Welcome everybody to Midday Magazine for this September 3rd, 2024.
Have your host, James J. Mailoff here.
In part two today, we're going to speak to our friends at the South of County YMCA looking
forward to talking with Stephanie and Jacob.
Right now we have it with us in studio, some of our favorite people.
We have our good friends from three bridges recovery, kind of the vent to talk about and
the shop to talk about a little bit here, but you all introduce yourselves.
My name is Liz and I'm a woman in long-term recovery and I'm also the executive.
Director of Three Bridges Recovery.
Thanks for being here, Liz.
Good to see you as always.
Thank you.
And I'm Sarah.
I'm the peer and community advocate.
I am also the supervisor at Three Bridges Recovery and in long-term recovery, woman.
Always appreciated.
Nicely done.
Nicely done.
Yeah.
Always good to see you too and have you guys in studio.
I drive past Three Bridges pretty much every day and every day it makes me smile every
day.
I cannot tell you how much I enjoy.
Not only the work that's being done over there for our community, but what you too and
what your team puts into this, so it's so appreciated and some of the more important
work that's being done in our community.
I am curious how things are going over there, how are things rolling along and everything,
how are things, Liz?
They're doing, I mean, we're doing really great.
We've grown so much in the last couple of years.
We went from just having about five staff members to 20.
All over Central Wisconsin, all the way from Columbia County to Langley County and all
the counties in between.
So we have a really amazing team, some amazing peer support specialists and coaches as well
as an awesome office manager that kind of holds it all together for us.
One of the things that I've been encouraged by with this, and as mentioned before with
you all and I've talked about it in the air quite a bit, coming from a family of addiction
and of addicts and growing up with a father like that and seeing what my dad went through
and not just what he put himself through to be as he would say at his own words, but
what to be blunt, what society would put him through when he would, my father, like
a lot of addicts out there, it wasn't, you know, he didn't recover his first try.
There were multiple attempts at this and I remember specifically when we first moved
to Wisconsin, he really, really wanted to, that's why we moved to Wisconsin.
That was for him to completely change and, you know, do these things that he would end
up doing, you know, 20 years later.
When he got here, the first thing out of every employer's mouth was, oh, you have a record.
Thank you for, thank you for your time.
And he would continue and continue and continue to try to find work.
This is a, while yes, an addict, my father was a weird addict where he was able to always
work a 40 hour job or these kind of things, he worked in construction a lot.
He always tried to make sure that we had food on the table, even even though he struggled
with addiction.
But when he wasn't able to find work out here, what did he do?
He fell back to old habits, not just what he was using, but what he was, you know, trying
to make money off of and everything.
And it's something that has always bothered him and I and, you know, doing a little homework
before the interview here and looking into this and talking to some local businesses
and that, you know, where we stand on this one right now.
And I got to say, for a lot of factors, things really seem to have changed when it comes
to that.
There's still work to be done.
I'm not at all saying that things are perfect in rainbows and unicorns and everything,
but they've come so far in such a short amount of time.
I do want to note that.
I do think we, we don't do ourselves any favors if we don't look at the progress we've
made.
There's a road ahead.
We've got work to do, but it is encouraging to see the work that has been done and how
to be blunt, employers need people.
Like, they really do and in the idea of, I mean, when we were growing up, if you had tattoos
that showed, you may not get a job in interview or anything like that.
Now, they don't care.
Like, hey, are you going to show up on time or you're going to work?
You know, and there's a lot of factors that play into that, but whatever the cal, whatever
the reasons here we are, where it is a different day.
And I have you guys experienced that.
I mean, personally, necessarily, but the clients, the, you know, feedback that you've been
getting and hearing, how has it been for you and when it comes to this subject?
I think definitely there's been progress made.
You won't find somebody works harder than somebody who is in recovery that has restored
their life back to sanity.
So I think more employers are really seeing that and seeing the value in somebody that
is in recovery and how hard they will work.
Yeah.
Did you guys, I'm sorry?
I didn't want to cut you off.
Oh, yeah.
Help me on my stigma soap box all day.
But the big one, we have seen a lot of progress.
They're still, like you said, a long way to go.
But we have seen, like at three bridges, and I believe the health department and some
of those places keep them as well, but recovery positive workplace, a list of recovery positive
workplaces.
And so just where people know they can go get a job, be safe, different housing opportunities
for those with backgrounds, and because that's one of the hardest things, too, is getting
housed after this list.
So we've seen a lot more resources in that area.
And that's part of what we do is help get everybody connected to those.
I think some of it has to do certainly with what we've been through not only before the
pandemic, but during the pandemic with a lot of over-the-counter drugs, and all the
sudden addiction came to a lot of households that had never dealt with it before.
And so there's some understanding that came with that, I think.
And there is certainly the idea of what you said there, Liz, that I think is really certain
to be noted by employers, too, is like, man, this is a determined human being.
This is a person that has no interest in looking backwards.
They want to go forwards.
And that goes a long way with employers.
Let's talk about falling into recovery.
It's coming up September 8th from 10-to-2 over a wildwood station in beautiful Marshville.
It's a fun event.
It's an important event.
Can we tell the audience about this, ladies?
Who wants to do it?
Yeah.
Okay.
Who's going first?
Sure.
I can go.
Okay.
So Marshfield Community Foundation, we applied for a grant there to have our first kind
of like a recovery resource, fun event, and it's our first ever Three Bridges event like
this.
And so we're able to secure some funds.
We have live music.
We have free food from Brickstone Food Truck.
We have over 20 tables of all the different resources in Wood County and the surrounding
counties coming in and setting up a table for people to come in and check out what's
available to them.
And the big idea behind this is just outreach and awareness.
So it's a family, friendly, fun event.
There's going to be this cool, bouncy, obstacle course thing there.
Just a lot of things for kids to do face painting.
And like Liz said, in the past, we've wanted to plan something like this for a recovery
month.
Happy recovery month.
So that is why we're having this.
And now we were finally able to plan far enough ahead and secure the funds to actually
be able to put something on like this.
So we're very excited.
I think that you, you two, the audience know how seriously I take this topic.
There are a few serious, there's a few topics I take more seriously.
I heard nothing after a bouncy house obstacle course.
That sounds awesome.
That sounds awesome.
Like it really has my attention right now.
But in all seriousness, first off, congratulations on just pulling this off.
Like just having the event and everything.
It sounds like that took some work and that is really cool to see.
And I think all of us are old enough to know that boy, an event like this, I don't know
if 10 years ago would have happened, you know, I don't know how communities would be.
I'd like to think that they would have been encouraging and supportive.
I just don't know.
But it is really cool to just see the event like that alone outside of the fact that you
guys worked really hard on this.
You got a little something for everything.
There's not only going to be, as Sarah mentioned, resources down there for you and everything,
which could, I can't imagine the opportunities for recovery that could create.
That is a wonderful idea right there.
But you got to have some entertainment down there.
You got door prizes.
This is going to be a really fun event and just between the three of us, and I'm kidding,
the audience isn't on this too, but I feel like this could be a yearly event.
This could be one of those things that you get some good success on this one and you
bring it back next year.
That takes us as a community though.
We got to show up.
We got to come up to the event.
What kind of food is going to be down there?
I mentioned, there's going to be food down there.
Yep.
Brickstone is one of the food trucks in Marshfield.
We secured them to come down.
It's some fancy foods, so I can't really pronounce what they're going to say.
I think it's don't press paninis.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, paninis.
They're really good.
They're a great company.
They do.
That's going to be nice to have that down there.
You've got Joe G.
That's going to be performing.
Great musician.
Great local musician.
He's going to be there from 1030 to 130.
That's a nice one too.
Yes, yes.
Now, and maybe that there's a couple of really important things and really great things
about this event.
But one of the things that we want to make sure that we hit home is this is a free event.
This is a event open to the public.
This is an opportunity to come down, check things out, and while certainly want to reach
out to anybody out there listening that is struggling.
This is a great opportunity for you to talk to people face to face.
No computer.
No middleman.
You're not sitting on the phone waiting for three hours to talk to somebody or something.
You have somebody right there right in the in the know and you're talking to people like
minded people.
You're talking to people that either have accomplished this or working at it every day to accomplish
it.
So you're going to have some people that understand a little bit more than your average
person of what you're going through.
The organiveness of that is a beautiful thing because as you two know better than I do
and many out there, this isn't something well, you know what today's the day that I'm
going to change everything in my life, you know what today's the day.
I feel like there's something in the air, something in the air.
It's something that you, yeah, it'd be wonderful if that was the case.
But so many of the times in life, you're driving around and you're like, oh, is that today?
You know what?
Yeah, I am going to go over there today.
Today's the day.
I'm going to go over there today.
And it's also the importance of having an event like this of, oh, that's today, you
know, I can't make it today.
I don't know if I can go today.
That's why we need more events like this and we need more organizations or more funding,
I should say, put into an organization like three bridges recovery, give you guys more
and manpower, give you guys more of an ability to be able to reach out and help more and
more people.
The statistics alone of the amount of people that struggle with something is alarming,
I think, to your average person.
I don't, I think that if you asked your average person in any town, let's just look at our
rural community.
Most people would say, well, maybe two to five percent of people out there are struggling
with something.
You can triple that.
You can triple that and you might still be low.
And the other part of this, too, that really stands out to me about this and I'll shut
up in a second, I apologize for rambling.
I'm just very excited about the event.
And it's something that means a lot to me, these events, I'm not going to use the right
word here, but normalizing the words that are being used, the terms that are being used,
normalizing the idea that, hey, I'm struggling with this, but that's not who I am.
Yes.
And that's not who I want to end up as.
That's not how I want to be.
My father had a goal that he told me when I was like 13, 14 years old, so Jimmy, they're
going to bury me clean, they're going to bury me clean.
And honestly, if I'm being real with everybody, I didn't know if that was going to happen.
I really didn't know if it was going to happen.
I supported and loved my dad so much, I'm getting emotional just thinking about it.
I wanted it to be true, but I really didn't know.
And when I think about how he is probably going to pass 2,000 years from now, it'll be
in a sleep probably or something like that, as he would put it a boring way to go, which
is okay.
It's a good thing.
It just never saw this coming, never.
Of all the things in my life that have shocked me and surprised me, nothing has more than
this.
I'm so proud of him for it.
He did it.
There's others out there that can have that story too.
They just need the opportunity.
So the idea of an event like this in the community, all ages seeing the flyers and things
like this, it normalizes this stuff more and reminds people more and more.
These are just human beings.
There's no difference between you and another person that is struggling with something.
Everybody needs a help every once in a while.
This event is creating opportunities for that.
Yes.
Yes.
I just seen a statistic 22 million people in America are in recovery.
So we do recover, I don't know.
Yeah.
That's a great statistic.
It's an alarming one, but it's still, it's noteworthy, it really is.
Other things about the event that you guys wanted to make sure that we highlighted.
I know that the recovery tables down there, that is an important part of this.
The information that's going to be down there is accessible to people, so be sure to keep
that in mind.
Because it's the other part of this too, I almost forgot about that I wanted to make
sure to hit on this great event that you guys are doing.
We're talking with our friends at Three Bridges Recovery, about falling into recovery.
Their event coming up September 8th over in Marshfield with an event like this is the
average person that just wants to learn more about what you guys do.
Maybe they don't have any addiction issues themselves or know anybody that's struggling with
it.
I'm curious, I don't know what you guys do over here, I'd like to learn more about that.
This knowledge is not just power, it's life and the more you understand and learn about
these things.
I remember as a kid, there was a lady on the bus that I was driving on and she saw my
star David and she got up and moved away and I got up and I sat next to her.
I got up again, it sat right after her because I was a knucklehead and that's who I was
back then.
Before she could get up and leave, I asked her as a silly young kid and stuff, why are
you leaving and stuff?
And she's like, well, I've heard that Jews are dirty and I was like, well, my mom makes
darn sure that I take a shower every day because that's all I didn't understand.
I didn't know what she meant by dirty.
I took a very literal and we talked and we only talked for the bus ride.
It couldn't have been more than five minutes, but I told her a couple of things about Judaism.
I told her a couple of things that were just like her as a Catholic and her eyes were
widened.
I don't know if she left that bus more informed or anything like that, but I know that
that was an opportunity for her to learn and she took it.
She actually took the opportunity.
So many things that seem scary or weird or any of this stuff, just take that extra step
of talking to a person or learning a little bit more about it and you realize, oh, no
different than me.
No different than me.
You know, we're all just struggling trying to get through this thing called life.
We're all just people.
And then it comes to the event, is there any way we can help with this other than certainly
spreading the word?
Do you guys need volunteers for this event?
I think we are pretty covered, thankfully on that.
Our big thing is, you know, like you mentioned, being able to gather the community support
and just showing up.
So this is something that we can provide yearly.
We've been wanting to establish something like this for a long time.
We're always looking for additional funds.
We do fundraising, things like that because we are a nonprofit and this is a tough subject
to garner support on.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And when it comes to that, I do want to reach out to all of the businesses out there listening.
When it comes to, you know, marketing and spreading the word about your business, this is something
that people put thousands and thousands of dollars into every year, millions of dollars
into marketing and all of that and getting good PR and some of those things.
There are a few things that are going to add to your marketing, your PR, like attaching
yourself and being a business and sponsoring or being a part of things like three bridges
recovery.
You show your community that you believe in the work that's being done there.
You show your community that you are putting into the community that you support it.
So we want them to be able to do this again next year.
Wanted to be able to do it with a bunch of sponsors and a lot of that.
Reach out to all your local businesses, get on the right side of history with this one
and help out our friends at three bridges recovery.
Any way you can, there is a lot of different ways you can do that.
And we will actually be going around to the local businesses here in Rapids, potentially
in Marshfield as well, to hand out purple light bulbs.
And that will come with a flyer that has a QR code on it.
If anyone is willing to donate, they can put that up at their business along with having
their purple light.
Our goal is to just light up the town's purple for recovery month.
So still look forward to hopefully seeing that progress as September has happened.
Sarah, I'm a gigantic prince fan.
But that's not why we're doing the purple.
For those that don't know out there, could you explain why purple in particular, why
that color?
That's a good question.
Oh, it's for overdose awareness that is the color that they use for that.
So I believe that there are, I'm so sorry Sarah, I didn't mean to put you on the
back.
No, you're good.
I do believe there are like little pin flags and things that I've seen over the years
of purple flag and some of that.
Yeah, it kind of runs into like recovery in general.
So we use the color purple, probably because all the other colors were taken.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Nowadays if you're a cause, you're trying so hard to fire, I don't know, it's a magenta.
I don't know.
I'm sure true.
Thanks.
Let's, let's remind people again about the event, ladies again, falling into recovery.
September 8th, 10 to 2 over at Wildwood station, 1800 South Roadist Avenue in Marshfield.
They're going to have not only food down there, some harm reduction supplies, entertainment
from Joe G.
We'll be there from 1030 to 130 stone, press food truck will be there from 11 to 2.
But of course, down there will be recovery resource tables as well.
Those tables, what kind of things will there be on there for people, just information
stuff like that?
Yep, information.
We have like NAMI setting up the health department, even maybe probation, like what can your
probation officer do for you, as well as narcotics anonymous is going to have a table there.
And just any resource that we've come across.
And we're pretty big fans about handing out all the free stuff we can.
So we'll have harm reduction t-shirts, tumblers, water bottles, bracelets, different things
like that.
We can hand out.
We can hand out.
I do want to send a remind everybody that the bounce house obstacle course and more is
going to be going on as well.
I'll meet you there.
That sounds like a lot of fun.
Big thank you to the Marshfield area community foundation as well, helping out with this one
that greatly appreciate the work that they are doing there.
And before we wrap up, I want to encourage everybody, not only to check out the website,
you can find out more about what we have talked about today at 3bridgesrecoverywi.com.
That's all one word, 3bridgesrecoverywi.com.
Be sure to follow them on Facebook as well.
It's a great follow.
I love following you guys and you have a recent post up here of 3bridgesrecovery and 3
actual bridges.
Yeah.
That made me laugh so hard this morning.
I cannot tell you how I am not ashamed of it.
I laughed really hard at that.
I thought that was a really good post.
We're hoping.
This is very good.
Anything else you want to touch on with the event before I let you guys get back to
the work that you were doing in the community here?
No, we're just really looking forward to it.
We look forward to the community support and always reach out if you need to or available
24, 7, 7, 1, 5, 4, 2, 4, 0, 4, 0, 3.
Is that how people can reach you best through the phone number there?
Yes.
Okay.
Anyway, is that if they do want to reach out to one of you specifically, just send them
right there.
Just send them right to the phone or to the website.
Yes.
Okay.
And again, that website is 3bridgesrecoverywi.com.
Be sure to follow them on Facebook as well.
It's a great follow.
Sarah Liz, I really appreciate the time.
Appreciate what you guys are doing in the community.
You and your team.
We appreciate you.
Thank you.
Thanks for the time.
We will have more Midday Magazine coming up for you right here at 97-5 FM, 13-20 AM,
WFHR.
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