Employment can prove difficult for those who have formerly struggled with addiction
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Tawny Saeler had struggled with drug addiction between the ages of 14 and 27, and in that time she collected a handful of criminal charges that prevented her from finding a stable job.
Now at age 34, Saeler said she is going on seven years sober, while also maintaining a job over the past four years in car sales at Mike Kelly Hyundai in Penn Township, but her journey to get there was filled with constant rejection from other employers because of her past.
“They just never got back to me at all,” Saeler said. “I called a few places and asked, and they usually said that my paperwork was still being processed, even a few weeks later. I’m assuming it was because of my criminal history, because I watched other people get hired.”
According Dr. C. Thomas Brophy, medical director at Ellen O’Brien Gaiser Center, criminal charges are the biggest barrier people with substance abuse disorder face when trying to find employment.
“When I talk to law enforcement, I’m not telling them to not arrest them. I’m not telling them to not do their jobs and hold them to the accountability that we set as a society,” Brophy said. “I just feel like there has to be a better way. There has to be a path to redemption. There shouldn’t be this felony that they have to wear on their sleeve that’s going to prevent them from rebuilding their life.”
Brophy said patients of his often come to him in a panic when filling out a job application for two potential reasons: they feel nervous about disclosing their criminal history to their potential employer, or they are scared that disclosing their prescription medications — such as methadone, which aids them in their recovery — could lead to them not being hired.
“We have to explain the difference between someone who is impaired and someone that is not impaired,” Brophy said. “If someone is stable in their recovery and on a prescribed dose of these medications, and taking it as prescribed, there shouldn’t be any impairment.”
Brophy said when disclosing this information to a potential employer it’s best to do so up front; and Matthew Clayton, reintegration coordinator at Butler County Prison, who assists inmates in its reintegration program, agrees.
“You could be the best employee they have, but if they find out a year later you lied they could terminate you,” Clayton said.
The reintegration program at the prison assists inmates who have four months or less left on their sentence in preparing them for finding employment upon their release.
“We do a handful of assessments and questionnaires,” Clayton said. “They will work on resume building, interview techniques and so on. We have CareerLink come in and they will do a workshop with them.”
Along with employment help, Clayton said the program also helps inmates find shelter, transportation, documents and IDs for when their sentence ends.
Clayton takes a proactive approach when assisting inmates find jobs, which is done through some old-fashioned cold calls, he said.
“I call around and the first thing I ask is what are their disqualifying charges,” Clayton said. “We will have the backgrounds of that particular inmate ran, and if I see they have the charges this employer doesn't like, then I won’t call them.”
For a couple years, those disqualifying charges for Saeler were retail theft, regular theft and drug possession charges.
Saeler said she has no felonies on her record, which are usually what employers are afraid of, according to Brophy and Clayton.
“When I was applying, they asked if I had any criminal charges,” Saeler said. “At that point you don’t know if you should be honest or if you should just say ‘no’ and hope they don’t check. I ended up being honest, and I never got a call back for an interview. I probably applied at 15 different places.”
When Mike Kelly Hyundai did decide to give Saeler a chance and she got her sales license, it was really a “probationary license” until she proved her criminal charges had no affect on her anymore, she said.
“I was there almost two years before I got my regular sales license,” Saeler said. “I was still allowed to do the job — sell cars and everything. It was just if I did anything like got more criminal charges, they would instantly take away my license with no warning.”
Brophy said he feels as individuals stabilize in their recovery, there should be a way to have some felony charges reduced to a non-felony offense.
This is something Clayton said he is able to assist inmates with once they enter his program, again through CareerLink.
Every business has its own right as to what their disqualifying charges are, Clayton said.
Brophy agreed, but said he has seen firsthand the ways employers have mismanaged situations with employees who have dealt with substance abuse disorder, especially after already being hired.
He said one instance of this, from years ago, stood out to him, when a former patient of his had stabilized his recovery, due in part by taking prescribed amounts of suboxone for two years.
This person’s employer, a construction company, did not know this at first, but after they found his wallet on the floor of a shuttle bus that took employees to and from job sites, the fact was brought to light.
“The bus driver turns in the wallet, and (the employee) then goes to the corporate headquarters to pick up his wallet,” Brophy said. “Turns out he had a suboxone film strip tucked behind his driver’s license as a just-in-case thing if he wasn’t home for more than 24 hours, which would help keep him stable.”
After finding the suboxone, the employer called Brophy’s patient into the office, while also putting Brophy on speaker phone.
“They handled it in one of the worst ways I have ever seen in my life,” Brophy said. “They made all these statements saying he was high at work and putting everyone at risk. This ended up going into court and was a huge mess. The company ended up having to admit that they handled it wrong.”
The worst part of the whole situation, Brophy said, was it completely derailed this person’s trajectory with the company, as he was being promoted every couple months.
Brophy said this goes back to the education of what is and what is not impairment.
“I explained to them on that phone call that I understand this is a concern,” Brophy said. “If there is impairment, that means something else is going on.”
The main issue with employees, Brophy said, is they are hesitant to speak up early on because of stigma and the fear of losing their jobs.
On the other side of the spectrum, there are employees who do begin using while on the job or while employed.
Brophy said he often works with employers directly and helps facilitate inpatient treatment for these individuals.
With this, he is able to encourage employers to be patient with these individuals, and hold their job for them until they get out of treatment.
“We will fill out disability paperwork and whatever we can do to support them financially and keep that job waiting for them, and that gives them the ability to stabilize their lives,” Brophy said.
According to Brophy, drug addiction is a disease, that started with a choice, and he hopes employers will begin to understand and give those who want to better their lives a second chance.
“I understand why people don’t want to think of it as a disease, because you don’t want to compare it to something like cancer,” Brophy said. “People don’t like the removal of accountability, but that’s not what we are saying.
“A disease can start with a choice — the choice to eat that hamburger, the choice to pick up that cigarette. Addiction is no different.”
Saeler said although her honesty with potential employers was not panning out in the beginning, she is happy with where she ended up.
“I plan on staying at Mike Kelly,” Saeler said. “I love it and, to me, it is a career. I have a 401(k), insurance, make decent money.
“There is a lot of people who helped me. I don’t have just one person that helped me. It was a collective effort from friends, family and people I don’t even know.”
