Patrick Kennedy and Tonie Dreher

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Episode Transcript

Elizabeth Vargas:

Patrick Kennedy, Tonie Dreher, welcome to Heart of the Matter. Great to have you both here.

Patrick Kennedy:

Thanks, Elizabeth.

Elizabeth Vargas:

Patrick, congratulations on the book. I love the fact Profiles and Mental Health Courage, a takeoff on your Uncle JFK’s book, Profiles in Courage. Why this title? Why this book?

Patrick Kennedy:

Well, first of all, it’s a great title, isn’t it?

Elizabeth Vargas:

It is. It is.

Patrick Kennedy:

And President Kennedy really made it famous and it’s a title that initially was meant to put the spotlight on eight US senators who had made an impact in our nation’s history. And this book, for our time in my mind, is to put a spotlight on people who are making another major impact on our country in a positive way and helping show the way to where we need to go as a nation because we don’t talk about the real life issues of mental illness and how people cope with it, the real life issues of addiction, how people navigate this world. We’re never going to be able to address it effectively because, as you know in our country, we want simple, easy solutions and-

Elizabeth Vargas:

Yeah. Just fix it. Just fix it. Yeah.

Patrick Kennedy:

Right. We’re overwhelmed by the complexity. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. And when you read these 12 stories and Tonie’s a great example of how difficult the journey is, and frankly, there are examples of why we need to fix the system because the system has left so many to suffer when they didn’t need to suffer. It’s just that we haven’t been proactive in putting in place the policies that can help make a difference in people’s lives.

Elizabeth Vargas:

Two things that struck me in reading this book, and then we’re going to get to Tonie and her story. But number one is that yearning we have for a quick fix. Anybody in recovery, you and I are both in recovery, knows that it is not a quick fix. You don’t just flip a switch and you’re magically fine and never again tempted and never again struggle. That recovery while incredible and can last decades is an ongoing long process. That’s the first part of that.
And then the second point I want you to make is how intertwined the issues of mental health and addiction are. Most people I know who have a problem with drugs or alcohol, the vast majority of people I know, started drinking or using drugs to numb a feeling, to numb something so painful and that was often linked to mental health.

Patrick Kennedy:

Well, you’re right, there’s so much interconnectedness. I mean, addiction is a mental illness just technically. We in this country silo and have built whole systems of care around these silos such that the addiction community doesn’t think of themselves the same as the mental illness treatment community and vice versa. And of course, the advocacy is really anemic as we don’t join forces for a more effective solution that is frankly comprehensive.
So, there’s no doubt about it that the great thing about being in recovery is that you get to serve others. And in serving others, you’re kind of liberated from your own self-imposed prison of self-centeredness and isolation. And the thing I love about Ms. Tonie’s story is about how her life is really a beacon of hope to other women who may think that there’s nothing left in their lives to look forward to. But when they hear and see her and they know what she’s been through, they will know that anything is possible.
And I might say, in recovery as you know, as we say, we shall not forget the past nor wish to shut the door on it because we don’t know how our experience can help another. And just a small aside, I had to leave Congress, Elizabeth, because of my own addiction. And five years after I left when I thought everything had finished and my best years were behind me, I was asked to come back to do an intervention on one of my colleagues.

Elizabeth Vargas:

In Congress?

Patrick Kennedy:

In Congress. And I never would have been able to do that first if I wasn’t sober. But moreover, if I were anyone else other than someone who had served in Congress. The message that I would’ve brought wouldn’t have been heard as clearly as a peer, if you will.

Elizabeth Vargas:

Yeah.

Patrick Kennedy:

So that’s the greatness of recovery is that we have a future of giving back. And Tonie is a perfect example of that.

Elizabeth Vargas:

Who was that? Can you say?

Patrick Kennedy:

I can’t say.

Elizabeth Vargas:

But did they get help?

Patrick Kennedy:

Yes. And I can say that while I was in Congress after I got back from treatment myself, I had colleagues of mine open up and tell me their own stories. And of course, I was the only one that they knew was someone who suffered from the disease of addiction, which tells you a lot about the problem we have with these illnesses is that we don’t know that we’re not alone.

Elizabeth Vargas:

Yeah, I’ve talked about talking publicly for that precise reason. A lot of people are secretly quietly in recovery. And so, when you’re suffering you’re like, there’s nobody out there I can talk to. And by the way, hello, for those of us who were just listening and can’t see, we just had a tiny human being make an appearance. All right, Ms. Tonie, you are chapter four.
And I was struck by something at the very beginning of this chapter when you talked about counseling people who’ve recently been arrested and diverted to supportive psychiatric care instead of jail at Rikers Island. And they come in to see you and you say, and you write this, “They say, ‘Oh, Ms. Tonie.’ And I say, ‘Okay, I’m telling you Ms. Tonie has been some places and Ms. Tonie had seen some things.'” Why do you tell them that?

Tonie Dreher:

Because it’s the truth and I want people to know that they’re not alone. What you see is only because of grace and mercy, because it didn’t have to be this way. When I was using, I was on a suicide mission. So, to know that I can now assist someone with getting to the next level, I have to be honest because there’s one thing that is certain. When we’re addicts, we feel already like everybody is judging, or at least I know for me. I felt like everybody was judging me. If I didn’t feel like I could trust you, I wasn’t opening up to you. So, the reason for my transparency is to ensure that my clients know that they can trust me.

Elizabeth Vargas:

What do you tell them about your story?

Tonie Dreher:

It all depends on who’s coming. It all depends on who’s sitting across from me. If I have a woman sitting across from me, I need her to know, I know what happens when you’re in the streets and you don’t have any more money and you still want to get high. We trick it. And I’m a plain person, so I give plain language. Sometimes my language is very vulgar, but it’s very direct, right? We’re going to do anything to get the next one, anything, by any means necessary.
I just had a woman, she’s 65 years old and I always refer to her because she’d never sought treatment before. Never. And I had been counseling her since 2016, when I started working here. She just went to treatment about six months ago and she’s been in treatment for six months. So when I’m honest with individuals from the door, I understand that you’re not going to get it on the first try. You may not even be ready to hear what I have to tell you. But if you just keep showing up, I’m going to ride it with you. We’re going to ride this thing together. We’re going to ride till the wheels fall off.
A woman just walked in here 20 minutes before this meeting. She’s another elderly woman. She told me that she’d been clean for 25 years. She got a cancer diagnosis and relapsed. And now, she’s having a struggle getting back her sobriety. I told her, “When you ready to go to treatment, let me know.” And she looks at me because again, that’s that look, “Oh, Ms. Tonie doesn’t know what she’s talking about.” So I had to let her know. I used for 25 years, I used for 25 years, and she said, “Look at that, you used for 25 years and I had 25 years clean, child.” I said, “So we’re going to make it work to get you those years back. You’re cancer-free now. When you’re ready, let me know.”
It’s about giving hope to people that are now hopeless. She threw away 25 years because she thought she was dying.

Elizabeth Vargas:

What I hear when you tell me about that conversation is not only that anybody can get clean and sober and that you’re offering hope, but I don’t hear any judgment in there.

Tonie Dreher:

Oh no, I can’t judge.

Elizabeth Vargas:

But you do know that the rest of society judges, people judge harshly.

Tonie Dreher:

When people judge, so I’m going to tell you because I work with individuals that are judgmental too, right? And when people judge in front of me, I shut it down from the door because you don’t know anybody’s struggle. No one knew that I was a child that had been abused my entire life. No one knew that when I came to work in this office, I told people that I didn’t have children, but that wasn’t true. I told people that I didn’t have any children because I didn’t want the judgment. Oh, how can you be a mother and you gave away your children? How can you be? What happened to? I didn’t want all of that.
So instead, I denied having children. Recently, as recent as maybe three years, I just started saying that I have children. I just started saying that. I definitely understand the judgment, so I can’t put someone else through the shame that I lived through and I let people know it’s okay if you come in and you go back out. Don’t stay out. Come on back in. I’m going to be here.

Elizabeth Vargas:

You can always come back in. Tonie, you had an extraordinarily traumatic childhood. When I read your story in this book, honestly, you think I can totally understand why she turned into drugs after everything she went through. Without getting too deep into every single detail, you were physically abused, you were sexually abused, you were in-charge at the age of 11 of your little brothers. You should never have been in-charge of little kids at that age, but you were. One of your brothers while you were watching them, was hit by a car and killed. You blamed yourself for his death. It is overwhelming the things you experienced before you were even 16 years old.

Tonie Dreher:

Yes, I was an adult and I never had an opportunity to be a child.

Elizabeth Vargas:

Yeah.

Tonie Dreher:

And I believe that that’s the reason that when I had my children and their father said that he would take the children so that I could live my life a little bit, it was so easy because at this time, I wasn’t using drugs. It was just so easy for me to say okay. And he moved to New York with my first three children that I had. There were no drugs involved.

Elizabeth Vargas:

At what point did drugs become involved?

Tonie Dreher:

I moved to New York in my 20s and I met a lady in the building where my mother used to live in the Bronx. Because I always come back to the scene of the crime, the one thing that I’m guilty of even up to this day is that I’ve always wanted my mother to love me. And that’s something that she’s not capable of, or at least not in the way that I need her to. So I’ve now come to the realization that I have to meet my mom where she is, right? Because I believe that there are some trauma there. I believe that there was some abuse there. I believe that there was a lot going on. She had me when she was 15 and I believe that there was a lot going on.
But as for me, when I moved back to the Bronx and the reminders because I hadn’t sought treatment yet, the reminders of the beatings, the taking showers and seeing the scars that grew up as I grew up, the knowing that you abused me and you allowed me to be abused. And I just wanted something that was going to quiet the noise that was going on in my head. And I met a woman that lived in my mom’s building and I know now that she ran a crack house. And when I would come in from work on Fridays, I wouldn’t go upstairs to my mom’s house, the woman’s house would be my first stop.
And in the beginning, I was just doing it on the weekends and it progressed. It progressed and I had more children by then and I left those children. I left those children. I left those children to get high. In my 20s, I started using and I didn’t come in from the cold until about 25 years later. And in those 25 years, I can’t tell you how many children I gave birth to. And for me, it’s about honesty, right? It’s about honesty in all areas of my life because if I’m talking about being a force for someone else, then I have to be honest about my stuff, right?
So it’s about honesty and I don’t know how many children I have. How many children do you have total? I have no idea. The same way that I said it in the book, I would be lying if I told you how many children I have because I don’t know-

Elizabeth Vargas:

Because there was so much drug use going on that you just can’t remember?

Tonie Dreher:

I can’t remember how many children. So I was smoking crack, that was my drug of choice, crack cocaine. I had to have the cigarettes. I had to have the gallon of liquor. And I had to have the crack. They all went hand-in-hand. I had different men. I’m amazed and I’m grateful that HIV is not a part of my story because if I put myself, I was at so much at-risk behavior. Growing up Jehovah’s Witness, we didn’t believe in abortion. So every time that I got pregnant, I couldn’t get rid of the baby. I would give birth; the hospital would let you stay for three days. Back then, I don’t know what it’s now, right? But back then, you could stay for three days and I stayed with my children in the room. Each baby, we spent three days together.
The baby slept with me. I fed the babies. When the three days was up and it was time for me to be discharged, I knew the children weren’t coming with me. And I would go back to the hospital for feedings until my mind couldn’t take it anymore. And then, I would lose track of the children. I would go to the courts. I would go to the foster agency to visit the children until my mind couldn’t take it anymore. And when my mind was on overload, all I did was smoke from sunup to sundown. So I lost count of how many children I have.

Elizabeth Vargas:

Patrick, what does that tell you about the power of addiction? What Tonie’s describing there.

Patrick Kennedy:

Well, first of all, the power of being able to be honest with yourself, to be able to be this transparent with things that are so full of shame and judgment as Ms. Tonie had said when other people hear about it, what you end up doing in most instances is whitewashing your past, self-editing and really only telling part of the story. And then you wonder why you feel so disconnected because you’re walking in a room and even if it’s crowded, you’re all alone because you feel like no one understands you.
With Tonie being so transparent and honest, other people are not going to feel like, oh my god, no one understands the pain that I feel. No one has been through what I’ve been through. And her strength is being so transparent, being so honest, and it is serving so many other people. I wish I could say that the pain that Ms. Tonie’s been through is unique to her, but it’s not.
It doesn’t matter who you are or where you come from, this disease will make you do things that you just would never choose to do if you weren’t under the lash of addiction. And we have a responsibility now in sobriety to help others and that’s really the redemption in all of it. And by being this forthright, Ms. Tonie’s just really making others feel not so alone out there and that’s going to save lives. I can guarantee you.

Elizabeth Vargas:

Tonie, I was struck by the part of this chapter in your story when you went to a therapist. And here’s how it reads in chapter four of Patrick’s book. “At first she had her doubts. I mean, here’s this white man sitting in front of me and I’m saying, what are you going to be able to tell me about myself? I’m just here to get my social security benefits.” In fact, this therapist really managed to get in and open a door. You guys are still in touch. Are you still in touch even now? How many years ago was that?

Tonie Dreher:

I went to treatment in 2009 and I had been receiving public assistance and someone in the program said, “Well, you’re eligible for SSI.” So, what do I need to do to get SSI? They told me-

Elizabeth Vargas:

Which is a social security benefit.

Tonie Dreher:

Yeah, social security supplemental income. And I went down to meet this person and this man comes out and he says, “Hi, we’re going to have a meeting today.” And then he continued on with being my therapist, and I’m like, “Yeah, what this white man going to be able to tell me about myself.” So when I see this man, I’m thinking to myself like, this man is insane. I love him. I love him today. He gave me insight on so many things, but the biggest gift that he gave me was my life back.
He helped me to understand that I was suffering with mental illness. He helped me to understand that the substance abuse was the coating to quiet, because we talked a lot about the noise in my head. And we talked a lot about my not wanting to feel anything, just being totally numb. And I was diagnosed with schizophrenia.

Elizabeth Vargas:

Wow.

Tonie Dreher:

He walked me through steps. And there were times that it was hard to know that the only thing that I ever really wanted in my life was for my mom to love me. I’m the only girl. She’s supposed to love me. She’s supposed to be teaching me, not hurting me. And getting an understanding that anything that happened to me was not my fault because I blame myself a lot. I tried suicide more than one occasion because I-

Elizabeth Vargas:

Quite young too. You first tried suicide right after your brother was killed. You were only 11 years old.

Tonie Dreher:

Yes. I took an overdose of pills and I remember laying on the floor and I remember waking up and being mad at God because I didn’t even kill myself right. Out of all of the things that I’ve ever been told I couldn’t do, I couldn’t even take my own life. And so, I was upset with myself about that. And none of the traumas that I ever suffered in life were ever resolved until I met Paul and understood it’s not your fault that this happened to you. It’s not your fault. You were a child having children and raising children, it’s not your fault.
Because I used to say I never had rite of passage as a virgin. I was molested. I will never know what it feels like to be that little girl or that young lady to say, “oh, I lost my virginity.” I’ll never know what that feels like. And hearing someone say to me, that was not your fault, because I was blamed my whole life. Paul and I still have sessions every Tuesday.

Elizabeth Vargas:

That’s amazing.

Tonie Dreher:

Every Tuesday. He is one of my biggest cheerleaders. He’s my number one fan. So what he gave me is the ability to now come in and Patrick talked about giving back, right? I don’t just counsel women. I counsel men too because I don’t know when people got lost within themselves. I have no idea.
I just got a young man, I’ve been seeing him since I’ve been working here. He comes in, he goes to the group every day. He doesn’t say anything. I started working with him, I want to say maybe since April, maybe March. And he went out and got a haircut. He keeps his appointments. He just registered for therapy. He’s passed his fifth appointment with his therapist. I handpicked my therapist that I think that my clients are going to do good with because what is needed is someone that’s going to be able to sit down and listen without judgment.
A person knows when they’re being judged. You can feel it. You can feel it. And he comes upstairs and sees me every day. He’s in group right now. And he says, “Ms. Tonie, I love my therapist. He gets me. He gets me.” I say, “He gets you.” He said, “Yeah, he gets me Ms. Tonie.” And I said, “Well, there it is. Now what are we going to do next? Because now we’re on to the next thing.” And it’s about that unconditional high regard that Paul showed me as what I now give to the population that I serve.
It’s a disaster out there. People are struggling out there and they don’t know that it’s okay to not be okay. I’m here to let you know it is okay to not be okay.

Elizabeth Vargas:

You got your GED in 2013. You then went on to get training. You’re now a counselor for women at cases but you also see men.
We spend a lot of time in this society judging people about whom we know nothing. And I would hazard a bet that in the depths of your addiction, somebody walking past you on the street would think, “oh my god, lost cause.” And yet, look at what you’re doing and look at who you’re helping. And the lesson in that is nobody’s a lost cause.

Tonie Dreher:

Nobody. And actually after meeting Patrick, I did an interview on the park bench that I used to sleep on. I went back to my neighborhood.

Elizabeth Vargas:

Really?

Tonie Dreher:

Yes. Yes. And the neighborhood was so welcoming. They were so welcoming. There used to be a pastor that used to sit in her car waiting for parking. And she always used to tell me, “You’re going to be okay. You’re going to be okay. God is watching over you.” I’m a lady-

Elizabeth Vargas:

Even when you were sleeping on the park bench.

Tonie Dreher:

Even though I was sleeping on the park bench. And it’s ironically funny that the day that I went to do the interview, she was sitting in her car waiting for parking. And she looked at me and she said, “Oh my god, I told you that you were going to be okay.” And it’s just a feeling to go back someplace where I caused a lot of havoc because I sold drugs. I sold drugs. I used in the neighborhood, and I sold in the neighborhood. So I caused a lot of destruction. And to be able to go back in the community and allow the community to see who I am today and offer open door, because people don’t talk enough about mental health in the community. So I take mental health to the community. I refer people to treatment in the community.

Elizabeth Vargas:

You are now also in touch with many of your kids.

Tonie Dreher:

Yes.

Elizabeth Vargas:

How did that happen?

Tonie Dreher:

So I have a baby. She is my mini me. She is my little twin. Same attitude, same everything. She put up a page on Facebook called Tonie’s Kids. And she invited any child that may belong to me because as I said, there were children that I knew. I also have children that I don’t know. For the children that I knew, they joined the page and they all connected. And she doesn’t allow anybody to talk bad about her mother at all. Not even the siblings.
And then I have a daughter in North Carolina who called me one day and she says, “Hi, this is Valencia.” And I said, “Hi, baby, how are you?” And she says, “Mommy, I’m having a baby and I want you to come down before the baby comes.” Well, I got on the Amtrak train and went down to North Carolina. Needless to say, my grandson was born before I got there. But in my mind, the whole trip, I’m thinking, how am I going to tell this child that I gave birth to her and allowed her father to take her when she was three days old? How am I going to do that?
When she came to pick me up from my hotel, I got in the car, I had this spill in my mind that I’m going to say to her, and I turned to her and she says, “Mommy, I don’t even need to know. What matters to me is I called you and you showed up. And that’s enough for me.” And we have been thick as thieves for the past nine years. My grandchildren call me… my name is Neema and I’m happy. I’ll take it. I’m grateful for it. I’ll take it.
My mini me has five children. They call me Neema. They love on me. And at times it saddens me because what I’ve learned about myself is that I would’ve been an amazing mother had it not been for fear that I would be my mother.

Elizabeth Vargas:

Yeah.

Tonie Dreher:

Had it not been for fear that I would be my mother, I would’ve been with my children.

Elizabeth Vargas:

Well, you now have the chance to be an amazing grandmother and still a mother.

Tonie Dreher:

I’m going to North Carolina next month.

Elizabeth Vargas:

Patrick, what do you hope people get from Tonie’s story in this book? It’s one of many. Each chapter is a different person’s story. And I imagine that with each chapter you were hoping some lesson would be learned. What’s the lesson from Tonie?

Patrick Kennedy:

Well, it’s not intellectual, it’s spiritual that you could just tell from this, speaking to Ms. Tonie. Ms. Tonie, the reason why you’re going to make such an impact is you can feel the impact that you’re making and being able … For having felt like nothing was ever going to happen in your life that was good. How life can turn around. And your story is a story of immense hope. And the fact that you’re saving lives, yes, these diseases create so much havoc and self-destruction, but on the other side, there can be so much healing. And all of that destruction, you can start to repair by paying it forward, saving other lives from not being lived in a way where there’s no hope, there’s no opportunity for people to get better.
And when we’re in recovery, we get a sponsor. We’ve picked someone who we can be fully transparent with in the fifth step of our twelve-step recovery program. And it requires you to tell everything. And you tell everything so you can be free of everything. And in her sharing, Ms. Tonie tells everything so anybody reading this book can be free. And I am just so grateful she stepped up.
Everyone in this book had a choice to go forward or not, everybody had the choice to step back. Most of them did. There’s only a handful of people who had the courage to continue to plow forward. Ms. Tonie was one of them. And as you just heard, she was being interviewed by national media folks. Now, keep in mind, we are in the biggest mental health and addiction crisis in our nation’s history. And there’s only a handful of people like Ms. Tonie who are telling the full story.
You know Elizabeth, there’s lots of folks who say, oh, “I have a diagnosis”, or “I’m in recovery.” And that’s about where it ends. No one in this country really knows what is it like, how do you do it? What’s it like now? And they’re not going to have to wonder now when they read this Profiles in Mental Health Courage, because they’ll read stories like Ms. Tonie’s that are heart-wrenching, full of hope, full of reality about the complexity of these illnesses. And it’s going to do a lot to help our country come to grips with how these illnesses affect everybody around them.
And I definitely think that it’s going to make a difference as we try to grapple with how, as a nation, are we going to move forward. I think service to others, as Ms. Tonie pointed out, that spiritual dimension, Paul, one person in a life can help transform a life. And now, Ms. Tonie is that person for all these other people. And they can come to her and feel safe because what she was able to do in being so transparent. And I have to say, as she knows now, because she’s met many of the other profiles including one of my own family members, we’re all now a family. And for the rest of my life, I’m going to have the good fortune of knowing Ms. Tonie.
And that’s a new life for all of us. So there’s so much hope. When you talk about these illnesses, there’s so much pain. But I think anybody listening to this can tell that there’s so much hope too.

Elizabeth Vargas:

Patrick Kennedy, Tonie Dreher, thank you so much. Tonie, you’re an amazing woman. Truly.