Before the pandemic, Lisa Hall was working with her production company to film a documentary about addiction in the hills of Brown County.
On March 6, a benefit and testimony-sharing event took place at the Brown County Playhouse for the documentary, “The Addict’s Wake.” Those in recovery spoke to the crowd about their journeys, and musicians performed and shared stories of how addiction had affected them.
That was almost a week before the world essentially shut down.
Next month, a local effort to support addiction recovery will take place in a much different venue: the ball diamonds at Brown County Schools’ Eagle Park with Sen. Eric Koch throwing out the first pitch.
A softball game is scheduled for Sept. 5, the Saturday of Labor Day weekend, between the Brown County Sheriff’s Department and Recover Out Loud, a local recovery community.
This event is a replacement for the annual Hope Fest, which has been canceled due to coronavirus concerns.
Hope Fest is put on by Do Something Inc., a local nonprofit which operates the Launch House in Nashville that helps those in addiction recovery.
Activities begin at 3 p.m. with a recovery walk around the inside of Eagle Park and a peaceful protest against addiction. Masks will be required and temperatures will be checked prior.
Live music and testimonials will begin at 4 p.m. A small amount of vendors will be set up, socially distanced. Masks will be required and hand sanitizer will be available at each vendor table.
The softball game begins at 6 p.m. Players will wear masks when not up to bat and hand sanitizer will be in the dugouts. Bat handles will also be cleaned between batters.
A $5 donation is suggested at the door. A bucket for donations will be available to minimize the exchange of money.
The public is invited to bring their own lawn chairs and to wear masks to sit in the surrounding field. Bathrooms will also be sanitized.
Individually packaged concessions will be available.
The event is being sponsored by Glory Girl Productions in partnership with Do Something.
Any money raised will go toward the Launch House.
“Our nation and communities have been through a tough season, at times, navigating a famine of ‘hope,’” Hall said. “Every one of us needs hope for at least one area or circumstance in our lives. This event, with music, information and friendly softball competition between the sheriff’s department and Recover Out Loud, is an amazing portrait of hope and redemption.”
The camera crew will also be at Hope Fest to film the game.
Hall formed Glory Girl Productions in May 2019 as the company producing the documentary. John Cunningham, who started Recover Out Loud, was interviewed for the film.
The idea for the softball game was hatched over a breakfast Cunningham had with Brown County Sheriff Scott Southerland, which was filmed for the documentary.
During that breakfast, Cunningham thanked Southerland for arresting him years ago because that set him on his recovery journey.
Hall said attending this event is one way the community can help. “Come stand with those in the gap of addiction and celebrate those who are fighting for recovery,” she said.
“Addiction affects the entire community. Even if you do not know someone personally effected, the monies spent on substance use disorder, including incarceration, treatment, judicial costs, healthcare costs, neonatal baby care, etc., touches us all.”
‘Voice to the voiceless’
Cunningham was one of the speakers at the Playhouse event in March.
“I think about my mom, the pain I put her through. My son, I didn’t get to raise my son the way I’d like to,” he said.
Growing up in a loving home, Cunningham said he never thought he would become addicted to drugs. He lost his father at a young age.
“He was my hero. He was my everything. I lived my life to impress my father,” he said.
“When my father died, there was a piece of me that went down with him.”
After his father’s death, his family moved from Edingburgh to Brown County, where he started experimenting with drugs and alcohol.
“I used to meet down here downtown where the church is near the (former) Family Fun Center. I went there every day to get drunk, to get high and to run amok. That’s what I did. My addiction was being groomed. There was something brewing in me that I would not be able to control five years later,” he said.
He began abusing prescription pills on a daily basis when he was 21.
“All of that pain, all of that trauma, all of that anger that I had inside me in those moments were gone and I was free to be myself again. Why wouldn’t I do it?” he said.
His son was born two years later and he divorced his wife around the same time.
“I was free to go as hard as I wanted to. I promise you, that is what I did. I wanted to get high,” he said.
He began committing burglaries to support his habit. “I was committing B felonies on a daily basis,” he said.
He was arrested in 2008 and later received a 10-year suspended sentence since he was a first-time offender. He started burglarizing homes again in 2012 before he was caught in the act in Bartholomew County. He was pursued by police in the getaway car before stopping to take off running, but instead, he decided to surrender.
He had recently prayed over his sleeping son, apologizing and asking God to make his addiction stop.
“In that moment, in 2012, Feb. 17, that was it (when he was arrested). That was the answered prayer,” he said.
While in prison, he was facing 30 years with a plea bargain. At his sentence hearing, Cunningham told the judge he deserved to serve 30 years in prison.
“My lawyer starts shaking me. He’s like, ‘John, did you hear that?’ I’m like ‘Yeah, man, I got 14 years.’ He said, ‘No. Did you hear the seven years suspended part?’ I was like, ‘What?!’ I deserved 30 years. I deserved all of that time,” he said.
“I had a shot at getting out in two-and-a-half years. I know that was a gift I did not deserve. I was going to do whatever it took to give back to this world, to fight this epidemic, to help people who struggle.”
That’s why Cunningham started Recover Out Loud, which is now operating in at least five counties.
“Recover Out Loud has been my gift to the world. It has been that voice, giving the voice to the voiceless,” he said.
‘Tugging at my heart’
Glory Girl Productions was created to do The Addict’s Wake documentary along with possibly others down the road.
In July 2019, Glory Girl Productions formed a fiscal partnership with From the Heart productions, a 501c3. From the Heart takes in donations for the documentary, which gives a tax benefit to donors because of its tax status.
Hall and her husband moved to Brown County in 2017. She finished graduate school in 2018 and began hearing more about the three lives lost to addiction in 2017. She began working with female inmates in the Brown County jail, “ladies who, like myself, had hopes, dreams, homes, houses, families and marriages. From their one decision to use, it changed their lives because of the highly addictive components of meth and opioids,” Hall said.
“I just started listening to these stories and it just started really tugging at my heart.”
In April 2019, Hall and her husband, Rich Hall, hosted a Giving Dinner through the Brown County Community Foundation for Do Something Inc.
Michelle and Cory Joy had lost their oldest son, Caleb, to a heroin overdose over Labor Day weekend 2017. After his death, the couple worked to form Do Something Inc., which has grown into the Launch House. It offers resources and help available for those battling addiction along with a virtual online support community.
The Halls’ Giving Dinner raised around $12,000 to help get the Launch House started.
After sharing on Facebook about the struggles the county was facing as people died of overdoses, Hall connected with her co-executive producer, Amy Pauszek.
“She said to me at that time, ‘Do you think there’s a story to tell?’ I said, ‘Absolutely.’ I said, ‘I think we have to continue to tell this story until we turn this tide.’”
Michael Husain signed on as the director of the documentary. Filming began in June 2019 and the project soon received a $25,000 matching grant from a couple, which helped them get started.
The first match grant was fulfilled last October, which helped produce the trailer and create a marketing campaign. A fundraising event took place in Carmel in March, where another $13,000 was raised toward a second $25,000 matching grant which the project received in February. Proceeds from the March Playhouse event also went toward that grant.
After coming within $6,000 of meeting that second match, the grant giver decided to release the grant due to COVID-19. The second grant will cover the rest of the filming, and any remaining money to be raised will go toward marketing and film distribution.
Hall said that one of the goals of this documentary is to “create a national presence.”
“There’s still enough power in film when it can be seen that it can create the change that is needed, or at least, in this case, the emotional awareness. … People really don’t understand the components of substance use disorder,” Hall said.
Addiction alters a person’s brain, which makes it difficult to stop using, and can cause relapses, especially when a person is released from jail back into the real world, she continued.
“Creating that education and emotional awareness across our nation is so important, because we still have that stigma and shame where people say, ‘Why don’t they just stop using? Just stop.’ If they could stop, they would. No one sits and says, ‘Gosh, the first time I use meth I hope I become an addict.’ That’s not their dream,” Hall said.
“Yes, it is a choice right in the beginning, but once you experiment with those highly addictive drugs, your body adapts very quickly and your brain is altered very, very quickly and makes it very difficult to stop.”
Hall said she hopes this documentary encourages other communities to communicate with one another. “In a spirit of collaboration, we might be able to figure out something that can cause change,” she said.
Hall said there are plans to have the documentary aired on WFYI Indianapolis and hopefully go national on PBS. There are also plans to enter it into festivals. “I don’t think we’ll have trouble with having local people be able to see it,” Hall said.
Making a documentary capturing the devastating affects addiction can have is not an easy task. But the honesty of those interviewed, including parents who have lost their children to overdoses, should have an impact on the community, she said.
“They just want to find purpose in their pain, and they want their pain to help someone else avoid it,” Hall said.
“When people are willing to be honest and raw and transparent, that’s when you get something really powerful.”
[sc:pullout-title pullout-title=”How to donate to documentary and Do Something” ][sc:pullout-text-begin]
To donate to phase three of funding for “The Addict’s Wake” documentary, visit their Facebook page under “The Addict’s Wake” or theaddictswake.com.
“The small gifts are as significant as the large gifts. Becoming a stakeholder in some way is an amazing gift to us and we want to showcase this county in a way that people will be very proud,” Executive Producer Lisa Hall said.
Phase three funding will cover marketing and film distribution once the documentary is complete.
“The Addict’s Wake” will be filming at this year’s Do Something Inc.’s Hope Fest, where the Brown County Sheriff’s Department will play a softball game with Recover Out Loud.
Donation checks for Do Something and the Launch House can be sent to P.O. Box 2022, Nashville, IN 47448. All checks should be made out to “Do Something.”
Anyone interested in volunteering can call the Do Something number at 812-308-3188.
[sc:pullout-text-end][sc:pullout-title pullout-title=”If you go” ][sc:pullout-text-begin]
Third annual Hope Fest
WHEN: 3 to 7 p.m. Sept. 5
3 p.m. – Walk for recovery and addiction protest
4 p.m. – Live music, testimonials and vendors
6 p.m. – Softball game starts
WHERE: Brown County Schools’ Eagle Park, Magnolia Lane, Nashville
A $5 donation is suggested at the door
[sc:pullout-text-end]
