Setting up a safe harbor

When Danny Molloy moved to the area in 2010, he didn’t have many bags

In fact, he had only one: a backpack with a pair of shorts in it, and little else.

Where he lacked luggage, however, Molloy did have baggage — a drug addiction he was moving to the South from Boston to try to beat.

On a previous trip to Birmingham and Vestavia Hills, Molloy had met Mark Miller, who owns and operates The Carpenter’s Shop bookstore on U.S. 31.

“One day he just came walking in,” Miller said.

At the time, Molloy said, he was doing better and was fighting his addiction to opioids and heroin he’d had since his teen years. He even made a trip to The Foundry Ministries to see about getting some of his friends into the program.

“At this point I was doing well, and I heard about The Foundry, so I went and took a tour,” he said.

But when he went back to Boston, things fell apart.

“I was losing everything,” he said.

Molloy had stayed in touch with Miller, however, and in times of crisis, he would call him for support.

“I’m talking about, I was standing with the money waiting for the drug deal, and I don’t know what to do so I’d call him — and he would pray with me,” Molloy said.

At the end of his rope, Molloy said Miller offered to help pay his way into The Foundry.

So, nearly-empty backpack and Greyhound bus ticket in hand, Molloy made his way back to Birmingham at the behest of his friend in Vestavia Hills.

In the time between his arrival and admission to The Foundry, Miller let Molloy sleep on his couch.

“He laid on my couch for two or three days just detoxing,” Miller said.

Arriving at The Foundry wasn’t an immediate fix, though, Molloy said.

“I was very suicidal when I got to the Foundry,” he said. “I knew I didn’t want to keep living like I was living, but I didn’t know how to change. I didn’t want to die, but I felt like that was my only option.”

After years of being addicted to drugs, getting arrested and seeing his friends and loved ones overdose, Molloy said, it was too much.

But when he attempted to leave his bunk house at the Foundry to take his own life, the door was locked.

“I said, ‘All right, God, if you’re real, then I’ll wait until tomorrow. But tomorrow I’m going to do it,’” he said.

The next day, Molloy said he was approached by a Foundry employee, and for the first time, the organization’s Christian message spoke to him.

A year later, Molloy graduated from The Foundry, and Miller let him sleep on his couch in Vestavia again and gave him a part-time job at the bookstore to get back on his feet.

“He’s really a success story. Came out of all that terrible darkness,” Miller said. “I’m really glad I got to have a part in the beginnings.”

Other Vestavians reached out as well, Molloy said — one even gave him money to purchase a car. The partners at Method Mortgage gave him a job and eventually helped him and his wife purchase a home, as well, Molloy said.

“It was a long journey, but honestly I know God was directing my steps, and he was using people in Vestavia to help further it,” he said.

Localizing a nationwide issue

Molloy eventually was introduced to Mayor Ashley Curry, who at about the same time was looking into the opioid crisis that has been getting state and nationwide attention in recent months.

Curry said he wasn’t unfamiliar with the impacts addiction has on a person’s life.

As a former agent in the FBI, he said he saw first-hand how drug addiction can destroy the life of the user and the lives of those close to them. Additionally, Curry said, his own family has lost someone to an overdose.

“I saw that you’ve got to do more than just the law enforcement side,” Curry said, noting that law enforcement is certainly still important.

During the first year or so of his term as mayor, Curry said he has been aghast at the scope and impact that opioid addiction has.

“The numbers speak for themselves,” he said. “It’s staggering.”

In 2016, Curry said, 174 people per day died of drug overdoses in the U.S. In Jefferson County, 248 people died in 2016.

And while there were no reported deaths in Vestavia Hills in 2017, Curry said he thinks that is mostly because of the Vestavia Hills Fire Department’s protocol to administer naloxone, or Narcan, to every individual found unresponsive with no known cause.

VHFD Chief Marvin Green said that if VHFD’s emergency medical services find an individual who is unconscious with reduced respiration and a low heart rate, and there is no immediate cause that EMS workers can identify, they administer naloxone.

In 2017, VHFD administered naloxone to 34 individuals 20 years of age or older, and Curry said that in those cases, the patient was revived successfully each time.

While there is a chance that some of the cases are not related to addiction — Green said that they do have elderly patients who can take their medications incorrectly or exhibit symptoms similar to an overdose but related to a stroke or heart failure — Curry said those numbers are enough that he feels he needs to do something.

“As far as I’m concerned, it certainly got my attention. I just don’t think the public is aware of the extent of this problem,” he said.

Going a step further

Vestavians are likely well aware of other addiction-related issues, Curry said, as Help the Hills has been working to combat drug and alcohol abuse in the school system for a few years.

But because the majority of opioid overdoses occur in individuals ages 20 to 40 years old, Curry said, he wants to take it a step further.

In March, Curry will be partnering with Hoover Mayor Frank Brocato, Mountain Brook mayor Stewart Welch and Homewood Mayor Scott McBrayer to kick off the Freedom from Addiction Coalition. The group will begin its efforts by hosting a community breakfast at 8 a.m. March 13 at Vestavia Hills United Methodist. They will be joined by the Addiction Prevention Coalition, where Molloy works, and Alabama Teen Challenge among others.

The effort will be under the umbrella of Help the Hills, Curry said, but will be aimed at adults, rather than high school students.

Awareness is only “Step One,” however, Curry said.

Beyond providing Over the Mountain residents an outlet to learn about addiction and connect with local resources, Curry said he wants to set up protocols within the city to be able to provide help to those who reach out.

Much like seniors stopping by a fire station to get their blood pressure checked, Curry said he wants there to be processes in place so that if someone reaches out to first responders or city staff asking for help, they aren’t turned away.

“If you don’t help them, you may lose them,” he said, and he doesn’t want that help to be put off.

“They may not be coming back tomorrow. You may be answering the call to go retrieve them wherever they’ve overdosed,” he said.

Based on his experience, Molloy said he knows that the people of Vestavia want to help.

“This is what it’s about,” he said. “It’s about these little things that the public can’t see sometimes, they don’t know that story.”

If you or a loved one is experiencing trouble with addiction or need immediate attention, please contact Crisis Center Birmingham at 323-7777 or the Addiction Prevention Coalition at apcbham.org.