Robert Bedford, a recovering addict and one of the founders of Stepping Stones Recovery Foundation, hopes to bring his program to Tamaqua.

Bedford told the Step-Up Tamaqua group this week that 60 percent of heroin is coming from the Northeast region of the United States, with Tamaqua on the main line of the influx of heroin.Stepping Stones Recovery Foundation is working toward creating more awareness about the disease of addiction, which he said is a mental illness called substance use disorder.As an illness, Bedford said professional help is needed to overcome and go into recovery.Stepping Stones Recovery Foundation is working with the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office, which is planning to put together a task force to fight the epidemic and work toward better communities.Bedford, who has worked in several different levels of addiction counseling, understands the disease of substance use disorder.The main issue with addiction is the stigma behind the disease. The relapse rate is extremely high for addicts and is therefore written off as incurable.“Diabetes has a higher relapse rate (than addiction), but we don’t talk about that,” said Bedford. “We don’t stigmatize diabetics.”SUD has many negative connotations attached to it. It is seen as a violent disease. Stepping Stones Recovery Foundation wants to change that prejudice.“Anything that gives you a feel-good experience has the potential to become addictive,” Bedford said.The organization has a new model for recovery housing that has a mandatory, 30-day detox period. During this time, the patients cannot leave the property.The detox period is the hardest time for the patient. Bedford related this to having the worst case of the flu possible.“You are in pain and cannot move. Multiply that feeling times 10, and that is what an opioid addict is feeling during a detox. Now imagine that the cure for all of your pain is in a simple pill and all you have to do to stop it is to take it,” Bedford said.The next step of the recovery housing is giving them opportunities to thrive in their communities. Life skills such as cooking and balancing a checkbook are taught. They are also put into support groups.The people are given more freedoms, such as the opportunity to get a job. Stepping Stones Recovery Foundation has 150 corporations that are willing to hire people with criminal records.Most halfway houses only work with temp agencies, which does not give the person a real opportunity to get a lasting job.Stepping Stones Recovery Foundation encourages the patients to stay for at least six months at the housing.The organization has an 86 percent success rate for patients who stay in the recovery housing for three months. The rate drops to approximately 60 percent when any time length is taken into account. These statistics are still higher than most halfway houses that have a 45-50 percent success rate.The foundation does not own or operate recovery houses. It provides the guidelines for those facilities and assists in referring individuals in recover to those facilities.Stepping Stones Recovery Foundation wants to put these people back into the community as changed people. The recovery house owners are checked by Bedford himself to ensure that the program is being run as it is designed to.The stigma behind recovery houses needs to change, Bedford said. The organization will buy existing properties and fix them up to bring property value up.“The ones you have to worry about are the ones that aren’t in the recovery houses, not the ones that are,” Bedford said.