Up First from NPR - The Sunday Story: The 13th Step

Episode Date: June 25, 2023

It started with a tip. Eventually, multiple sources said it was an open secret: the founder of New Hampshire's largest addiction treatment network was sexually harassing or assaulting women – allegations he denies.As New Hampshire Public Radio reporter Lauren Chooljian began looking into the allegations, she found a longstanding–and long tolerated–culture of sexual misconduct within the addiction treatment industry. A phenomenon people in the recovery world call "the 13th step."Today on The Sunday Story, we talk to Chooljian about her reporting and bring you the first episode of her new podcast, The 13th Step.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

In late 2020, a tipster sent an email to journalist Lauren Chooljian at New Hampshire Public Radio. The note contained a shocking allegation that the founder of the largest network of addiction treatment centers in the state, a man named Eric Spofford, had been sexually harassing or sexually assaulting women at his facilities. Some of the women were employees, some were clients. Eric Spofford denies these allegations. I'm Ayesha Roscoe, and this is The Sunday Story. Children began investigating, and her reporting revealed troubling issues, not just at the treatment centers in New Hampshire, but throughout the addiction treatment industry.

As one source told her, addiction treatment needs a Me Too movement. Lauren Children now has a podcast based on her investigation. It's called The 13th Step. We're going to bring you the first episode of the series, but first Lauren joins me to talk about her experience reporting the story, which at times she says felt really dangerous. Hi, Lauren.

Hi, Aisha. I'm curious on how you got involved with this story, because I understand it began when you were reporting on a COVID outbreak at one of these addiction treatment centers, right? Yeah, exactly. I mean, the intent was not to go on this wild journey or even to find allegations of sexual misconduct. Basically, I had just done a story about an outbreak at the largest addiction treatment network that we have in New Hampshire. And then I got a tip that effectively said, you think a COVID outbreak's bad? And this tip came

from a former employee of one of these facilities, and she made a huge allegation. She said that the CEO and founder of this network, his name is Eric Spofford, she said he was facing multiple allegations of sexual misconduct, including a sexual assault allegation by a woman who worked for him who used to be a patient at one of these facilities. So that's obviously a wild allegation, and it would be in any industry. But of course, this is one of these facilities. So that's obviously a wild allegation, and it would be in any industry. But of course, this is one of the facilities that offers the most treatment beds in New Hampshire, a region that has really been hard hit by the opioid epidemic. So I really need to get the bottom of what was going on. And so you've got this huge and disturbing allegation against this

man. And this is a very powerful person in New Hampshire, right, with a lot of resources and a lot of money. So, yeah, he's a very powerful individual. I mean, at this point, he has since sold Granite Recovery Centers. It still exists with a new owner. But when he sold it, he said online that he's made $115 million off that sale. This is a guy who presents his wealth on social media. He has a yacht that he rents out. And being an entrepreneur is a big part of his brand. And so for women who are trying to make allegations, that's a really powerful person to come up against. So when you got this allegation, walk me through what you did next. Like, where did you start? Yeah, it was quite overwhelming. I mean,

basically, this tip came in from a clinician who had quit, and she said that other people had quit when they heard these allegations as well. So that's really where I started. But you know, not everybody wanted to go on the record initially. I had to work for a year, for example, to get the former HR director who heard that allegation directly from this woman. She had to think about it for a year because what we just discussed, I mean, this is a person who has a lot of money and the means to fight someone in court to make sure these allegations get buried. So you interviewed lots of women, many of whom did not want to be identified. What went into the decision to allow some of your sources to remain anonymous?

Yeah, I mean, this is a big one, right? As journalists, you know, what we want, ideal situation is for a person to use their name beyond the record. In this case, it was going to take a lot of convincing to get there. And I tried, of course I tried. But a lot of the people I spoke with were really afraid of retaliation, legal retaliation, you know, a lawsuit they couldn't afford. And they also, some of them have a history of substance use disorder. And for some people, that's a fine thing to share. And for other people, it's something they want to keep private. And so there were a lot of conversations with sources about what they were comfortable with as they made these allegations.

And in the end, many of them decided that a pseudonym just felt better and safer, that people wouldn't know their actual name. And, you know, in the end, what was really remarkable was a lot of their fears actually bore out. So the episode we're airing doesn't get into this, but a later episode goes into depth about the harassment that you and your family and some of your colleagues and sources experienced while you were working on the podcast. You know, talk to me a little bit about that and what was it like for you to be threatened and to experience this backlash because of your reporting? Yeah, I mean, of course, it's been uncomfortable, I think, to say the least. But, you know, when I initially started finding these allegations of sexual misconduct against this guy who was the CEO of this treatment center, you know, we realized we were sitting on a lot of news here. So we decided to put out what I had last March, my parents' home, a home I used to live in in New Hampshire, and the house of my boss, our news director, were all vandalized.

Bricks, rocks thrown at windows. The C word was spray-painted in red on my parents' garage door and the other two homes' front doors. And then a month after that, actually, my parents' house was vandalized again. And my house, actually, this time was vandalized. And a brick thrown through my window. And the words, just the beginning, were spray painted under the window. After the vandalism happened, Eric released a statement saying that not only was he completely uninvolved with the vandalism, he also does not support or condone them.

Though he did also offer a theory, which was that, quote, many people in recovery have credited me with saving their lives. Perhaps one of them felt compelled to do these acts in a misguided attempt to defend me. I would never condone it, but I have no control over what other people do. So that was Eric's statement. But in the meantime, you know, we also were facing a lot of legal pressure from Spofford and his team. The day after the story came out, his lawyer sent really intimidating letters to some of the sources in my story who actually were anonymous, as we just discussed. And so there were two tracks happening, which is he eventually, Spofford eventually sued us for defamation over the original reporting.

He also sued three of my sources and two of my colleagues. But then I'm also dealing with this personal attack on my house, and that attack really scared my sources. And so it was a really, and has been a really uncomfortable spot to be in to navigate my role as a journalist and my role as, you know, a human being. How are you holding up right now? Thanks for asking. I'm doing okay. I'm proud of the work we did. And I'm, you know, in awe of the people who, despite all of these obstacles, still felt it was important to come forward. A quick update to this story. Since we recorded this interview with Lauren, three men have been charged by federal prosecutors in connection with the vandalism. The three men are alleged to have conspired with a close personal associate of Eric Spofford in retaliation against the reporting by New Hampshire Public Radio.

And now we bring you episode one of The 13th Step. Please note this episode contains explicit language, as well as descriptions of sexual harassment and a mention of suicide. So you get there. What do you remember? Green Mountain is a completely different vibe that I'm used to. It didn't feel like treatment. But I remember I had my first real God moment there because the view is incredible. Actually, it was really cool.

One time, somebody was having a really tough time and so like we all had the idea like hey mary kate can we go down to um the helicopter landing pad and watch the sunset and she brought us down we all screamed from the mountain and it felt so good it was like a movie like we just sat there and screamed it was was really cool. That was really cool. And I remember that moment. I was like, if I didn't believe in God before watching the sunset and this view, I do now. It was like that. Like, it hit me. You know what I mean? Because it's like, I didn't make that.

I didn't make the sun. I don't, you know, water the trees every day. Like, again, that spirituality is just like finding anything that's bigger than me. And it was very easy to see something larger than me in front of me there. You know? Did you like like thinking about all this stuff again? Yeah. No, it is.

It's good because I, you know, for the last few years thinking of Great Mountain, it's very difficult to not think of Eric. Talking about that allows me to to almost see it without him. It's almost like a shadow. It's like his shadow isn't there while I'm thinking about it right now, which is nice. That's Elizabeth. Well, that's what I'm going to call her. She was scared to reveal her identity, for reasons that will become clear to you later. So she and I settled on calling her by her middle name, Elizabeth, and she allowed me to record her voice.

In order to get Elizabeth on the phone, I had to call her late at night. She leads a very full life. She's a 12-step sponsor, an active member of her church. She has young kids. The first time we got on the phone, Elizabeth was really nervous. I'm sorry, but I'm, one, exhausted from having a toddler, and two, I'm going to be a little flustered.

This isn't something I've ever done. Elizabeth was about to tell me a story, a painful one, about something that happened to her a few years ago. And for me, her story was just the beginning of a wild reporting journey. My name is Lauren Chooljian. I'm a public radio reporter in New Hampshire. And this journey began more than two years ago. I published a few stories about an addiction treatment company. It's actually the largest one in New Hampshire. They'd had a COVID outbreak at one of their residential rehab centers. And then in December of 2020, I got an email. It essentially said, you think that's bad?

The email was from a clinician at the company's flagship treatment facility called Green Mountain Treatment Center. And this clinician made a huge allegation. She said that the guy who founded and ran that treatment center, he was sexually abusing female clients and employees. So I started calling around. And one of the first women who agreed to talk to me was Elizabeth. Elizabeth has no problem sharing her experience of addiction. That's easy. Like most people in recovery, she's done it a million times. She calls it her fast forward story. You know, I drank when I was 12.

That one drink ended up years later of me homeless in Boston on heroin. I sought treatment seriously, like actually trying to get sober when I was 21. I maintained sobriety for about four years. And then at age 25, she relapsed. She knew she had to get help. I didn't really want to be doing what I was doing. I wanted to get back to like, not lying to everyone I loved and like not being a complete slave to a bag of powder. It's like so pathetic when you say it out loud, right? Like it's just a pathetic way of life, you know, that unfortunately is so easy to fall victim to. Elizabeth needed treatment ASAP. And lucky for her, Elizabeth's best friend

had a lot of connections in the recovery community in New England. Let's just call him John, okay? So John goes, I have a bed for you, you know, at Green Mountain. Eric is holding it. Are you ready to go now? Eric was Eric Spofford. He was the founder and CEO of a big addiction treatment network in New Hampshire. Turns out, not only did Eric say he had room, he promised to give Elizabeth a scholarship. She'd get a month of inpatient treatment at Green Mountain Treatment Center for free. Elizabeth says Eric even called her a few times inpatient treatment at Green Mountain Treatment Center for free. Elizabeth says Eric even called her a few times to tell her about Green Mountain. And can I just say, this is such a rare opportunity.

Hardly anyone is lucky enough to have a bed open and waiting for them when they need it, never mind a free one. This was 2017. There weren't a lot of beds available in New Hampshire. The state was constantly in the national news on two lists you don't want to be on. Highest overdose deaths per capita and smallest amount of money spent on treatment. So Elizabeth had basically hit the treatment jackpot. She remembers the day the company van came to pick her up. Well, kind of. I just got in a van incredibly high and they almost didn't drive me.

And then I was in New Hampshire next thing I knew. The first few days are hazy. The van drops her off. She goes through detox for a few days. Nurses help her get through withdrawal symptoms. But as her mind starts to clear, she starts going to group therapy and other programming. And she realizes Green Mountain is a totally different vibe than the treatment center she's been through before. You know, I'm used to very much like an institution, whereas Green Mountain was like really nice, right?

Like I felt like I was at summer camp almost. Green Mountain Treatment Center is in a gorgeous part of New Hampshire. I've never been inside, but I've driven up to the front gates, and I totally get what she means by summer camp. It's a big campus with apple trees in the front, clients even sleep in cabins, and it's up on this big hill. You can see the White Mountains in the distance. And Elizabeth says the summer camp vibe continued inside, too. She felt really welcomed. It didn't feel like treatment in the way of like, all right, put your bags. We have to search you. It was like, yeah, we have to do these things, but like, we're your friends.

And it was like, it was nice. I don't know. It was just like a nice feeling to feel like not looked down upon, but rather like they were actually reaching their hand out to help me. Elizabeth really, really loved the staff. They made the biggest impact on her. Many of them were in recovery, too. And every once in a while, Eric Spofford, the CEO, would visit. He wasn't there all the time, obviously.

I mean, he doesn't work. You know, he's the CEO. He's not there all the time. Apart from when he'd fly in on his helicopter, which I never understood. Whatever. Not my business, right? By 2017, Eric had made a name for himself. He owned a company called Granite Recovery Centers.

It was a network of addiction treatment facilities and sober homes all over New Hampshire. Green Mountain was their biggest treatment center. Like his clients, Eric had struggled with addiction, and he made his personal story the backbone of the company. I can imagine him coming off that helicopter. He could be mistaken for an MMA fighter, thick arms covered in tattoos, a buzz cut, not a suit and tie kind of guy. It almost seems as if like he just owns the recovery community in New Hampshire and Maine.

You know, like he's this like big head honcho that everyone knows, everyone respects, everyone looks up to. Elizabeth says Eric would occasionally check in with her when he was at Green Mountain. One time he asked her to have lunch with him in the treatment center cafeteria. If it seemed weird as a client to eat lunch with the CEO, Elizabeth didn't make much of it. She figured it was because they had that friend in common, John, and some other staff members came along to lunch too, so whatever. Besides, she had other things to focus on. It was her last day in treatment. She would be leaving this place soon, back on her own, and she felt better than she had in a while. Humbled. Grounded. Elizabeth was all set to go to a sober house in Portland, Maine the

next day, the next step in her transition back to reality. But this is where the shadow creeps in. So yeah, I went up to Portland, and I want to say it was within day... two? One. It might have been day one, actually. I was receiving texts from Eric. This is where I need to tell you.

This podcast may be upsetting to listen to. Substance use disorder is already a hard topic. You'll also be hearing about trauma and sexual misconduct, and there will be some swearing. It's kind of unavoidable. Okay, back to Elizabeth. It's my first day in this new sober house. I had just gotten my phone back right because in treatment i don't have my phone um and it was i mean i don't remember any normal conversation to it there might have been a hey how are you how's the house but i have no idea but i know that he was already planning to come to see me um wanted to take me out um wanted to do explicit things um was sending me pictures, dick pictures.

Yeah, I mean, I don't know, the language was that of a, you know, 50 Shades of Grey. The CEO of the treatment center she just left was sending her pictures of his penis and soliciting her for sex. Just 30 days ago, Elizabeth arrived at Eric's treatment center high on opioids. He paid for her to go there. And now this. Elizabeth fell into a complicated mental spiral. I knew in my core it wasn't right because I know that a CEO of a treatment center I left 24 hours ago should not be sending me pictures of his dick. He shouldn't be sending me pictures of his dick even a year later. That's just integrity 101,

right? But at the same time, what could she really do about it? She says she'd respond with neutral messages like, don't you have a girlfriend? Or I'm busy. She worried about how connected Eric was in the recovery community. If she told him to knock it off or something, maybe he would retaliate in some way. Like he was either going to get me kicked out of the house or he was going to set up a rumor about me to like ruin my time there or whatever. Or just like make me out to be like a crazy bitch, if you will. I just I didn't I didn't want any of it. I wanted a roof over my head and food in my tummy. Like I wanted to feel safe. So I knew not to share it. I knew it was, you know, I knew it was wrong, but like shooting heroin's not right either. Right. Like, so it, it felt good in that really, really low vulnerable state. I'm a month sober.

I'm still not well. I'm still really delusional. And I'm really, really, really vulnerable. A girl who's a month sober does not love herself yet, does not even know who she is, does not feel any validation from anything within herself, right? So I felt special, if you will. I felt like this man that has presented himself with all this power and prestige and money, which has been shoved in my face for 30 days, wants me. So I must be good

enough. That's kind of like, if I'm being honest, it's really embarrassing to admit, but that's kind of where my head naturally went to. Until this moment, I didn't understand the vulnerability of new sobriety. I remember listening to Elizabeth so hard through the phone, not just about the messages, but the particular complexities around early recovery. We hear about sexual misconduct in so many places, so many industries. But there is a unique danger here. Like, I was the lowest I've ever been because I had no, like, right? Like heroin, heroin, best way to describe it is like the worst solution, but my only one when I'm using, right?

Like it blocks whatever void I'm trying to fill. It blocks all that shit. So the most vulnerable an addict can be is in new sobriety because all those emotions and vulnerabilities and weaknesses they have, they've been numbing with drugs and alcohol for years. It's now stripped away. So now they're just, it's like, you know, in the army, somebody went out with no protection. A soldier with no protection. The feelings Elizabeth is

describing, there is a lot of science out there that backs them up, just with different language, words like profound dopamine deficit state. Addiction can cause problems with important brain functions like focus, impulse control, decision making, and judgment. And when someone stops using, the brain is out of whack, even for weeks afterwards. One psychiatrist I talked to described early recovery as a brain attack. Elizabeth says she never agreed to meet up with Eric, even as his messages continued. She told me Eric used Snapchat to send the pictures and explicit messages. And the thing about Snapchat is that the messages disappear once the recipient views them.

Elizabeth didn't take screenshots of any of these messages, but the way Snapchat works is if Elizabeth had taken screenshots, the app would have notified Eric so he'd know if she made copies. All this to say, I have not seen these messages, and it's really important as a journalist that I only report allegations like these if they can be corroborated. But there were other ways I could corroborate Elizabeth's story. Because Elizabeth told two friends what was happening with Eric. And she says she told them while it was happening. The first was a guy named Justin Downey. She told me that this happened to her and I was like, I'm just fucking disgusted with this guy. Justin Downey is from Boston. He's also in recovery from years of heroin use.

That's how he and Elizabeth met. I was in a sober house in Maine. She was in a sober house in Maine, a female sober house. And I just met her out and about in the recovery community at like AA meeting or something like that. We just got to talking and she opened up to me and we just became very, very close, fast friends. Justin says he and Elizabeth were hanging out in Portland, just chatting, and Green Mountain Treatment Center came up. And that's when Elizabeth mentioned the Snapchats she was getting from Eric. I thought, this guy's a fucking maggot. What makes this guy think that this type of behavior is okay with a girl this vulnerable, right? And let me tell you something here i am at this

moment in my life right i just got out of fucking prison and and took a needle out of my arm right i have never at this point of her telling me this i have never done any type of recovery work a spiritual work upon myself and even then i still knew that that this wasn't fucking okay to do. If you're a fucking rehab owner, why are you in contact with the clientele after they leave there? You're supposed to have boundaries. Justin Downey, I should add, is his real name. He didn't hesitate for even a second to speak to me about this. And in doing so, my hope is that it actually restores other people's integrity in this fucking field because it's sadly losing a lot of integrity. The second friend Elizabeth told was another woman in recovery in Portland.

It was a similar conversation to the one Elizabeth had with Justin. Elizabeth remembered she was sitting in the living room of her sober house and a notification popped up on her phone. It was a Snapchat from Eric. And this friend was sitting right next to her. Elizabeth says her friend wanted to do something about it. They talked about telling someone that works with Eric. But a few months later, her friend died of an overdose. And Elizabeth says it was too much to keep pursuing on her own.

Later, I was able to talk to this friend's 12-step sponsor. Her name is Maureen Doyle. She wrote me an email about what she remembered. Years ago, Maureen wrote, her sponsee had told her about Elizabeth's experience. Maureen then reported Eric's behavior to management of the treatment center, but from what she could tell, nobody did anything about it. Here's another bit of Maureen's email. Quote, although we are all responsible for our own recovery, I think it is important to recognize the impact leaders in the recovery community have on those they claim to be helping. After I heard Elizabeth's story, so this was 2022, I tried to interview Eric Spofford,

but he declined through his lawyer. So I emailed many questions, and his lawyer sent back a statement that didn't answer any of my specific questions. The statement said that Eric vehemently denies any alleged misconduct. His lawyer also wrote that sometimes people in recovery, quote, relapse and revert to the lies that go hand in hand with addiction. It is sad, his lawyer added, that a reporter chose to aid and abet that deceptive behavior. For every 10 people who could benefit from addiction treatment, only one will get it. One out of 10 people. Elizabeth was that one. It's not news to anyone in the recovery industry that there is not enough treatment to go around.

And yet it was the CEO of a treatment center, the person who gave Elizabeth this rare and free opportunity, who allegedly harassed her. It definitely, definitely, like 100% set me back in my recovery. It's almost like it brought me right back to the real world. A few weeks after Eric started messaging her, Elizabeth says she relapsed. Relapses are common for people with substance use disorder. It's part of the disease. But Elizabeth says who would know better about the unique fragility of early recovery than Eric?

Eric is in recovery from opioid addiction. Eric started a treatment company. I mean, not only is he an addict, he works with addicts, right? Like that's his job. Like he sees it on a daily basis. I don't doubt in my mind for a second he didn't know what kind of emotional and vulnerable state I was in. Elizabeth says Eric's messages continued every so often for about two years. Then finally, in 2019, they stopped. I'm Aisha Roscoe, and you're listening to The Sunday Story. Stay with us. and promising future. Find the limited edition Royal Canadian Air Force $2 coin today. You're listening to The Sunday Story. We're back with Lauren Chooljian as she tells us about another woman that came forward with allegations of sexual misconduct against the founder of New Hampshire's largest addiction recovery network. About a year ago, another woman reached out to me. I'm going to call her Andrea. That's not her

real name. She really wanted to tell me her story about Eric Spofford, but as she put it, using her real name would open up a door to the past that she's worked really hard to seal up. So, Andrea. She also let me record our interview. Andrea wasn't a client of one of Eric's treatment centers. In fact, when she met him, he didn't own any treatment facilities. It was 2009, eight years before Elizabeth. So I was going to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, and then I had a relationship that I was in, and that relationship ended really badly. And I really spiraled down and was drinking again, had incredibly low self-esteem. And I wanted to avoid seeing this person and seeing any relevant people to that past relationship.

So I actually ended up going to cocaine anonymous meetings, which even though I never have taken cocaine, it's open to anyone that's struggling with addiction problems. So Andrea starts going to this new meeting, getting to know other people there. And one of the guys she meets is Eric Spofford. And I remember, you know, he spoke at a meeting. And just to give you a little bit of insight into him, when he spoke, he was incredibly powerful. He really could nail it. And you listen to every word and you were like, wow, what an amazing story.

What a journey he's had. How incredible. How can I get that? I hear this a lot from people in recovery, that in the early recovery days, people with more years of sobriety under their belt, they're awe-inspiring. You desperately want what they have. And Eric has an especially compelling way of talking about substance use disorder and recovery. You know, some people can go to college and get an education in, you know, the treatment of drug addiction and alcoholism, but until you sit in an alleyway in Lawrence and shoot a bag of heroin with puddle water, you don't know where I'm coming from. As Eric tells it, he started using heroin at 15, dropped out of high school, sold drugs, overdosed five times. He's been to jail several times. And then in 2006, at 21 years old, he stopped using for good.

And now here he was, two years later, sober and giving back. He was an AA sponsor. And that year, Eric was opening his first sober house for men. He was just starting to build what would later become his empire. Recovery was his everything. At that point, he was becoming powerful in the sense that all the new teenagers or young 20-year-olds that came in really looked up to him, and he took all those boys and young men under his wing. And it's kind of like, looking back now, you can almost think of like an evangelist or something like that, that can, you know, get people enraptured with what they're saying. When it was Andrea's turn to speak in these meetings, she did not feel like an evangelist or powerful at all. Andrea was falling apart. I just, it was probably, you know, I had tried to commit suicide in the fall of 2008, and it was probably the scariest, you know, time.

And my parents were worried about me, and things were just really bad. Just briefly, there's a new number you can call for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline if you need it. It's three digits, 988. Back to Andrea. So what happened was any time any attention was given to me by, like, a male, I just fell right into it. One day, Andrea was at home. She had this old computer, and she was online, checking Facebook.

And what happened was he friended me. And I thought, oh, that's so cool. By he, she means Eric. Because let me tell you, what he ended up being like was like the supreme commander of recovery. Like God of recovery. And to have God send me a friend request was like, oh, that's so cool. So Andrea accepts Eric's friend request. He started to instant message me. So he was smart. He didn't send me messages that you

could have a copy of. It was like those instant chats. I totally forgot about this, but back in 2008, Facebook had just introduced Facebook chat, where you could instant message anyone you were friends with. And the way it worked then was your chat history didn't save. So Andrea says she gets an instant message from Eric, and it says, Hey, how are you doing? And I'm like, ooh, he's talking to me. I mean, I, you know, and then what happened was he started to ask me for pictures of my private areas. He says, hey, you know, can you want to send me some of those, something, some picture of your, you know.

And at first, I remember being shocked. I was like, but you know what? And like, the thing is, I'll say this is like right me again. It would be a whole different story. But at that moment, I, you know, I obliged him. And I think I was probably drinking at the time. And, you know, the thing was, all he said was like, oh, that's nice or something like that. And then that was it. But here's the thing. It was like the very next day I go to this meeting and he's there and he didn't even look at me.

He didn't even acknowledge my presence. And I was shocked. I just, after what, and I felt like awful. I just felt awful. I felt like here it is. He's like supposed to be someone that is so important in recovery and has dedicated his life to help people struggling with the things that he went through. And, you know, it was at that point in time, I'm like, who do I trust? So many of us have this impulse, now that we've heard so many stories of sexual misconduct,

to rank them from questionable to terrible, as if there's a scale. And maybe you're doing that now. Andrea acknowledges by sending the pictures she technically consented. But what does consent really mean for someone in early recovery? That's so tricky, the consent. I talked about consent and early sobriety with Jasmine Grace Marino. She's laughing because this is like the thing she constantly runs into with her advocacy work. Jasmine is in recovery. She's also a survivor of sex trafficking. She now tries to help women in similar situations in New Hampshire and Massachusetts. And she often finds herself strongly suggesting that maybe let's not get into a relationship so early in sobriety,

especially with a partner who is also newly sober. Like, how can I say, like, two dead batteries don't start a car? Like, he's sick. He's not well. Right? She's sick. She's not well. And then you put them together. And it's just like, it's like a just a breeding ground for dysfunction and unhealthy relationships and manipulation. It's not impossible for people in early recovery to form healthy relationships. In fact, I have multiple family members who met that way and are still married. But Jasmine has seen it go wrong so many times. In those early weeks and months of sobriety, you hardly even know who you are. You don't even know what your favorite color is. You don't even know how you like your coffee. Like, because you haven't

been making decisions for you, either your trafficker has or the person who has been exploiting you has, or your drugs. Like, and so you even in early recovery, like they have to teach you like, this is how you make an executive decision. Like, this is how you make decisions. You are the executive over your own life. So consent is tricky. How do you consent when you can't even fully process what's happening? That's what happened with Andrea. Andrea says she definitely was not fully processing what was happening. She did tell someone who she was close with. I've spoken with that person, and they said, I remember it very clearly because Andrea was very upset. I emailed Eric Spofford about Andrea's story and asked if he was willing to comment. There was

some back and forth, which we will get into later in this series, but Eric never answered the specific question. Andrea believes Eric took advantage of her obvious lack of self-esteem. I fell right into it, right into it. You know, it's like, it's just, you're so vulnerable. You're so unwell. And the things that drive people to addiction are because you have such chips on your shoulder. You're so insecure. You feel like you're just maladjusted to life. And all you want to do is just be a normal person and fill this gaping hole that you

feel like is inside of you. And if it's not through the drugs or the alcohol, sometimes it's through the attention of the, of, of the opposite sex. And that's why they, they have a lot of these unwritten, you know, but rules where they say no dating within the first year of your recovery. And they say, and they, they have this girls with girls and boys with boys. Like they tell you, don't, don't be hanging out with the other, you know, it's because it's so notorious and it's so bad. And what they, you know, there's

like this thing called the 12 step. Yeah. Well, what they do, they made a joke about being a 13 stepper. And, um, you know, it's been a while, but I think the 13 stepper is like, um, when you take advantage of, uh, a newcomer or something like that. Like they joke like don't be a 13-stepper or something. So it's like it's very prevalent, but he really had it down to a science. 13-stepper? I'd never heard that before. By the time I hung up with Andrea and walked back to my desk, she'd already emailed me an article she found online

about 13-stepping being a colloquial term in AA circles. I started asking everyone I interviewed if they'd heard of the 13-step. 13-step was a bad word. Like, men did not want to be called that. I mean, I've been clean for 15 years. You know, that's something you learn right away when you go to AA. Yeah, it's just wicked common. You'll be told if you're in a co-ed meeting, you know,

be careful of Bob. He always looks for the newcomers. Thirteenth stepping that's been around since, I think, the beginning of time. I can't believe that you, the thirteenth step, you heard about that in the 70s? Yeah. The fact that we have a name for it is just disgusting. I can't believe that you, the 13th step, you heard about that in the 70s? Yeah. The fact that we have a name for it is just disgusting, right? Once I heard about the 13th step, all the tips and allegations I'd been gathering, it's like they fit into a bigger picture. This podcast will tell you a story about the addiction treatment industry, but it's just as much a story about the unfinished business of the Me Too movement.

I certainly didn't know that he was going to turn out to be like Harvey Weinstein. Did you want that to happen? No. But I also didn't know how to tell him no. There's so much more to tell you about Eric Spofford, because the experience I had reporting on him, it says a lot about the state of the treatment industry. There's not a lot of fences around them. I mean, that's the bottom line. There just aren't a lot of fences around them. There's only so many times you can get beaten over the head and you just stop complaining.

So somebody, you know, somebody needs to be their advocate. I got sued for this reporting. We'll get to that. We'll also get to the other terrifying things that have happened since this project began. Where does it say that? Can you tell, can you say that to me one more time? It says just the beginning under the window. That is so fucked up.

That's all coming up on The 13th Step. The 13th Step is reported and produced by me, Lauren Chooljian. Jason Moon contributed reporting. He also wrote the music you hear in this show and mixed all the episodes. Allison McAdam is our editor. We also had lots of editing help from senior editor Katie Culinary and our news director, Dan Baric. Danya Suleiman is our fact checker. Sarah Plord created our artwork and our website, 13thsteppodcast.org. That's the number 13.

Our lawyer is Sigmund Schutz. NHPR's director of podcasts is Rebecca Lavoie. And special thanks for this episode go to Casey McDermott, Taylor Quimby, Ariana Leick, Max Green, Ilya Meritz, Anna Lemke, and Johanna Miyake. And also to Monica Richardson, who made a whole documentary on the topic of The 13th Step. The 13th Step is a production of the Document Team at New Hampshire Public Radio. I'm Aisha Roscoe, and you've been listening to The Sunday Story.

This episode was produced by Andrew Mambo and edited by Jenny Schmidt. Our team also includes Henry Hottie, Emily Silver, and Justine Yan. Our supervising producer is Liana Simstrom, and our executive producer is Irene Noguchi. We'd love to hear from you. Send us an email at thesundaystoryatnpr.org. Up first, we'll be back tomorrow with all the news you need to start your week. Until then, have a great rest of your day.