace House was an important part of her recovery.
“Without that stable, kind of, floor to sit down on, chill out on, relax on and be around a whole lot of other women who had just beaten the same thing that I did, without that, I don’t know where I’d be,” she said.
She graduated from the University of Mississippi last year as a Lyceum Scholar and is president of the board for Families as Allies. She’s close with her family and ex-husband, and is an advocate for children with disabilities because of her son, who has autism and cerebral palsy.
Spiehler wants more lawmakers to listen to and understand people impacted by addiction.
“We need kind, compassionate, informed paths to recovery,” she said.
During the press conference, legislators thanked the attendees for their advocacy and talked about supportive policies, and people impacted by addiction spoke in favor of health-centered approaches and non-traditional paths to recovery.
“That’s the goal, a healthy thriving life, and we want to celebrate every step that a person takes that gets them closer to that healthy, thriving life,” Dent said.
In his speech, Rep. Fabian Nelson, a Democrat from Byram, highlighted last year’s success in passing a state law that increased access to Narcan, a drug that can reverse the effects of an opioid overdose.
He told the attendees their presence in the Capitol was important. “We need you here to come here and talk about what is important to you because that’s the way that we get things done,” he said.
This year, Nelson is trying again to push a bill to take hypodermic syringes off of the drug paraphernalia crime list, which would allow for needle disposal programs.
Rep. Sam Creekmore, a Republican from New Albany, talked about a bill he authored to have state-funded clinical trials for ibogaine, a drug that could be used to treat opioid use disorder and mental health issues. The bill recently passed in the House and is now in the Senate.
“What it does is bring some of the most treatment-resistant, hardest-hit Mississippians into the kind of gold-standard they deserve for FDA-approved medical research,” he said.
Katie Scheel of Columbus credited medical cannabis with helping her recovery and making her healthier, calmer and a better mother. She spoke out against House Bill 1195, which restricts medical marijuana advertising.
“I wanted to show y’all that these guys have a mom that is present because of medical cannabis,” she said, with one child in her arms and the other by her side.
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