Recovery community helping Kentucky town rebound from economic decline and addiction

Read the Full Transcript

• William Brangham:

  For years, the stories coming out of Appalachian coal country have been grim, addiction, black lung disease, and economic decline.

  But a new story is now emerging, one where people in recovery are helping their communities recover.

  Jeffrey Brown reports from Hazard, Kentucky.

• Mandi Fugate Sheffel, Owner, Read Spotted Newt:

  I love an actual book, obviously.

• Jeffrey Brown :

  Forty-three-year-old Mandi Fugate Sheffel has long dreamed of having a place where she and fellow readers could gather to discuss books in her small town of Hazard, Kentucky.

• Mandi Fugate Sheffel:

  It's just so out of what I typically read.

• Jeffrey Brown :

  But it wasn't until January of 2020 that her dream became a reality, when she opened this small bookstore in downtown Hazard.

• Mandi Fugate Sheffel:

  Access to a bookstore was two hours away. So I knew there were other people here that would buy into this idea.

• Jeffrey Brown :

  What made you think you could make it work?

  (Laughter)

• Mandi Fugate Sheffel:

  Well, that's a lot of people asked that.

• Jeffrey Brown :

  Yes? What kind of things did you hear?

• Mandi Fugate Sheffel:

  That's exactly what my husband said.

• Jeffrey Brown :

  Yes.

• Mandi Fugate Sheffel:

  And he said: "People don't even read physical books anymore, Mandi."

  And I'm like, well, I do. And I know a community of people who do. And I think this will work.

• Jeffrey Brown :

  Called Read Spotted Newt, her bookstore has not only survived, but thrived, first through a major flood, and then the pandemic.

• Mandi Fugate Sheffel:

  You know, as far as Appalachian literature, which is the bestselling section of the store, Silas House, Robert Gipe. Gurney Norman, who's originally from Hazard, he sells well.

• Jeffrey Brown :

  It's an unlikely success story, made more remarkable by Fugate Sheffel's own story.

• Mandi Fugate Sheffel:

  I guess I was probably a junior in high school the first time I saw OxyContin. And from that point on, I mean, from the very first one, I knew that this is what I needed.

• Jeffrey Brown :

  After several years of daily opioid use, she kicked her addiction in 2005. And opening the bookstore has given her life a new meaning.

• Mandi Fugate Sheffel:

  It was like I finally had found my purpose and my community. And when that happened, just doors opened that that I didn't even know I was knocking on.

  Sam Quinones, Author, "The Least of Us": I couldn't believe that there was a bookstore in Hazard, Kentucky.

• Jeffrey Brown :

  It's a story that's becoming more common here, says author and journalist Sam Quinones, who's written two books about the nation's ongoing opioid crisis. He also recently reported on Hazard, a town of about 5,000, for the online publication The Free Press.

• Sam Quinones:

  I knew of Hazard, Kentucky only, as a place of terrible devastation due to the opioid epidemic.

• Jeffrey Brown :

  More than 100,000 Americans are still dying every year from drug overdose, fueled largely by the synthetic opioid fentanyl. It's a problem that continues to plague towns like Hazard across Kentucky, a state with some of the highest overdose death rates in the nation.

  Coupled with the collapse of coal mining, Quinones says he was expecting to write a different story when he came to town, but:

• Sam Quinones:

  I began to see some things that I just didn't expect really to see, which is tiny, tiny businesses starting up started by local people. A lot of business owners are in recovery from pain pill, usually pain pill addiction. And a lot of employees are also in recovery.

• Jeffrey Brown :

  Did it feel counterintuitive to you, in a way?

• Sam Quinones:

  It did not feel counterintuitive to me at all. Recovering addicts, they're very much like fossil fuels, like energy rising from decay. And if you find ways of utilizing that energy, it can really benefit your business, but also your town and your community.

  And that's exactly the story of Hazard, Kentucky.

  Bailey Richards, Coordinator of Downtown Development, Hazard, Kentucky: We have had 68 businesses open over the last five years.

• Jeffrey Brown :

  Bailey Richards is Hazard's coordinator of downtown development. She says many buildings here that had once sat empty have been filled. Today, clothing stores, local coffee and candle shops, and new restaurants line Main Street. It's growth that's been spurred in part by people in recovery, who hold about a quarter of all new jobs here.

• Bailey Richards:

  I mean, when you have this whole population that for 20 years, during kind of the really bulk of the opioid epidemic that were just kind of like locked out of being able to do these things, and now as they get clean and they start having these opportunities, they're taking it and they're running with it.

  That includes 45-year-old Stephanie Callahan, the owner of Hot Mess Express 606.

  Stephanie Callahan, Owner, Hot Mess Express 606: Hot Mess.

• Jeffrey Brown :

  Where does that come from?

• Stephanie Callahan:

  Because I'm a mess.

  (Laughter)

• Jeffrey Brown :

  Callahan also says it's a nickname she picked up from friends and family dating back to her days battling opioid addiction in her 20s. She kicked that addiction 14 years ago, when her son was born. And in 2021, her life changed again when she quit her full-time job and opened this clothing and fashion store catering to plus-sized women.

• Stephanie Callahan:

  I'm like, OK, there is nowhere in Hazard to shop. I'm a big girl. So I needed a place, because we're — after the coal left, we kind of lost all of our stores. And I was like, OK, we got to have some clothes because I can't go to church looking like this.

• Jeffrey Brown :

  What did people say to you when you said, I'm going to start a clothing store?

• Stephanie Callahan:

  Told me I was crazy.

• Jeffrey Brown :

  Crazy.

  (Laughter)

• Stephanie Callahan:

  People was like, you're crazy. And I'm like, yes, I probably am. I had three men tell me in one day that I'd never make it. So I'm like, I will show you.

• Jeffrey Brown :

  Three years later, Callahan has shown them. Hot Mess Express is often packed with customers. And a few weeks ago, she opened a second store offering men's clothing.

  It's all a testament, she says, to how far both she and her hometown have come.

• Stephanie Callahan:

  People just started coming in and it just took off.

  But I think people are just tired of nothing being here, because, in my addiction, I would just get bored and be like, OK, let's just go get high. There was nothing to do, but now, like, we can come downtown, we can shop, we can eat.

• Jeffrey Brown :

  Not only is business slowly coming back. So are some former residents.

• Luke Davis, Appalachian Arts Alliance:

  So let's skip and go down to the G string and do that.

• Jeffrey Brown :

  Today, Luke Davis teaches guitar and serves as director of operations at an art center in downtown Hazard, itself a sign of the new times.

  For several years, he toured across the nation as a professional country musician based in Nashville. But, in 2017, after heavy drinking and drug use derailed his career, Davis says he knew he needed a change.

• Luke Davis:

  My life was completely unmanageable. I couldn't stand me. People couldn't stand me. I couldn't function at all. And the idea was to come home and figure out a way to get clean.

• Jeffrey Brown :

  Davis says Hazard's recovery community has been crucial to him staying sober, and he now wants to stay to help rebuild what's been lost.

• Luke Davis:

  I spent so much time a drain on the community, that it's very, very gratifying to be able to contribute something and to be of value to my community.

• Jeffrey Brown :

  Still, economic progress in Hazard and across Appalachia remains uneven, as drug addiction rages on.

  Even still, Sam Quinones believes Hazard now has a fighting chance and offers a model for other small towns.

• Sam Quinones:

  This attitude that we need to find some big solution, some big factory with 250 jobs, whatever, those factories aren't coming here. If they come here, they will be mostly robots anyway, right?

  So it's this idea that you can find a path forward using local energies, local creativity and finding ways to nurture that.

• Jeffrey Brown :

  But how far can self-reliance or small really take you?

• Sam Quinones:

  It's a great question. I'm not sure I know the answer to how far it can go. I do think that what's happening here and other towns opens up a pathway towards the future that they never imagined.

• Jeffrey Brown :

  Mandi Fugate Sheffel hopes the books in her store can help Hazard's next generation find that path.

• Mandi Fugate Sheffel:

  If there are kids that can see their worth through these books and through literature, and maybe that keeps them from using, that's it for me. That's what drives me every day.

• Jeffrey Brown :

  For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm Jeffrey Brown in Hazard, Kentucky.