- [Announcer] Special thanks to our sponsor, Gorham Savings Bank, in partnership with Gorham High School.

- Being a student at Gorham High School and Westbrook Regional Vocational Center has really inspired me to become a nurse.

I've had great teachers and great classes, and I'm really just excited for what's to come next.

- I love the people, I've loved my teachers.

I love the extracurriculars.

- So in freshman year we did a big research project called the I-Search project, but really, that was the catalyst, that was like, I have to do something with space.

- And I feel like a big thing about GHS is that they really focus on creating an environment where not only setting, but also reaching those goals is super important.

- What I love about Gorham High School are the teachers, because they really do care.

- At Gorham Savings Bank, we believe by amplifying these collective voices, we can affect positive change, one person, one family, one community at a time.

We are thankful for the opportunity to support this episode, and the amazing work of the high school students who have contributed to it.

(gentle instrumental music) - [Narrator] Beyond Maine's beautiful landscape, there's a dark, desperate crisis: a substance abuse epidemic.

We set out to capture the faces and stories caught up in it, and discovered there is a science to addiction.

There is also a way out.

These are the voices of hope.

(gentle instrumental music) (waves splashing) (shakers rattling) (woman chanting) - Connection to our culture, our connection to who we are as Wabanaki people, or indigenous people from wherever people may come from, that seek our care, and we believe that connection, and that connection to ceremony, language, our values of love first, no matter what, heals everybody, heals anybody.

Where we sit today is our Center for Wabanaki Healing & Recovery, the first center here in Maine that is for indigenous people, indigenous people that are ready to heal, are ready to recover.

(shaker rattling) I'm Lisa Sockabasin, I'm a past Passamaquoddy citizen from Motahkomikuk, and I am Co-CEO of Wabanaki Public Health and Wellness.

We work very closely with the Mikmaq, Maliseet, Penobscot and Passamaquoddy.

What we know is that we have a public health crisis when it comes to services for people in recovery, particularly detox services.

And so what we know is that if we have an empty bed, if we have three empty beds or six, we will be open to anybody who needs them.

We need a system where we're all talking to each other, and we're all collaborating, making sure that if there is somebody in need of services, and if it's our services that are available, we would absolutely welcome non-indigenous people into those services, and when those calls come, what we know is we have to be responsive.

We have to be there for our community members, for our indigenous people.

And so when there is not that safe place for them to go to detox, that is probably one of our hardest days.

(man chanting) - [Narrator] The Passamaquoddies have a term, wellbriety.

It means both sober and well.

Using that term, they've built recovery centers and sober living housing for indigenous men and women, supporting them as they walk a path of recovery.

Up next is a badly needed detox center, to combat an epidemic that has ravaged the Wabanaki communities.

- So when we saw this happening too many times, once is too many times, and we also knew it was a problem within the community, as well as statewide, what we knew is we needed to build it.

If it doesn't exist, we create it.

If we need more beds, we make them.

(woman chanting) (shaker rattling) It's really difficult to quantify the impact of what harm opiates have caused.

We've lost a generation with impacts on our next generation, with them, impacts on that generation.

How far does that go?

Indigenous people, we think of seven generations, right, beyond ours, it makes us more responsible when we make decisions.

So when we think about our responsibility to seven generations beyond ours, wow, you have to think about the impacts of opiates.

Indigenous people still are two times more likely to have an overdose than the average white Mainer.

So we know that from national data sets, that we are more than, just over, more than two times likely to be impacted that way.

It's really hard to quantify impact.

We've lost so many of our young people.

Some may say a generation of our indigenous people, where many of our young people are being raised by their grandparents, so we've lost so much.

And every loss, you think about the loss of the culture that person holds, the language that person holds, what they could be contributing.

It's hard to quantify that.

(woman chanting) (shaker rattling) 'Cause wherever you are in your journey, we have a place for you.

We wanna make sure people know that no matter what, that we stand by them.

- [Narrator] And that place, for many, is this beautiful log healing lodge in downtown Millinocket, an intensive outpatient program, or IOP, that opened in the fall of 2021 for members of Maine's indigenous communities.

Here, they receive culturally-centered treatment for substance use disorder.

- We do a lot of stabilization of people in crisis.

We have mobile clinicians who go to where the people are.

Fundamentally, I'm looking for their story, and one of the things we can do, because we have more time, is I can gather the life story from people, and so I get a sense for the story that led to their crisis.

And then we can begin to wonder together as a team.

So, how could we help them to find a different story, that takes them out of crisis, and how can we help them to find a different context that doesn't lead to crisis?

Because sometimes, just getting people out of their lives for a few days is enough for them to feel better.

- Almost ready, get all the seasonings in here pretty much.

But because we're using moose, I don't know if you can notice or not, there's really not a lot of liquid in it.

- So the first thing we want to discuss is, this idea of a healthy diet, healthy eating.

That's one of the reasons we're here, doing this Cooking Matters class.

Could I count pizza as more than one food group?

- [Group] Yes.

- [Woman] Absolutely.

- Yeah.

- It has dairy, it's got protein, maybe the grains.

- Yes.

- [Student] Vegetables, no fruit's on it.

Well maybe, if you put pineapple.

(everyone talking at once) - That's right, if you wanna make friends or enemies and put pineapple on your pizza, you can do so.

- So we work in nutrition and obesity prevention, food sovereignty, food security, traditional foods, as well as environmental health.

- [Narrator] Andrea Sockabasin, a former UMaine basketball player, is Director of Community and Land Wellness.

She oversees cooking classes, plus the traditional native gardens.

- Growing, harvesting, has always been really important to indigenous culture, and working to incorporate that into our traditional foods and our diets today.

- We're gonna do a cultural adaptation on a Shepherd's pie.

So we will incorporate squash, which is one of our traditional foods, in replacement of potatoes, and instead of a ground beef, we are gonna do a ground moose.

- Yeah, I didn't realize this.

- I think one of the biggest messages is, one, we're always trying to educate about traditional foods, ways that we can implement them into our daily diets, as well as bringing the message that food is to be celebrated.

(woman chanting) (shaker rattling) So as part of this project, we have teaching gardens, and it's not just for youth, it's for everybody.

So really reconnecting to the Earth, learning about some of the traditional foods, learning how to grow them, and studies show that if people are involved in the growing of the foods, they're more likely to try them.

- [Narrator] Traditional native foods, such as beans, corn, and squash, along with medicinal herbs, are grown on the 45 acres of fertile land along the banks of the Penobscot River, a cornerstone of the Wabanaki's Food Sovereignty Project to support health, wellness, and community.

- I think it gives them a sense of belonging and really connection to each other.

I think the gathering place is just that, a place where people can gather and come together, and have that connection, to share that laughter, and also get their hands dirty.

(woman chanting) (shaker rattling) (truck engine droning) - I live in the community, it's very small.

So I see, and it's very hard for me.

I know who's struggling, you can see it.

You know the folks that try, and for whatever reason, not succeed, you see everything.

We are not exempt from fentanyl, from heroin, all of those substances, needles, we're not exempt from that, it's very heartbreaking.

And I see the ripple effect it has on the children, on the family, and then on the community as a whole.

- I think that I went through typical trauma that happens on a reservation, when it comes to having an absent parent or parents, and dealing with seeing alcoholism and drug use from everybody around here, not everybody, but a lot of people.

And just personally, I had a sexual assault when I was a kid, and so that was really hard.

And so I didn't deal with that.

I think that it's kind of tricky to say, if it's mental illness or substance use disorder, or if it's just trauma, when it comes to anybody, because I think that using drugs and alcohol is a coping mechanism that you develop when you're really young to just deal with the trauma that you've been through.

And I think that for me, it was my only coping skill that I was able to learn, because I picked it up when I was so young, I was 13 when I started drinking and smoking weed, and so it was the only way for me to deal with all that I was going through as a child.

I'm 23 now, and I was around 19 when I first came into the wellness court, because of a charge of furnishing alcohol to minors, and I was also underage at the time, so I was in the jail for a long time, but that definitely helped me not ever want to go back there again.

(motorcycle engine puttering) - We cannot punish our way out, and that's the reality.

It doesn't work, it won't work.

We won't change behavior by doing that.

- [Narrator] Judge Eric Maynard, a non-Native American, serves as the Chief Judge of the Penobscot Nation Judicial System.

Bad behavior, he says, often stems from historical trauma of injustice, a genetic trauma that Native Americans have experienced and passed down to generations, the past 400 years.

- I think that that those issues that you see, the issues of racism, are underlying a number of the things that members of the First Nations, Native communities, have experienced for years.

In Maine, Native Americans couldn't vote in federal elections until 1950, couldn't vote in state elections until 1968, I believe.

- [Narrator] Since opening three years ago, the Healing to Wellness Court that Judge Maynard helped to found has worked so well they haven't put anyone in jail.

- We work on four foundational premises.

The first is, the criminal behavior that brings the individual into contact with the court isn't the problem.

Our second foundational premise is, you never change behavior with negative reinforcement, only with positive reinforcement.

The third is, it's commitment, not compliance.

We can't compel somebody to get well.

They have to be committed to making the change in their life.

And the fourth is, alienation drives addiction.

(traffic humming) We ask a lot of our team.

The police chief sits on the team, the director of housing, the director of education, the doctor, the director of behavioral health, the director of social services, prosecutor, public defender, two case managers.

- [Narrator] The tribal court team also includes a substance abuse counselor and a tribal elder.

They form a circle of support around each participant.

Rhonda Decontie, the clerk of the court, serves an additional critical role.

She is the cultural advisor for the Healing to Wellness Court.

- I look at things through an indigenous lens, so I see things a little bit differently.

So when I came into the court, it was set up very much like you would go into any court, right?

So you had the tables, and seeing that just didn't fit for this community.

And I thought it would be best to start incorporating some of our practices, like sitting in a circle.

(Native American drum music) For us, when you sit in circle, it's unity, you find healing, so we'll smudge before, so you put in your tobacco, your sweet grass, cedar, sage, and it's cleansing that person off.

But I think the most important thing is when we start our Wellness Court session, is that they know that they're here for this.

Even if they're up for a sanction or a discharge, they're gonna get that before anything.

(Native American drum music) We can have drumming, we can do dance.

- We're able to really do some incredible things here.

- [Narrator] Social worker, Brianna Tipping also serves as case manager and ushered Kirsten into and through the Healing to Wellness Court, a program that takes 12 to 18 months to complete and involves treatment, taking personal responsibility, committing to change, and making and keeping a plan for success.

- Judge Maynard picks out one person, and then we stand up and we talk about how our life is going and how just we're progressing.

And then we go around the circle, and we all say something positive to each other.

And it's kind of just a culture that is formed, right when you step into Wellness Court.

- To be able to connect with human beings in the recovery process, and to be able to reconnect with their culture, Kirsten was able to reconnect with her culture in a way that was so healing for her, and so spiritual for her, that it was a beautiful process to watch, and it's a beautiful process to get to be a part of.

- The adults and the council members always were really helpful and they were always very supportive for everything.

And they kind of just hype you up, like, when you say that you're gonna do something, or you are doing something, they're just really proud of you, and it's kinda like they're the parental figures that a lot of people in the Wellness Court never had, the people that are always in your corner, it's really nice.

(gentle guitar music) - For a lot of people that come through, they've never experienced healthy connections, caring connections, and when you have a group of people saying you can do it, you have what it takes to go back to school, to get that job, or what have you, to see that pride, that confidence build up, and when they first come in, that's not how they look.

There's a lot of shame, there's a lot of guilt.

There's a lot of, I know that I'm not welcomed in my community because of this.

You know, everybody is welcomed here.

- I think that they did help me mature and be able to attain my goals, because I think if I would've kept drinking and using drugs, I probably wouldn't be able to accomplish what I can now.

I wanna help my community, but I also wanna help Native American communities just as a whole, because I think that Native Americans struggle with a lot of trauma and we need doctors that look like us, in order to help each other rise up.

I think that we also lack in mental health services.

And so I think that if I could be a good psychiatrist, then I can help kids.

'Cause I wanna be a children's psychiatrist.

I wanna help kids with their trauma.

- So now that we have this, and people know that we are a resource for them to get the help, is crucial.

And, we may not have very large numbers, but if it's just saving one, then that's one that we have left.

- For most of the individuals who come in to the court system, the judge has been an authority figure who's told them they've done something bad: you've done something bad, and now I'm going to punish you.

The individuals who are successful in this program, they deserve to have that same authority figure, same level of authority, tell them, you've done something really good, and I want to tell you how great you are.

And that's why I stay on the bench and wear the robe, when I do that, because they deserve that.

- My father was in prison when I was born.

During that time, I was in and out of a lot of foster homes, and finally my father got full custody of me.

He was a diagnosed sociopath, he struggled a lot with that mental illness.

And you could only imagine the things that I had to go through.

My childhood was not pretty, wasn't pretty at all, but right when I turned 18, I got caught with a bunch of of drugs.

I remember my first charges were heroin, coke, Xanax, Valium, and I had some marijuana on me.

I went into jail, I was there for a little while.

Before I got into recovery, I was homeless.

I've been incarcerated in 14 states.

I've done prison sentences, like my life was never good, from the time I was born until I got into recovery, I never experienced what a good life meant.

I just thought this is the way life is.

I remember walking into my cell and it wasn't even a decision, but I just kind of dropped to my knees and I started crying my eyes out.

It was like my moment of surrender.

And I asked at that moment that, life, I spoke to somebody, God, life, whatever, the universe, and I asked for help.

At that same time, I was asked if I wanted to do drug court, and I agreed to do it.

And I feel like after that moment of surrender, I got a little clarity, I felt like I put on a maybe a new set of eyes that day and started seeing things a little differently than I did my past.

- [Jonathan] In the state of Maine, we have diversionary treatment courts, which specialize for people who are high risk, high needs, meaning that they're high risk to fatal overdoses, and high needs for treatment services.

- [Narrator] Jonathan Sahrbeck is the Cumberland County DA.

Here as in five other counties, Androscoggin, Hancock, Penobscot, Washington and York, they're taking a different tact.

Instead of long prison or jail sentences, an 18-month treatment and rehabilitation program.

- The treatment courts, which are usually drug courts, veterans courts, or co-occurring disorder courts, meaning mental health issues and substance use disorders, are used in a way that it's a very intensive probationary period, meaning that there's supervision.

There are drug testing, there are check-ins with probation and the court, along with the treatment team.

And on the treatment team, we have treatment providers.

We have people who do supervision on probation, the court, as in a judge or justice, a prosecutor, in Cumberland county it's myself, and then a defense attorney.

- Kind of setting up on a low lunge.

Maybe if you used blocks.

When I walked out of jail, I had a place to go, right?

They set it up so I had a sober house.

It wasn't go to my old friends, go back to what's familiar, right?

It was going back to something new.

The transformation, I think drug court was my foundation.

And I think everything that drug court had to offer, it wasn't like you're doing good, or you're doing bad.

It's like, oh, you're struggling?

As long as you're honest with us, we can work with you, we're okay with that.

It was more of a place of understanding and some compassion.

- We think that it is a much better use of court resources than simply sending somebody to the Department of Corrections or to the county jails.

And we really do think that, and what it can do for somebody in the long term can be a lot more effective than just simply incarceration.

- [Narrator] And then, there is the matter of cost.

Jail at $141 a day per inmate, is more than five times more expensive than drug court.

- I believe that the treatment court has saved lives, and I think it will continue to save lives.

It's a smarter, more effective, and more efficient way to provide that person their own tools so that they can stay on recovery.

Because if we don't, there's a good chance that that person's gonna be a victim of a fatal overdose.

- We're gonna get up, bend at the knees.

On the next inhale, we're gonna rise all the way up slowly, right?

Bringing our hands to the side, our gaze might follow, hands come together.

Exhale, coming all the way down through third eye, pausing at heart center.

Yoga I got into right away, right when I got out, and it helped me grow and change, and then I said, well, just like the 12 steps, I have to give back, now I have to start teaching yoga, and especially to the people that are just like me.

Glide forward, into that plank position, we're gonna drop the back knee.

I get to teach 'em about their ego, and their insecurities.

How do I see the truth, and being present in the moment.

We're gonna bend our knee back into warrior two.

I used to kind of fall into my fears and my delusions and my manipulations, and being able to see a little clearer into the truth has helped me grow.

Yoga was more powerful than the fear I lived in, and the addiction I lived in, to help me grow, to stay sober for the long term.

- [Narrator] To help therapists and medical teams determine the depth of trauma a patient has endured, they often turn to the ACEs test.

It measures adverse childhood experiences.

- I remember just feeling very, I was very filled with fear.

I wasn't allowed to play with toys or anything.

so I'd have to sit in my room, and I'd have to just kind of write out things that were wrong with me and I'd have to make a list.

And the list was never good enough.

When I was done with it, it was never good enough.

And he would get mad at me for not finding more.

- [Narrator] ACEs is comprised of 10 questions.

Therapist Jill Frame is administering the test to Will.

The results can help pinpoint who is likely most at risk for addiction.

- So one of the things we're gonna do today is we're gonna have you complete this Adverse Childhood Experiences questionnaire.

One of the things that's helpful for adults who go through the process of looking back at the experiences they had in their childhood, is to really be able to identify the areas that impacted who you were as a child, and who you are as an adult, and help you come to an understanding about that.

- Yeah.

- So that you can move forward in your own journey of recovery and personal growth.

- [Narrator] The ACEs test explores 10 types of stressful or traumatic events that have happened to a person before they were 18.

Those 10 events fall into the following categories: abuse, neglect, and household challenges.

- So when we talk about abuse in respect to the adverse childhood experiences, we think about physical abuse, we think about emotional abuse, and we think about sexual abuse.

And so for you, what your questionnaire reflected is that you had two out of three of those experiences.

The next two categories is neglect.

So there's emotional neglect, and then there's physical neglect, and you scored two out of two.

The sixth one is whether your parents or caregivers were divorced or separated.

- Yeah, I think I was just, it was at an early age.

I was kind of pretty confused all the time, of what was going on.

I would be placed in foster homes, and I think I went to a couple different places.

One time I had to live with an uncle.

- Who you are is such a reflection of how you were brought up and raised.

- It's almost everything we are, what we know almost, you know what I mean?

- [Jill] Right.

- And what we do with it is, we either become the same person, or we become the complete opposite of what we've learned.

You know what I mean?

- Yeah.

- Yeah, I totally feel that.

I try to do everything opposite, that I've had to experience and go through, especially with my father.

- Living in a household with a primary caregiver who has experienced mental health issues, and/or has had a suicide attempt, or who has died by suicide is another category that is part of this ACEs questionnaire.

And I know that you have spoken a little bit about your father and his struggle with mental health issues, so for you, that's another area that resonated as you took the questionnaire.

So you got a nine, almost a perfect score, (laughing) which in the ACEs questionnaire, is not really the goal, right, I mean, that's not what you would want for yourself or for your own children, or for the people around you, for sure.

I'm curious for you, kind of thinking about the different categories and going through this process, what was it like to know that you experienced a nine out of ten, when really, four is the benchmark?

- It doesn't really take me by surprise, because I'm gonna be honest, going through what I had to go through, really, nines out of tens don't mean anything to me.

- [Narrator] And it turns out, Will isn't alone.

One in every five Maine high school students have experienced four or more adverse childhood experiences.

- One of the things that we know about people that experience adverse childhood events or experiences in their life is that, it actually, that amount of toxic stress, so trauma, can actually change the wiring of our brain.

- [Will] Yeah.

- And it can get into our genetics.

- I never got shown much love, you know what I mean?

And I show a lot of love.

There's a lot of I love yous, there's hugs and stuff like that.

I didn't really, I didn't have that experience.

I didn't know what that really was.

It does feel like I'm breaking a pattern of generational things, especially knowing my mom and dad's childhood a little bit.

I was maybe eight months sober, and I found that place of self love actually, it was probably one of my most beaming moments of self love I had, and I got to go back to him, and 'cause he had nobody else in his life, he had zero.

I was the only person that would be there for him, you know?

So I got to go visit him, and at first, even though he had some mental things off from the stroke and he couldn't walk, he did the same thing, it was like, oh, so happy to see me, surprised, and I sat with him for a couple days, and he went right back to the attack.

- Wow.

- And he couldn't get into my bubble, 'cause I knew.

I was almost smiling inside my head, being like, yep, that's him, that's him.

And it had nothing to do with me at all.

It's just his sickness, and it was a super powerful moment.

(gentle piano music) Shortly after he passed away, I had a huge spiritual experience around it.

It was right there, 12 steps, I'd just read the four agreements, and he'd just passed away, it was all at the same time.

And I had some experience that would be hard to explain through words, and the word truth just kept going through my head, find the truth, find the truth, always see the truth.

And it was a beautiful, that was probably the best moment of my life, yeah.

It never felt right, you know what I mean, until now.

And it's so important for me to find that gratitude as much as I can, even when things feel hard, and maybe my trauma starts coming back, or some voices that tell me to escape and get away, I gotta come back right to the truth and really look around and really see the beauty of what recovery has brought me and I, yeah.

(gentle instrumental music) - People often use, over and over again, because of guilt, because of things that haunt them.

You may have had a bad parent or two, and what they pulled when you were growing up as a child may haunt you in your eighties.

And it's good to try to process that stuff.

I started using at 12, started smoking cigarettes at eight.

You know, that sort of thing.

I'm an alcoholic, addict, to the marrow of my bones.

- [Narrator] Zoo Kane is a prolific artist now, but his addictions cost him everything: his family, his livelihood, his very sense of self.

- So I needed somebody to come along and say, "Hey, I know how to get outta here.

"Why don't you follow me?

"And, you have to listen to my direction.

"Otherwise you're probably gonna die down here.

"You don't have any water, it's 120 degrees currently, "and you're gonna die if you don't listen to me."

So I never veered off the path, I did exactly what I heard.

- [Narrator] Zoo says meetings and his art saved him.

- 1990, I had a studio here, and I was just concluding a terrible eight-year binge.

And I was very distraught.

I was unhappy with my relationship with my children because I was unable to be a good father.

May 22nd, I was all about suicide, all about getting a gun down at Wise Pawn Shop, coming back into this room, 303, and shooting myself, thinking I would be doing myself, the world, a great favor.

I felt hopeless.

A few days later on a Tuesday, I found a 12-step meeting, and it was the very best thing that ever happened to me in my life.

I'll always cherish this spot.

My very existence started right here.

I knew my life was beginning a whole new existence without substances, and it was wonderful.

I've been an addict all my life, and to be clean and sober is huge gift, to say the least.

Well, I go to probably, roughly about 10 meetings a week.

I've been to nine meetings in the past three days.

Some of it's service work, which means I'm going into facilities like the prison, the local detox, mental hospital.

So I spend a considerable amount of time volunteering.

It's called 12-step work and it's wonderfully gratifying, and ensures my own sobriety.

Another way to help your recovery is to find out what you're all about, what you like, try to find some hobbies, some creativity in your mind.

If you're already creating, like I was, start finishing things.

I think the key is to surrender.

Like every day for 31 years, I've been putting the white flag two miles in the air, on my knees saying, "Universe, I don't know "really what's going on here."

I have some kind of clues now, I have some kind of answers, but, especially at the beginning, I didn't know.

All I knew was to surrender and say, "Oh my God, I need such help, "I can't do this, I'm gonna die."

For those that can't see themselves clean and sober, I suggest just to give it some time.

Suspend disbelief for a few minutes, keep trying, ask, say a prayer like "Please help me."

And, eventually, you will see yourself clean and sober.

You'll see glimmers, and eventually, you'll be living a different life.

It will not be revolved around some crazy substance that's actually killing you.

(waves splashing) - So we were raised in the '70s, and so everyone seemed to be doing everything.

So everybody smoked and everybody drank.

So there was this social acceptance around their behaviors.

When I was in high school, I was the captain of all of the sports teams, all those things that would look externally like a success.

Still, there was just this emptiness, and it's the big emptiness, and in programs of recovery, it'll be referred to as the God-sized hole.

Only a spiritual awakening can fill that.

And it's a common thread with all people with substance problems, and I believe that it was my palliative way of addressing my own, feeling like a cat in a bag.

I could never get enough of anything, I could never get out.

I could never get enough.

And it's an insatiable thing that you're always trying to fill.

Hi guys, good morning.

For anybody, is it your very first day at MaineWorks?

Hands up.

- [Narrator] In 2011, Margo Walsh launched the innovative MaineWorks, an employment company for people coming out of prison and recovery.

- Every day is a new day, and I look forward to it, because it sets the tone for the day.

So this morning, we had a pretty good turnout for Monday morning mid-winter.

I was working as a volunteer at the Cumberland County Jail and I recognized how underemployed these guys who had already qualified for a work program, were just going across the street to flip burgers and then coming home, and I thought there's way more that they could be doing.

- I didn't know where to go.

I mean, every time I went in and every time I got back out, it was right back to trafficking.

They gave me a sense of purpose.

- And I've done everything from riding on the back of a trash truck for the City of Portland, to building houses up in Yarmouth, or working on large industrial sites.

So MaineWorks has got us in all these different places, learning new things, learning things that we might want to do, and when we need stuff, they're there for us.

I definitely didn't have a resume.

For 10 years, I was on and off in jail.

The federal prison bit, I was in for a year-and-a-half straight, which was just long enough to lose my kids.

I was very interested in getting into construction, but it was really hard as a female, and especially an addict and someone who had a history, a criminal history.

I started just shoveling and swinging a hammer, doing grunt work, for months on end, I was the gopher, the person to run to and get everything.

And now I'm in charge of delegating what everyone else does, so it's pretty cool.

- [Interviewer] Has this saved your life?

- Yes, absolutely.

- What Margo does with MaineWorks and the Maine Recovery Fund is instrumental with making sure that people stay on the right path and out of the criminal justice system.

- We are providing things like access to just navigating their way to health care, navigating their way to reunification with their family, getting their license back, getting into a sober house.

All of those things, we provide them with outerwear underwear, boots, coats, and then, the more important things are things that interfere with their wellness, including eye care, dental care.

- I needed contact lenses, and the Maine Recovery Funds, it was willing to come through with that and help me out, 'cause on job sites, there's sometimes when job sites need you to wear a specific type of safety glasses.

- They'll give you help in ways that you can't even imagine.

- We have a lot of people who come through the door who don't end up staying, but they've had a really good experience, they've had a dignified experience of what it feels like to get some traction, to have people meet them and recognize their strengths and interests rather than just all the things that they have not done well.

- I think being part of this has made me a better DA.

It's made me more compassionate.

It opens my eyes to a lot of other things.

When you come around this circle, it doesn't feel like we're losing the battle, it actually feels like there's hope when it comes to what we can all do together.

- We are happy to help everybody where they are, as long as they're serious about getting their life together.

- [Narrator] MaineWorks helps an estimated 4,000 people every year, taking them from hopeless to hopeful.

- But you go from broken, to working on yourself, and fixing yourself, and so they have this experience and they see it among themselves, with their peers here.

It's really, really phenomenal.

(birds singing) - So when I got out the military, I found myself living in poverty, found myself living here in the streets of Lewiston, and just hustling to eat, hustling to pay rent, hustling to live, and part of that was also using drugs because my life was in shambles and nothing really was happy about it.

I wasn't succeeding as I planned when I left home and so I was turning to drugs to fill that empty space that I couldn't fill with anything else.

Since marijuana was my social thing, I would smoke that with folks, and it just led to other things, and before I knew it, I was doing cocaine and I was and coking it up, and smoking crack cocaine and it was bad.

And I went to a party one night, and got into a fight with a guy, and it led to him dying, and I found myself in the criminal justice system for 20 some, sentenced to 30 years in prison, and deemed unrehabilitatable by those that were judging me.

- [Narrator] Joseph Jackson landed in prison, labeled unrehabilitatable.

- That term probably stuck with me, and still sticks with me more than any other term has ever stuck with me.

And maybe part of me was angry in the beginning, but I don't know, I think I was in despair.

I think at the time I was thinking suicide.

I was thinking, I couldn't see a gate.

I never, I couldn't see a door.

The despair and distress that I was in, you couldn't show the pain in your face, inside a facility, inside of prison.

You couldn't show weakness, so definitely didn't do that.

But, getting to prison was like another world.

It was things that you think are common sense or rational type of thinking type behavior didn't exist there, it was like a bizzaro world, where your world is turned upside down.

- [Narrator] He turned that despair into action, helping illiterate prisoners read and learn.

And then he had an epiphany.

- One of the first things I did, was I started working with the NAACP and they had a fledgling group there.

and we were experiencing a lot of different forms of racism being directed toward the minorities that were present in that facility.

And just that little bit of work got me in touch with, just to see how impactful it could be.

That led to me working with people that were illiterate, a huge portion of folks that find themselves incarcerated are undereducated, and some can't even read.

But I had gained the respect of those people in power.

They knew that I was genuine, I was the real deal, because my only desire is to help.

I realized, I'm like, if I'm gonna really impact this system, I have to go to the entry point, what's the entry point, the juvenile system.

- [Narrator] Fast forward, Joseph Jackson is now Executive Director of the Maine Prisoner Advocacy Coalition.

He also works with Maine Youth Justice, and helps to run two powerful programs: Maine Inside Out, and Recovery Out Loud.

- You that beat box poet on Instagram.

I heard your sister's dead, you missed her funeral, you were on tour instead.

Now your mom's got cancer, your dad's on oxygen.

I don't know who you're boxing against.

I am not for everyone.

It feels so good to not need the approval of other people, you know?

(audience cheering) ♪ I am not for everyone To not need validation from anybody but yourself.

- Art is a tool for healing.

So when you use art and you begin to tell your story, you put it outside of yourself.

Now you can look at it.

Now you got a name to what's going on with you.

That's one aspect of it.

The other aspect of it is activism.

We used our art as a way of activism, to show people what's happening behind these closed doors that no camera gets into to see.

(audience applauds) - The kids who are in the Maine Inside Out groups at Long Creek have been working on some drumming, to come open the night on November 10th.

♪ People see what they want to ♪ Dang you don't understand me ♪ Trying to let my voice out ♪ Gotta break the walls and set her free ♪ - The way that I also got through that, with the shame and being able to not be judged, was put it into a play, that's what they told me.

Just put it into a play.

You'll be able to make it so that people know what you did, and that you're learning from it.

It's not just, oh, he did this, and he's still going down that same path.

No, he's trying to fight back out of that path.

He's trying to go onto a different one.

- Dad, you all right?

- I said I didn't need any help.

Men don't need help.

- Men don't need help.

And I was like, inside my box, I wasn't down to do plays, I used to not think plays, doing plays, acting, and plays were cool.

- No, I got it.

- Good, good, good.

- The streets.

- Streets.

- Struggle.

- I'm 19 years old now, and at this point in my life, all I want is to be in contact with him.

Where are you, Dad?

- That scene really meant a lot to me at the time, because I didn't have anybody that I could just go to like that.

Honestly, I think I can say it 'cause I didn't feel loved or wanted, I didn't feel like somebody was there for me, to listen to me 'cause I always had to fight to be heard.

- I'm glad that I had the chance to participate when I did, because if not for the group, I feel like myself as a young youth, still am young, would probably still be on the same path that I was, if I hadn't met the support system that Maine Inside Out brings to the table.

- When you are around young people long enough, and if you invest in the time, and the relationship is genuine, then you get to witness some things that just blow your away.

No person is in disposable, and if you put the right resources and the right time in anyone, that you'll see their goodness.

If somebody had a friend that's starting to experiment with drugs, I will say this here, and you're not using drugs.

Get closer to them.

Pull them into the things that you're doing that's not drug-related, try to connect with them, become closer friends, and really try to dive into what's going on with them.

I mean, I think that people don't really ask, they don't ask the right questions.

They don't ask the right questions.

What's the story behind even the experimentation?

Because it might be something simple, like I seen my parents do it, but if it's something else more than that, I would just say, yeah, you gotta get closer to 'em.

You can't push 'em away.

- [Narrator] If you or someone you know needs help right now, go to the knowyouroptions.me website.

You will find immediate help that's closest to you.

(shaker rattling) (woman chanting) (shaker rattling) (sea birds calling) (waves splashing)