Sheriff's Office Seeks Churches, Volunteers for Partnership

The Pasco County Sheriff’s Office is building a new team in response to the area's prescription pill addiction problem, and it needs you. 

“About 80 percent of cases we deal with are pill-related,” Sheriff Chris Nocco said at a press conference Wednesday.

The sheriff’s office recently partnered with the Alliance for Substance Abuse Prevention (ASAP) to bring the faith-based Celebrate Recovery program to county inmates, as well as people in the community who have not been arrested but who are suffering from addiction. 

Churches involved in Celebrate Recovery help facilitate the faith-based recovery ministry.

But to get the program off the ground, more churches and volunteers are needed.

The sheriff’s office and ASAP will host a Recovery Summit at Myrtle Lake Baptist Church, 2017 Reigler Road in Land O' Lakes, at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 7, to provide information to churches and county residents who would like to get involved.

“It’s just connecting everyone in the community together,” Nocco said.

The key components necessary for the program’s success are building relationships and working together as a community, ASAP coalition coordinator Chrissie Parris said.

By getting the faith-based community involved on a large scale, the program makes recovery more accessible to those who need it, filling the gap that is left when an addict is released from jail.

“If there’s a group of churches, there’s somewhere someone can go every day,” Lt. Ed Beckman said.

The jail-based program is especially in need of more female pastors, Nocco said.

If counselors do intervention in the jail, but there’s no place for them to go when they get out, there’s a problem, Chaplain Bob Loeffler said. “Recovery is a lifelong process.”

The sheriff’s office is trying to reach out to as many different churches as possible, Nocco said.

“We need to give them a rock,” Nocco said.

The jail-based program is especially in need of more female pastors, Nocco said.

Loeffler is a pastor at Lakeview Community Church in Tarpon Springs. He has been involved with the faith-based Celebrate Recovery program for 30 years, he said. The pill-related problems in Pasco County are the worst he’s ever seen in that time, he said.

“An average of 136 prisoners a month were on detox protocols last year,” Beckman said.

Loeffler initiated the program at the Land O’ Lakes jail about three weeks ago to a limited number of inmates.

“Our desire is to make it available to all the housing units in the jail,” Loeffler said. 

To do that, they need more volunteer counselors, preferably former addicts, Lt. Warren Jones said. “They make the best counselors.”

Anyone in the community who has been affected by drug addiction in any way—themselves, a child, a parent, a friend—is encouraged to come to the meeting next week, Nocco said.