Carleah Summers: Helping Mothers Recover from Addiction by Keeping Families Together

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Episode Transcript

Elizabeth Vargas:

Carleah Summers, welcome to Heart of the Matter. It’s great to have you here.

Carleah Summers:

Thank you, Elizabeth. It’s great to be here with you.

Elizabeth Vargas:

I want to talk to you about Andrea’s House. Why did you feel it was so important, so critical to have a treatment facility where mothers can be with their children?

Carleah Summers:

Sure. When I was struggling with addiction myself, I got pregnant and I ended up, when my son was 10 months old, I realized that I really, really needed to get some help in the young phases of his life. And the reason being is because I had a drug addicted parent growing up and I knew I did not want my son to have to experience what I experienced. And so I remember when I was going through that process, it was so incredibly challenging trying to find childcare, trying to decide what meeting to go to, who’s going to watch the baby, trying to get a job, all of these things. And it was so incredibly complicated and once I got into the field, I wanted to create a way that would help mothers be reunified, but also to keep their children rather than having to be split apart during that process.

Elizabeth Vargas:

We know a lot of women don’t get treatment who need it and who actually want it and want to do the work, and they don’t do it because it would mean losing their children or losing access to their kids for some time.

Carleah Summers:

Exactly. So that was the thing, was to create a model where they could not only get themselves better, but they could do so alongside of their children. And so that was really the inspiration behind the program and making sure that there’s so many ways to tear families apart. We wanted to be that one way to keep families together. And so that was the goal and that’s always been the dream.

Elizabeth Vargas:

Why aren’t there more places that do this? Why do you think that we don’t have many, many more Andrea’s Houses?

Carleah Summers:

That’s such a great question. I get asked that a lot. It’s a lot of work. It is a lot of work. And typically, we’re with our mothers anywhere from a year to two years.

Elizabeth Vargas:

Wow.

Carleah Summers:

The average time is 12 months to 18 months. Most programs go six to nine months, and then they want to discharge the mother or the female out back into society, and what we found is that it’s just not enough time, especially when they need to learn parenting skills and to be able to survive out here in this world. And so, we keep them as long as necessary, and a lot of people are not willing to invest that amount of time into the mothers.

Elizabeth Vargas:

I was struck by the slogan when you Google your website, the first thing that pops up is, “Saving lives one mother at a time.”

Carleah Summers:

Yes.

Elizabeth Vargas:

In essence, Andrea’s House doesn’t just save the life of that woman, it saves the life of that child.

Carleah Summers:

That’s correct. We really focus, one thing that was really important in my own personal life that I take into the work I do every day is breaking the generational curse. We don’t want this to continue, it’s a pattern. And what we really want to do is we let the families recover together, so we even work with the families of the women that are in the program to heal everyone so they can move forward, and this is not something that their children are dealing with later on.

Elizabeth Vargas:

How old are the kids that you are helping at Andrea’s House?

Carleah Summers:

We take anywhere from zero to nine years old.

Elizabeth Vargas:

Wow.

Carleah Summers:

And then also pregnant women. We just had our 100th woman in the program that also gave birth about four weeks ago, so it was really exciting time and really just reminds us of why we’re there and why we do what we do.

Elizabeth Vargas:

And the older kids, do they go to school? Obviously, they must.

Carleah Summers:

They do.

Elizabeth Vargas:

Yeah?

Carleah Summers:

We’re about a half mile from an elementary school. We work hand in hand with that school, and they do an incredible job of getting the children in when they come into the program. Doesn’t matter if they come in the middle of the school year or if they come in at the end, they do a great job of getting them in, so they feel included and everybody is where they need to be.

Elizabeth Vargas:

Are the moms able to really focus the way you need to focus on your own recovery? Obviously, it’s hard because we have an issue, an addiction crisis in this country. Is it difficult for these moms to focus on the work that needs to be done when they have their child with them, a child who needs a lot of love and needs a lot of care and attention?

Carleah Summers:

It is extremely difficult. And especially, Elizabeth, in this season where we saw a halt to the childcare vouchers, we’ve had to go to the drawing board to create a program within our program to be able to help zero to three because they’re not school age yet because it was becoming so distracting to the mothers in their recovery. The answer to your question is extremely challenging for them to focus on recovery when there’s kids involved as well, and the childcare prices are not getting any lower.

Elizabeth Vargas:

How are you managing this? How does that work?

Carleah Summers:

What we’re doing right now, we have revved up our fundraising I think more than we ever have. We’ve had some very generous donors. I can’t say enough about Frederick, Maryland, and our community, our foundations, local donors, and then we have donors outside of the state, but they have really answered that call of us needing to be able to assist with childcare. We’ve bought more volunteers in to assist with this. It’s all hands-on deck at this point.

Elizabeth Vargas:

What are some of the stories of some of the moms you’re treating?

Carleah Summers:

Most of the moms that come into our program unfortunately come from households where there were drugs and alcohol already introduced. Their parents were drug addicted, they had siblings who were drug addicted. And so this has become a way of life for them. And so really the challenge is for us is to help them understand that they do not have to take this pattern into their children’s lives. Most of their stories involved, this has been a long time of just constant drug and alcohol abuse within the family.

Elizabeth Vargas:

You’re talking about people who are long-term in the grip of their addictions?

Carleah Summers:

Correct. And a lot of times, their parents are still drug addicted, so you’re trying to help a child whose parents are still not living right. Some of them are incarcerated, some of them have even passed due to their addictions.

Elizabeth Vargas:

What about the generational trauma? Why is that so hard to break? Why do we constantly see these patterns of parents using and abusing substances and their children following in their footsteps in that behavior? Why is the cycle so hard to break?

Carleah Summers:

I know for me personally, I’ve said I never wanted to be like my dad. I never wanted to use drugs, be unreliable, not show up. I ended up using that as a coping skill when I had my own personal trauma, and so I believe it’s just learned behavior when it’s all said and done. At the end of the day, this is what we’ve learned, and this is what we’ve seen. And not having ways to treat that loneliness or that trauma leads us to different areas that we wouldn’t go to if we had the support systems in place. But instead, we turn into the environments that we’re accustomed to, and before we know it, we’re right down the same path.

Elizabeth Vargas:

Tell me a little bit about your story. How did you grow up and then how did you end up starting to do the very thing you swore you wouldn’t?

Carleah Summers:

Yeah, so I always say I did not have a bad childhood, but I had bad things happen to me in my childhood and I was sexually abused at the age of eight by a family member until the age of 10. And I acted out through, I got in lots of fights, became very violent, very isolated, didn’t trust people. And then I went to college.

Elizabeth Vargas:

Did your parents know? Did anybody know?

Carleah Summers:

My mom didn’t really know and my stepdad didn’t know. I was very good at masking it and it really didn’t get out of control until I got to college. I was very good at academics and throwing myself into sports, so I was good at masking a lot of that pain. And I had a foot surgery in which I was prescribed a huge amount of opioids.

Elizabeth Vargas:

What year was this?

Carleah Summers:

This was in 2001.

Elizabeth Vargas:

Okay. So back when maybe doctors weren’t as cognizant.

Carleah Summers:

That’s exactly.

Elizabeth Vargas:

And people like you weren’t as cognizant about opioids and the danger.

Carleah Summers:

Correct.

Elizabeth Vargas:

It was starting to bubble up, but it wasn’t widely known the way it is today.

Carleah Summers:

Exactly. And so between partying and those being introduced, it was the perfect cocktail for me. I didn’t feel that shame anymore, I didn’t feel that guilt of my abuse. I didn’t feel anything, and that’s exactly what I wanted. And it was just off to the races from there. Once I got pregnant with my son, I was able to stop drinking. I still used marijuana during the beginning of my pregnancy, but I was able the last trimester to not use it all, but once I had him, I suffered greatly from postpartum depression, which went undiagnosed for many months and so I self-medicated again with drugs and alcohol.

Elizabeth Vargas:

Talk about that for a second because I think that’s a very common thing. A lot of women suffer from postpartum depression. I think I went to a doctor convinced I had it and they just told me I was anxious, but I really do believe that whatever it was, whatever you want to call it, that period of time after you have a baby, you’re having a hormonal cyclone in your body.

Carleah Summers:

Yes.

Elizabeth Vargas:

And a lot of women really, really struggle. And what we don’t really talk about is that some women begin to self-medicate, especially when they go to doctors who say, “You’re fine, it’s a little postpartum depression, go home.”

Carleah Summers:

Yes.

Elizabeth Vargas:

And they’re not being taken seriously or helped by doctors so they start to self-medicate.

Carleah Summers:

Yeah. That’s one of the things I’ve really dove into over the last year. I’m currently in the process of becoming certified in perinatal mental health because we have seen so many times within our program the women will go, they’ll be fine when they give birth and we’ll see that instant flip. The depression, not wanting to leave the room, not wanting to be near their babies. I wanted to be able to be more hands-on. I know for everything you just said, when I went to the doctor, it was just, “Oh, it’s normal. You’re not getting sleep, it’s normal.”

Elizabeth Vargas:

Right.

Carleah Summers:

And it wasn’t normal. I felt like I was going insane and I couldn’t get anyone to take it seriously. And so that’s one of the things that I never want these women, these mothers to have to deal with in the program, and we pay very close attention to that.

Elizabeth Vargas:

After stopping all the substance use, that’s when you started to use again because of that postpartum depression?

Carleah Summers:

That’s correct.

Elizabeth Vargas:

That is not an uncommon thing. A lot of women postpartum, especially because they’ve maybe spent the last nine months not drinking, not doing anything.

Carleah Summers:

Right.

Elizabeth Vargas:

They feel horrible.

Carleah Summers:

Right.

Elizabeth Vargas:

They want to stop feeling horrible.

Carleah Summers:

Right.

Elizabeth Vargas:

And you see a lot of women start to pick up alcohol, that glass of wine turns into many glasses of wine.

Carleah Summers:

Exactly.

Elizabeth Vargas:

That’s a common thing with substance use disorder.

Carleah Summers:

It is. And we tell our mothers, now we have assessments in place. We have a lot of parameters in place so that we’re constantly checking to make sure because a lot of times what we realize is they don’t even realize that they’re feeling a certain way. They attribute it to I’m tired until certain questions are asked. And so I’m very grateful for the work that has been done on perinatal mental health to educate us on how to handle that and keep mothers safe after they give birth.

Elizabeth Vargas:

What are you finding, by the way, I was struck by this statistic that 15% to 25% of pregnant and postpartum women have mental health and substance use disorders. 15% to 25%.

Carleah Summers:

That’s a lot.

Elizabeth Vargas:

That’s one in four.

Carleah Summers:

Yes, it’s a lot.

Elizabeth Vargas:

Why do you think we’re so slow to recognize this? It’s amazing to me that it’s like the way the whole medical community is just woken up to hormone replacement therapy when it comes to perimenopause and postmenopausal women, is this just a function of we don’t pay much attention to women’s health? What is it?

Carleah Summers:

I think it’s a lot of that, but I think it’s also a lot of wanting to put everybody in a box. One shoe does not fit all. And I always say that it is so important that we’re asking that we have that empathy to ask and we don’t shame people for how they feel. There’s a lot of that and I’ve seen a lot of it with the providers and a lot of it, which I’m learning in doing this certification is the cost of the assessments and the treatment for postpartum is why a lot of providers are not asking about this, which we definitely have to find something to do about that because it is detrimental definitely to recovery.

Elizabeth Vargas:

And it hurts not just in this case, a mother, but it hurts her child.

Carleah Summers:

Her child. Absolutely.

Elizabeth Vargas:

There is for so many people in general, they don’t reach out for help. They don’t ask for help. They’re in denial about their own problem or they’re most importantly to ashamed and embarrassed to ask for help.

Carleah Summers:

Right.

Elizabeth Vargas:

That shame must be exponentially higher when it comes to a mother.

Carleah Summers:

Yes.

Elizabeth Vargas:

Who mothers are supposed to be caretakers.

Carleah Summers:

Yes.

Elizabeth Vargas:

And we have this idealized version of what a mother is. For a mother to raise her hand and say, “I’m addicted.” That must be a really difficult thing. Do you find that to be true?

Carleah Summers:

Absolutely. We’re expected to be super women. We cook, we clean, we take care of the kids, we juggle all of the things. And to take it one step further in the Black culture, we are expected. We don’t cry, we don’t show weakness. That is very much something I carried into adulthood, and I was very hesitant to ask for help because I had been raised by such strong women and had seen it all my life. When I needed the help, it was like, “Hey, we don’t ask for help. We just suck it up and we figure it out.” And trying to break that stigma within the Black culture has also been something that I want to work towards because we don’t have to suck it up and it is okay to ask for help.

Elizabeth Vargas:

I didn’t know that there was that stigma in the Black culture. Do you think that’s different from it is like for the white culture or any other race?

Carleah Summers:

I think that everybody, every woman feels some sense of that, but I think in the Black culture it is way more prevalent. I treat way less Black women than I do any other race in the program and it just speaks, it’s not shocking. The statistic’s not shocking to me at all. It is that hesitancy not only to ask for help, but also the involvement that we’ve had with the system. By time we get to that point, we’re hesitant to reach out to help for help because we don’t want to involve the system anymore in our lives than it has already been, and so that is also a deterrent for a lot of mothers.

Elizabeth Vargas:

Some of the kids who are there at Andrea’s House with their moms are old enough to ask questions.

Carleah Summers:

Yes.

Elizabeth Vargas:

What do they ask, and what do you tell them?

Carleah Summers:

A lot of times, and especially if they’re being reunified out of the foster care system, they’ll ask, “Does my mom love me?” That is one of the biggest questions-

Elizabeth Vargas:

Oh my God.

Carleah Summers:

… and one of the most heartbreaking questions that we get asked. And I always can get on their level and tell them, “Your mom loves you very much, but she’s sick and she’s trying to get some help.” And it almost always is a… It is just a gut-wrenching moment because it brings tears to your eyes when a little person is asking you something like that.
But then you see this beautiful thing happen where it’s like, “I want to help mom.” And so we try to make it so that they understand that this is an illness, it’s not something that they want or they chose, this is something they need help with. And so typically that is the biggest question and the most frequently asked question.

Elizabeth Vargas:

And it’s not their fault.

Carleah Summers:

And it’s not their fault at all, at all.

Elizabeth Vargas:

Gosh.

Carleah Summers:

No.

Elizabeth Vargas:

How old is your son now?

Carleah Summers:

My son is now 20 years old.

Elizabeth Vargas:

Oh my God.

Carleah Summers:

Yeah. He’s getting ready to graduate from Salisbury University and will become an educator and is working with young people.

Elizabeth Vargas:

Well done, Mom.

Carleah Summers:

Thank you. What a blessing he has been in my life, and we do a lot of speaking together and educating mothers who think that this isn’t possible. At that point, I didn’t think it was possible either. But to see the success that he has had and to have him standing alongside me has been more than I could ever ask for.

Elizabeth Vargas:

And what does he tell audiences? Why is it important they hear from your son who grew up with a mom who had to really fight?

Carleah Summers:

One of the biggest things he talks about is, and we always say we grew up together because we really did. And the biggest thing he says he talks about is the importance of support. Not giving up on that person that you love and being there for them even when things don’t always look the way you want it to look. And so he is very good at talking about getting in the programs, talking to people if you don’t understand what’s going on, because in early recovery there’s times where you have difficulty verbalizing where you are and how you feel, right? So those things are important.

Elizabeth Vargas:

And difficulty recognizing.

Carleah Summers:

Exactly.

Elizabeth Vargas:

And naming what you feel.

Carleah Summers:

Exactly. And so he stresses the importance of mentors and getting into programs where people can walk you along through this.

Elizabeth Vargas:

And clearly, you have broken the generational curse that was in your own family.

Carleah Summers:

Yes. So not only was I able to get my son off to college, but I also adopted my youngest sibling when he was 10 years old and I had five years of sobriety.

Elizabeth Vargas:

Wow.

Carleah Summers:

I was able to keep him out of that lifestyle, and he is very successful as well now, and he’s 26 now. So it has really, I have been given more than I feel like I deserve most days, but to see those two lets me know this next generation is in good shape and they’re going to have the knowledge and the wisdom they need to prevent this in their own families.

Elizabeth Vargas:

How many of the moms coming out of Andrea’s House stay sober?

Carleah Summers:

So we are currently, we have been tracking that and we’re looking at about 30%.

Elizabeth Vargas:

Does that feel low to you or is that?

Carleah Summers:

Well, it always feels low to me because I would want it to be a hundred percent. We know that this work is, what we’re doing is working to some degree and we’ve been able to keep 115 kids either with their moms or pull them out of the system, and so that is a huge win for families in this area. And so we want to expand. We are looking to expand. We can currently take six mothers at a time, which doesn’t even nick the surface of obviously what we need to be doing. We remain on a waiting list and we just do the work we can, but we definitely want to up that number.
Most mothers will not stick through treatment in state-ran programs from what we’re seeing. One of the biggest things about this program is we’ve made it a home. And so it is literally a house where the moms stay. And I was very intentional, there’s no white walls, there’s no institutionalized feel within this house, and we were very, very intentional about that. A lot of the times, the mothers will go to these programs where it does have that institutionalized feel, but I think the hardest thing is when the children go into these programs and they’ve done nothing to be here, and yet they are enduring this treatment and this feeling as well. And so it does make a difference, and they’re not likely to stick and stay in those types of settings, so we realize that.

Elizabeth Vargas:

Finally, Carleah, what would you say to anyone out there who may be listening who has a new baby or a toddler or a preschooler or even just a seventh grader and who knows that she needs help and she’s too ashamed or afraid to ask for it? What would you tell her?

Carleah Summers:

I would say I’ve been that mother, I’ve been that woman. The sooner you ask for help, the more help you can get. And I would say if you feel even a little off, if you feel that you are ready to live a different life or you can live a better life for you and your child, please reach out and get help. We help women all across the country. We will connect them with services even if they’re not in the state of Maryland, we will do everything in our power. But please know there’s help out there for you and there are people who want to see you win, and win with your family.

Elizabeth Vargas:

Carleah Summers, you’re going to help a lot of moms. You are helping a lot of moms through Andrea’s House. By the way, what’s the name, why Andrea’s House? Why not Carleah’s House?

Carleah Summers:

The house is named after my aunt who was very, very pivotal in my recovery, and she got me on my faith walk as well as a little bit into my recovery, she got stage four breast cancer. And I remember one day just crying, I wanted to give up. It was just tough raising kids by myself and trying to recover as well. And she looked at me and said, “If you don’t give up, I won’t give up,” and so while she went through chemo treatments, I did recovery and we did it together. Sadly, she passed five months before we opened the house, and we did not have a name for it at the time, but I can’t think of anything more appropriate.

Elizabeth Vargas:

I can’t either.

Carleah Summers:

Yeah.

Elizabeth Vargas:

Carleah Summers, lovely to talk to you.

Carleah Summers:

You as well.

Elizabeth Vargas:

It’s Andrea’s House in Maryland. If you know somebody who’s struggling with it, with any sort of a substance use disorder, pick up the phone and call. They’ll help you there.

Carleah Summers:

Yes.

Elizabeth Vargas:

Thank you.

Carleah Summers:

Thank you. Thank you so much.