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Rachel Starostin

Seminar focuses on youth drug use, suicide

February 26, 2020 By Brian Fernandes

When Heather Sefton, of Wesley Chapel, began losing close friends to suicide, she didn’t know how to cope with the trauma.

The untimely demise of one in the Bay Area was preceded by six others in Sefton’s native New Hampshire.

From front left to back right: Yahkaira Borbosa, Imam Hassan Sultan, Teresa Daniels, Eddie Williams, Jesse Varnadoe, Al Hernandez and Emery Ailes were participants at a Feb. 17 health seminar. The program was hosted by Pasco-Hernando State College to address the issues of mental health and substance abuse. (Brian Fernandes)

“I really didn’t understand what was going on,” the 19-year-old said. “They all just kind of kept hitting me.”

She too, began having suicidal thoughts as a result of her own family issues and having struggled with her self-identity, she recalled.

Pasco-Hernando State College (PHSC) has been active in providing resources for those like Sefton, seeking help.

One of its programs — Linking in Faith and Education (LIFE) — seeks to help improve mental and behavioral health by encouraging communication with group support.

The college also hosted a recent seminar – LIFE, Spirit, Wellness: Combating Substance Abuse and Mental Health Issues in Youth.

The Feb. 17 event, at PHSC’s Porter Campus at Wiregrass Ranch, focused on the issues of mental health and substance abuse.

Panelist Teresa Daniels, a volunteer for the Tampa Bay branch of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, spoke about her son, Tristen, who took his life over five years ago.

“We had no idea that he was having any thoughts, or that anything other than what we believed to be normal high school stressors, [were] going on,” she said.

Daniels said she thought her son might be having issues coping with the loss of his  grandmother, as well as working odd hours and lack of sleep.

But, there were no serious signs of depression, she said, adding that Tristen was the class clown.

He may have been “masking” his true feelings, Daniels said.

In other words, he may have been hiding his personal issues, while in the company of others.

Likewise, Sefton said there were no obvious signs that her friends were suffering.

Panelist Eddie Williams, a PHSC mental health counselor, provided some advice.

“One of the things I would say the youth is missing usually [is] socialization,” he said. “Having a peer-to-peer support group, or another youth there to talk with, could break the mold. Talking is healing.”

Williams is trying to implement these kind of groups across PHSC’s five campuses.

When it is apparent that someone is doing the opposite of their usual routines, or interests, it’s best to consult them to find out if there’s underlying issues, Williams advised.

The college’s LIFE program also encourages a religious component to be used in offering help, as well.

It aims to educate faith leaders on how to rally around and support those within their community who have mental concerns.

It was Sefton’s growing attendance at Wesley Chapel’s Life Church that helped change things for the better, she said.

“I was found by Jesus,” Sefton said. “That’s really what got me through – my relationship with him.”

And, with finding therapy, she has begun to offer it, as well.

“I’m very vulnerable and open about my story now,” Sefton noted. “I feel like that’s led a lot of people to talk to me about how they feel.”

Johnny Crowder was present at the seminar to offer to those in need, another outlet – with Cope Notes.

This texting service sends multiple messages a day, to its users, consisting of inspirational words and questions.

Cope Notes asks questions for recipients to voluntarily respond to, or just to reflect upon.

The intent is to help others consistently focus on the positive, as their mood may change throughout the day.

Crowder founded the service as a result of his own background.

“I’m a suicide and abuse survivor,” he said. “I spent 10 years in treatment for mental illness.”

He said there wasn’t a specific catalyst that led him to suicidal tendencies.

Besides experiencing domestic violence at home, Crowder said he did not find a sense of community in school and felt isolated.

“It was a childhood full of trauma and neglect that eventually snowballed,” he explained.

Crowder said that he began to find solace in singing, painting, writing and playing the guitar.

This, coupled with socializing and gradually building trust, is what helped him through his pain, he added.

Another speaker, Rachel Starostin, provided a presentation on substance abuse, an issue in which she has struggled with.

She had lived an independent life as a nurse, raising three children before she was hit by a drunk driver.

As a result, she was placed on pain medication to cope with her injuries.

However, Starostin became hooked on her prescription medicine and found it difficult to maintain her daily life.

“I functioned for a long time — until I didn’t,” she said, adding that she gradually transitioned to crystal methamphetamine.

She began neglecting her responsibilities as a mother and eventually lost her home, having to move her children from one hotel to another, Starostin recalled.

A brush with the law resulted in her arrest and her children being taken in by their grandmother.

“When I got out, they didn’t want to come home,” Starostin said. “They didn’t want to look me in the eye.”

Elizabeth Statzer, of the Medical Center of Trinity, took part in Starostin’s class, noting “substance use disorders are something that effects all ages, all races, all genders.”

The Medical Center of Trinity offers selective programs to help users overcome their addiction, she said.

Services include in-patient mental health services. There also is an outpatient program at the hospital where an addict can come by for group therapy three days a week.

Family support groups and family-to-family education classes also are provided to assist loved ones.

Starostin went through a 12-step program for recovery.

She currently is a public speaker, educating others on the dangers of substance abuse.

She also plans to help open a faith-based recovery home for women.

For free treatment referrals and information, contact the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration at (800) 662-4357.

To learn more about, or to try Cope Notes for free, text COPE to 33222, or visit CopeNotes.com.

Published February 26, 2020

Filed Under: Health, Local News Tagged With: American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, Cope Notes, Eddie Williams, Elizabeth Statzer, Heather Sefton, Johnny Crowder, Life Church, Medical Center of Trinity, Pasco-Hernando State College, Porter Campus at Wiregrass Ranch, Rachel Starostin, substance abuse, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, Teresa Daniels, Wesley Chapel

Symposium seeks addiction recovery solutions

September 11, 2019 By Kevin Weiss

A symposium is scheduled for later this month that will seek to create a blueprint for improving long-term substance abuse recovery efforts in Pasco County.

The Recover Out Loud Pasco Symposium is set for Sept. 28 from 9:30 a.m. to 2 p.m., at Calvary Chapel Worship Center, 6825 Trouble Creek Road in New Port Richey.

Admission is free.

The symposium is being organized by Recovery Epicenter Foundation, a newly licensed and accredited recovery community organization operating out of Trinity.

The symposium will seek to engage individuals, stakeholders and community leaders in an effort “to grow community-oriented initiatives, cultivate community allies, and develop recovery peer-based programs,” according to the event’s flyer.

Its keynote speaker is Dona Dmitrovic, executive director of Las Vegas-based Foundation for Recovery and former National Director of Consumer Affairs for Substance Use Disorders at Optum, United Health Group.

Other noted speakers include:

  • Tina Levene, motivational speaker and published author on abuse and addictions
  • Pasco Sheriff’s Office Lt. Toni Roach, who heads the agency’s Crisis Intervention Training (CIT) and Mental Health and Threat Assessment (MHAT) teams
  • Sara Mollo, Sixth Judicial Circuit chief assistant public defender
  • Former Sixth Judicial Circuit Court Judge Lynn Tepper
  • Sarah Cobelli, Baycare Behavioral Health program manager
  • Ginny LaRue, Florida Alcohol & Drug Abuse Foundation recovery project director

Additionally, the symposium will feature interactive café conversations about which recovery-related services are working in the community and what needs more support, along with a series of panel discussions from people in recovery and existing recovery community organizations throughout Florida.

Thoughts and input gathered from the symposium will be incorporated into the Recovery Epicenter Foundation’s visioning process in November to better define action steps for recovery-based programming, said Recovery Epicenter Foundation RCO director Rachel Starostin.

“The whole thing is we want to get the community together,” said Starostin, who expects anywhere from 200 to 300 attendees at the symposium. “The community benefits when we all collaborate together.”

Trinity-based Recovery Epicenter Foundation is hosting a symposium to help find ways to improve long-term substance abuse recovery efforts in Pasco County. The Recover Out Loud Pasco Symposium is set for Sept. 28. (Courtesy of Recovery Epicenter Foundation)

Starostin said the Recovery Epicenter Foundation’s “ultimate goal” is to build a peer-run, recovery-oriented community center to facilitate programs in the way of employment assistance, transportation, health and wellness, recreational opportunities, independent support groups and so on.

“We’re like building a shell out of something that needs to exist. We’re building something out of nothing,” she said.

“It’s kind of an abstract concept, when you don’t have a building and trying to plan out the future,” she said.

Starostin emphasized the need for such a recovery facility to help people “rebuild their lives” once they get out of addiction treatment. That assistance may initially include assisting them with “locatable, tangible resources,” such as basic medical care, living shelters, food stamps and more.

Starostin put it like this: “As a general rule, until you meet somebody’s basic needs, they’re not really receptive to listen. Like, how well do you focus when you’re hungry and you haven’t eaten in two days?”

Meanwhile, Starostin said the upstart recovery community organization is looking to mobilize more peer specialists to help with implementing various recovery programs. Peer specialists, or peer coaches, are people who have been successful in the recovery process who help others battling addiction through shared experience, understanding, respect and mutual empowerment.

Said Starostin, “There’s something magical when one peer who’s suffered from substance use works with another. You identify with them, you trust them, and it’s not like a 12-step program, you help somebody kind of come up with their own plan.”

Recovery Epicenter Foundation’s recovery community organization operates as an independent, nonprofit entity — led and governed by representatives of local communities of recovery.

Its mission is to support recovery through advocacy, education and peer-to-peer support services, to improve outcomes for persons seeking drugs and alcohol addictions.

Guidance and technical assistance on the Recovery Epicenter Foundation recovery community organization’s development process is coming from the Florida Recovery Project/Faces & Voices of Recovery, with collaboration from Florida Alcohol & Drug Abuse Foundation, Florida Department of Children and Families, and Peer Support Coalition of Florida.

An initial community listening session for the recovery community organization was held in February at the Land O’ Lakes Community Center, followed by a symposium planning session.

The sessions have already brought together dozens of stakeholders, including persons in recovery and professionals in health care, criminal justice, faith-based organizations and others.

“When we started this process, there wasn’t a whole lot of momentum behind it, but we’re getting it; people are getting involved and they’re starting to understand,” Starostin said.

To register for the symposium, visit tinyurl.com/yygu9e3s.

For information, contact Rachel Starostin at or (727) 255-2036.

Published September 11, 2019

Filed Under: Health, Local News Tagged With: Baycare Behavioral Health, Calvary Chapel Worship Center, Dona Dmitrovic, Florida Alcohol & Drug Abuse Foundation, Florida Department of Children and Families, Florida Recovery Project/Faces & Voices of Recovery, Foundation for Recovery, Ginny LaRue, Land O' Lakes Community Center, Lynn Tepper, New Port Richey, Peer Support Coalition of Florida, Rachel Starostin, Recover Out Loud Pasco Symposium, Recovery Epicenter Foundation, Sara Mollo, Sarah Cobelli, Tina Levene, Toni Roach, Trouble Creek Road, United Health Group

Seminar spotlights Pasco’s opioid epidemic, solutions

September 26, 2018 By Kevin Weiss

When it comes to tackling the opioid crisis in Pasco County, the community needs all hands on deck.

That’s according to Monica Rousseau, coordinator for the Pasco County Alliance for Substance Abuse Prevention (ASAP).

Rousseau was one of ASAP’s group of speakers for an opioid crisis seminar at the Pasco-Hernando State College Porter Campus at Wiregrass Ranch in Wesley Chapel. The Sept. 18 event was part of the state college’s ongoing Community Awareness Series, open to the public, students, faculty and staff.

Monica Rousseau is coordinator for the Pasco County Alliance for Substance Abuse Prevention (ASAP). She discussed the scope of the opioid crisis in Pasco County and some solutions for tackling the issue. (Kevin Weiss)

Rousseau, who’s worked for ASAP since 2014, underscored the scope of substance abuse locally.

Among Florida’s 67 counties, Pasco currently ranks fifth in the rate of substance abuse related overdose deaths, averaging 25 deaths per 100,000, according to the Centers for Disease Control Wonder Data and County Health Rankings provided by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

In 2017, the county ranked fourth in the state, but averaged fewer deaths, about 22 per 100,000.

Manatee County ranks first in the state in 2018, with 38 deaths per 100,000.

The figures, Rousseau explained, indicate other counties are getting worse in the fight against opioids, while Pasco remains about the same.

“We’re not getting better. We’re just kind of starting to press pause in Pasco County, whereas other counties are seeing a lot more deaths,” Rousseau said.

Multiple solutions needed
Rousseau attributes Pasco’s high ranking, in part, to its ‘pill mill’ epidemic from the early part of the decade.

“We’ve cut down on all the pill mills, but people with addiction are still dealing with it,” Rousseau said. “They cycle through treatment. It takes a few times for it to stick, but we just have a population that still is healing from that.”

In reducing substance abuse, Rousseau suggested the county needs to take a more comprehensive approach, focusing on the supply, demand and treatment sides of the issue, and “looking at this from a community perspective.”

Getting to the root cause of substance abuse is another task — understanding that addiction oftentimes is “an evolving disease of despair” driven by emotional suffering, as well as physical suffering, Rousseau said.

Helping those people get counseling may be one solution to fight the crisis, she said.

“We talk about the pain aspect until we’re blue in the face,” she said. What’s needed are conversations about how that person has post-traumatic stress disorder, or severe childhood trauma, or lost his job or his wife just left, Rousseau said.

Another speaker, New Port Richey’s Rachel Starostin, shared her personal story about battling opioid addiction.

She said she became a drug addict after she was in a car accident on U.S. 19 caused by a drunk driver.

A trauma nurse for Bayfront, Starostin was forced to give up her career because of ongoing physical problems related to the crash.

Aside from physical injuries, Starostin, too, had pent up emotional scars.

Her mother died when she was 16. Her father, a drug addict, was absent throughout her life.

Years later, Starostin came home to find her husband, who had died by suicide.

“I felt really bad on the inside. Everybody in my life that I really loved was gone,” she said.

Starsotin previously used work as a coping mechanism, but once her livelihood was taken away, she began using pain medication to fill the void.

Dependency affects all kinds of people
It began innocently. She took opiates before physical therapy sessions to manage legitimate feelings of pain and discomfort.

Over time, though, she progressively took more and more.

The medications removed her inhibitions.

“The reaction I had from it was not normal. All those bad feelings of, ‘I’m worthless. My life is over,’ they all went away,” she said.

Starostin said she was “completely controlled by opiates”— for more than 10 years.

While in jail, facing 25 years for drug trafficking, Starostin entered a 12-step recovery program.

She’s been clean for almost three years.

“I was just determined that I didn’t want to die,” she said, noting she came close to death several times.

“It was time to do something different. Nothing changes if nothing changes, and that hit me and I was like, ‘Ok, I need to change.’”

Today, Starostin is a member of ASAP’s recovery committee, which provides support for people affected by substance use disorders.

She uses her story to motivate others and to help them find their purpose in life.

Her advice to addicts: “No matter how many times you fall, you keep getting back up. It took me 20 times. I went through detox and stuff like that. No matter how far down the scale you’ve gone, you really can do it. You just have to keep it at.”

Starostin and Rousseau agreed there needs to be continual awareness regarding the negative stigma and negative perceptions associated with substance abuse and addiction.

“One of the No.1 reasons people don’t seek treatment is because of the stigma,” Rousseau said. “People don’t feel comfortable talking about their opioid issues or their drug issues, so they don’t know where to go.”

ASAP speakers also said more opportunities are needed to assist people in recovery to reintegrate back into society. There needs to be greater access to jobs, housing, health care and so on, they said.

They also pointed out that it can be especially difficult for those that have a criminal record for drug-related offenses, even after they’ve become clean.

ASAP recovery committee co-chair Kellie Walker, who also spoke during the seminar, put it this way: “There’s lot of things people in recovery need other than just getting sober and taking the substance away.

“What happens when somebody gets sober and they can’t find a job? They’re going to likely go back to some of those behaviors,” Walker said.

Published September 26, 2018

Filed Under: Health, Local News Tagged With: ASAP, Bayfront, Centers for Disease Control, Kellie Walker, Monica Rousseau, opioid epidemic, Pasco County Alliance for Substance Abuse Prevention, Pasco-Hernando State College, Porter Campus at Wiregrass Ranch, Rachel Starostin, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, U.S. 19

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