“We’re in a very good place right now.”

That’s what Paula Lipinski, chief executive officer of Traverse City’s Addiction Treatment Services (ATS) says when asked about the state of the nonprofit organization.

Wind back the clock a few years and the answer was very different. Nationwide, addiction treatment centers were particularly vexed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Not only did the global health crisis take away some of the important limelight that the opioid epidemic had placed on addiction treatment and recovery, but centers throughout the United States also saw fewer patients showing up for treatment due to early-pandemic quarantine requirements and social distancing recommendations. ATS was no exception.

“We did take a pretty big hit when COVID started,” Lipinski tells The Ticker. “People were afraid to come in and get services.”

While ATS did keep its doors open throughout the pandemic, Lipinski says the organization’s patient census was consistently “pretty low.” A big focus of the past two years has been “trying to come out of that and working on making those community connections again.”

In re-forging those connections, ATS has found that its pre-pandemic work is far from finished.

“Our numbers show that substance use disorder definitely went up during COVID,” Lipinski explains. “The opioid overdoses, the alcohol use disorders; it all definitely went up. But there were also people that just weren't accessing health until recently.” Now, she says, there’s “a steady flow of people” that are coming through ATS seeking help again.

Given that ATS is primarily funded by Medicaid reimbursements, the organization’s recent uptick in patient census is helping ensure financial solvency that certainly wasn’t a given during the peak pandemic years. And Lipinski says the pandemic taught ATS some valuable lessons.

“We learned the hard way that you can't put all your eggs in one basket,” Lipinski explains. “Before the pandemic, we were very reliant on our men’s residential program, as well as our withdrawal management program. But when you don't have people in those facilities, you can't count on them [for revenue].”

That realization has led to a diversification of ATS offerings – including new and expanded services Lipinski thinks will better meet the wants and needs of people struggling with addiction.

“We've had an outpatient program for a number of years, but we've really strengthened that,” she says. “For the most part, people aren’t diving into residential treatment for 30 days at a time anymore. They really want to stay within their community. They want to do more intensive outpatient work. They want to do more telehealth. We’ve really extended those services to start picking up the slack and spreading the wealth, versus relying too heavily on residential.”

Also new to ATS: a “mobile unit program,” which “goes out to the rural communities” around northwestern Michigan and connects historically underserved patients with ATS programs; and the “Family Road to Recovery program,” which works with family members who have been impacted by a loved one’s addiction.

Those new services, along with one big recent hire – a marketing and fund development director, who Lipinski says is helping the organization pursue donations and grants more aggressively – have put the nonprofit back on solid ground.

Lipinski is grateful for the stability, because it means ATS can focus where it should: on addressing ongoing addiction challenges in and around Traverse City. Fentanyl and methamphetamine, she says, have both become bigger problems in northern Michigan than they were before the pandemic, leading to “a lot more accidental overdoses.” Alcohol, meanwhile, remains the region’s single biggest addiction hurdle.

“65 percent of the people that we service through ATS, their primary diagnosis is alcohol use disorder,” Lipinski says. “Yes, opioid use disorder is still an issue; yes, the use of fentanyl is very concerning. But the majority of the people that we serve are working through alcohol use disorder.”

There have been some gains on that front. Three years ago, the City of Traverse City, the DDA, and the Traverse City Police Department teamed up on a “Healthier Drinking Culture” initiative. Since then, Lipinski has noticed Traverse City becoming more welcoming and inclusive of those who choose not to imbibe.

“The Healthier Drinking Culture initiative was a little before my time. But I am a person in recovery, so when I did hear about that, I thought it was really great,” Lipinski says. “Even beyond the recovery community, there is a big wellness trend where more people are choosing not to partake in alcohol. I am definitely seeing more of these elixirs and mocktails and non-alcoholic drinks at establishments around town. It’s giving people alternative ways to have fun besides drinking alcohol, and that’s important because people often think that when you stop drinking, you can’t have fun anymore. With these new opportunities, our community is showing that’s not the case.”

Lipinski also thinks the community is growing more accepting of addiction as a disease, pointing to evolving law enforcement approaches and a growing availability of Narcan throughout town as two points of progress. That momentum, she hopes, will only continue once local municipalities start allocating opioid settlement dollars – a process she is a part of as a member of Grand Traverse County’s Opioid Settlement Task Force.

Still, especially when it comes to stigmas, Lipinski says there’s plenty of room for improvement.

 “I do still hear people thinking that this is not a disease and saying things like ‘If you just pull yourself up by your bootstraps, and if you weren't lazy, you wouldn’t have this problem.’ And I can tell you, being a person in recovery, this is the hardest thing that I've ever done in my life – and I've done a lot of hard things. It's something I must manage every single day, and the shame and stigma that's associated with it was hard to overcome. So, I think as a community, that's where we can continue to improve.”