Editor’s note: Officials say Addiction Recovery Care is currently under investigation by the FBI for health care fraud. ARC is cooperating with the investigation and said in a statement to Spectrum News, “We are confident in our program and in the services we offer. We, and our legal counsel, are cooperating fully with the investigation.”

ARC is taking over the substance abuse program at the Kenton County Detention Center. Spectrum News asked if the investigation would affect the relationship with ARC. A Kenton County spokesperson said, “We know nothing more about the investigation than what we’ve read in existing media reports. We will continue to monitor the situation as further details are revealed.”

COVINGTON, Ky. — Addiction Recovery Care is taking over the substance abuse program at the Kenton County Detention Center to help improve addiction services at the jail, where some would argue they’re needed most. 

One woman said while this type of care wasn’t available when she was incarcerated, she’s hopeful it will help more people turn their lives around like she did.

Gabi Deaton and her family just got back from a trip to Disney World. From the outside looking in, she has the life so many people would love to have.

But she’s had to work hard and continues to every day to keep her life from heading in the opposite direction.

“I was about 12 when I kind of started experimenting with things,” she said. “By 16, I was actively using heroin. From age 16 to 20, I used it every day.”

“Full-blown addiction ... my life just revolved around that. Can’t really tell you why.”

She said it comes down to substance use disorder.

“I do think that when I put a mind- or mood-altering substance into my body, something happens that may be different when you put something into your body,” she said. “I just think my mind and my body react differently, in a very unhealthy way.” 

She was arrested in 2011 for the third time on a burglary charge at 20 years old. She spent two months at the Kenton County Detention Center.

Looking back, Deaton said that might’ve been the best time to get help.

“We have this opportunity while they’re sitting down and stuck there for a little while to bombard them with resources, to give them everything they could need,” Deaton said. “When I was there, that was not my experience. I was not offered those resources.”

“There are windows of opportunity. And they are very, very short, and they will close. So when someone comes up and says, ‘I’m ready to go,’ we have that window to make it happen.”

It took a little longer, but Deaton was court ordered into treatment and has been in recovery ever since.

She said services have come a long way since then, including at the detention center.

The hope now is they’re going to get even better, as ARC is taking over the substance use disorder program. The jail has had a full substance use disorder program since 2017.

“Jailer Mark Fields had determined that perhaps these services could be better served from an outside provider,” said Jason Merrick, vice president of program development with ARC. “Why not plug in some relatively low-cost social services that can help them be a better person than they were when they came in here?”

A staff of trained and qualified clinicians will treat inmates.

“These are our people,” Merrick said. “I mean, these are our neighbors, our friends, our family members, our brothers and sisters. We want to make sure they get the help they need and deserve. And frankly, there is no better time or place to deliver those services than right here.”

Not having adequate addiction services in jails also comes at a high price to the community, he added. 

“The evidence tells us that folks that are leaving incarceration are 140 times more likely to die of an overdose within the first two weeks of release than anyone else in the world,” he said. “We hope to be a part of the solution to that in ensuring that folks don’t come back. They come here, they learn their lesson, they get some help and they don’t come back to jail.”

Deaton is now a harm reduction health educator with the Northern Kentucky Health Department.

She does things such as passing out harm reduction materials like naloxone, hoping it will keep someone alive long enough to seek the kind of treatment that saved her life.

One of her main goals is to reduce the stigma around addiction.

“I would see people come into these meetings or into these treatment centers repeatedly because they’re trying to follow this one path that has been suggested to them, that has worked for thousands, if not millions, of people,” she said. “But it’s not working for these people, and then they die because nobody offered them these other resources ... there’s a stigma associated with them.”

“Treatment and recovery is not one option. If it’s just one option, more people are going to die.”

To her, every person facing addiction has value.

“A lot of the community, or the world, kind of deems these people as hopeless; they’re done, they’re not going to come back from this and they can,” she said.

Deaton is living proof.

ARC took over the Kenton County Detention Center’s jail substance abuse program July 1. There are ongoing discussions about a potential new behavioral health facility that could be built outside of the jail.