Dr. Carl “Rolly” Sullivan laughed appreciatively at zingers thrown his way Monday afternoon — even when one person at the podium called him a “narcissist” and a “son of a b****.”
More on that. First, though, some history that’s nothing to laugh about.
In the early 2000s, Sullivan found himself hunkered down in a war zone in the middle of Appalachia.
A war, in fact, that the rest of the country didn’t even know was being waged at the time.
Sullivan, the former vice chair of behavioral medicine and psychiatry at WVU, was watching with increasing unease as opioids began gushing into the region, carried in by a current just like the New River Gorge after a heavy rain.
It was too easy.
Coal miners.
Star athletes in high school.
You get dinged up, on the job or in the game, and you go to the doctor or the clinic.
You get a prescription for pain pills — and a Mountain State-sized monkey on your back to go with it, if you were one of the genetically unlucky ones.
Don’t blame the person who got hooked, he said. That was really too easy.
Which is why Sullivan, who was then-director of the Addictions Program at WVU’s Chestnut Ridge Center, began hitting the circuit.
He didn’t care if he was talking to a coffee klatch or testifying before Congress.
The medical professional and advocate had to break it down. From Sullivan, in part, the nation began learning of the addict-spiral.
Anywhere from 5% to 10% of us in the U.S. population are walking around with brains that are chemically predisposed to addictive behavior, he said — be it by pills, food, alcohol, sex or anything else.
In this case of opioids, they work a little too well in tandem with dopamine, the neurotransmitters in the brain known for their “feel-good” motivations.
There are set receptor-pathways by which the dopamine naturally travels in the brain, but opioids alter them to get there faster.
It eventually becomes a matter of survival, Sullivan would emphasize.
The brains of the addicted, he said, need opioids to do just that.
“There’s this picture we have about people partying,” he told The Dominion Post in 2014.
“For the people who are addicted, it isn’t about pleasure. It’s about survival. They aren’t taking the drug to get high. They’re taking the drug to get normal.”
It was a double shot of empathy, leading to the success of an effort he would found, the Comprehensive Opioid Addiction Treatment program — COAT, for short — which is also why the above-mentioned people were at that podium on this day.
They weren’t there to call him names, good-natured as they were. They were there to honor him.
No one was listening
Sullivan’s protégé Dr. James Berry was the person, in fact, who called him the earlier-mentioned naughty names — and he smiled when he did.
That’s because Berry, who helped organize Monday’s event, meant both as compliments.
The former, he said, owes itself to Sullivan’s self-confidence to go with his expertise. Someone had to be unafraid to enter the arena, he said.
And the latter is a nod to the fact that he never pulled punches with the people coming to his clinic for help.
“They didn’t need a doctor telling them what they wanted to hear,” Berry said.
“Rolly was talking to them, straight, telling them what they needed to hear, and sometimes, he wasn’t nice about it. But he was also talking to them with respect. Who better to be in that role?”
As previously mentioned, he was also telling the nation at-large all of the above — “But no one was listening to him,” Berry said.
Berry, meanwhile, came to Morgantown in 2002. He completed his residency in Michigan and wanted to work with addiction issues.
Colleagues there recommended West Virginia University. There’s this guy there, Rolly Sullivan, who is doing amazing things, they told him.
Sullivan would stitch together the COAT program in 2004, which has treated 7,000 patients in its 18 years of operation.
Chemical salvos are still being fired in this war.
And West Virginia still leads the nation in overdose deaths from opioid abuse — plus all the spin-off health issues from living with addiction.
The 69-year-old Sullivan is also in his own battle.
Six years ago, he was felled by a massive stroke, which robbed him of his left-side mobility, but not his sense of humor.
Monday, he was getting laughs as he tooled about in his motorized wheelchair, before using his own feet to enter a meeting room at the Erickson Alumni Center with the aid of an ornate walking stick.
A distinguished surprise
The organizers, including Berry, had two surprises in the wings.
One came by way of the Mountain State. He was presented with the Distinguished West Virginian Award, which is the state’s honor for service and can only be conferred by the governor.
The other was a gift from Berry and Rolly’s other colleagues.
Monday was also the day of the annual Addiction Training Institute, which brought nearly 200 health care professionals across the region to Morgantown.
Sullivan had a hand in its founding 33 years ago.
After this day, it will heretofore be known as the “Dr. Carl ‘Rolly’ Sullivan Addiction Training Institute.”
“We’re just carrying Rolly’s mission forward,” Berry said of his mentor.
Sullivan got a standing ovation in the end.
“Can you believe this?” the new namesake said.
He looked around the room when it was done. Fellow soldiers were on their feet for him, but he turned it around.
“They’re doing good work. I’m proud.”
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