wellcy clark, we have marty walker, the oxford house outreach coordinator, lori holtzclaw, flow stein and john major the researcher and clinical psychology professor at truman college. i look forward to hearing from your panel today and i apologize that they all have only about ten minutes a piece. but like i said, we will try and cram in all of that information for you today. we'll turn quickly to dr. compton. [ applause ] >> thank you. it's a pleasure to be here. and i've been a fan of oxford house for many many years. i lived in st. louis up until the early 2000s and we had a new oxford house in my neighborhood back in the early '90s. and they were having trouble. the neighbors were trying to kick them out using illegal reason because they said there were too many different unrelated people in the house. turns out that's discriminatory. you can't discriminate against people in recovery. i hads the pleasure of being one of the neighbors and a little bit of an expert in the field in some of the court cases and i was so pleased that they succeeded and have been a successful home in th

. >> my name is lori holtzclaw, regional manager for oxford houses of mississippi. >> [applause] >> so i am not a doctor. nor a researcher. but what i am going to speak to you about today is my experience. so dr. clark mentioned something about, you know, we need a solution and what i believe is that the solution starts right here with everybody in this room. [applause] so, you know, there is a little quote, a saying, be the change that you want to see in the world, and that is what i strive to do every day, i strive to be the change i want to see in the world of the people that i love the most which is, you know, alcoholics and addicts. people that are trying so hard to change their life. so i am, i am an addict. i'm an opioid addict. i was addicted to prescription medication, oxycontin, heroin, anything like that, and then i have also been on medically-assisted treatment which did not work for me. i'm not saying it doesn't work for anybody, it just did not work for me. my addiction brought me to homelessness and incarceration. and you know, i lost everything. as everyone knows in thi

holtzclaw. >> hi, everybody. my name is lori, my sobriety date is december 20th, 2006. thank you. on december 20th of 2006, i was incarcerated for an aggravated kidnapping charge and a possession with intent to distribute charge. yeah. well, let me tell you, so my bond was really high. i had a -- you know, $460,000 bond. and so i did not tie anybody up and stick them in my trunk. i had my daughter with me that i did not have permission to have by the state of louisiana. so on a decision for that i was waiting on a court date they ended up dropping those charges and i ended up getting released in the middle of the night. i had to transfer to another jail, and then i was released from that jail in the middle of the night. and i didn't have anywhere to go. and i didn't know about oxford house, i never knew about it. but there were these ladies that would come and do a jail minist ministry. so i called the church, that's all i had. i called the church. and this was in july of 2007. and they come and got me and brought me to a hotel room and they let me work between the church and the