People in recovery find a fresh start by crafting Troublesome Creek instruments

Transcript

Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors.

Amna Nawaz: In Eastern Kentucky, the heritage of folk and traditional music from instruments like guitars, mandolins and dulcimers is deeply seated.

Senior arts correspondent Jeffrey Brown reports on an effort to capitalize on this rich culture while offering some residents a fresh start in the process. It’s part of our ongoing coverage of the intersection of health and arts, part of our Canvas series.

Jeremy Haney, Troublesome Creek Stringed Instrument Co.: When I first started, I had never really worked with any kind of fine woodworking.

Jeffrey Brown: Jeremy Haney handmakes mandolins for the Troublesome Creek Stringed Instrument Company.

Jeremy Haney: It’s been a learning experience. It’s been a challenge, big learning curve for me as far as,like, paying attention to detail and have my eyes open to what to look for.

Jeffrey Brown: He’s proud of his craftsmanship making instruments that will retail for about $2,000. But even more so, he says, the work has given him purpose.

Jeremy Haney: I destroyed myself with drugs and alcohol and just wrong decisions. And the work that I found gave me something to plug my mind and to keep my hands busy. I love it.

Jeffrey Brown: Nearly every one of the more than dozen workers at Troublesome Creek is in recovery from substance abuse.

Doug Naselroad, Director, Troublesome Creek Stringed Instrument Co.: That’s really pretty.

Jeffrey Brown: Doug Naselroad heads Troublesome Creek. A master luthier, or stringed instrument maker, himself, he came to Hindman here in the mountains of Eastern Kentucky to teach the craft about 14 years ago and found people struggling.

Doug Naselroad: We began to realize that there was more dire need in the community, because of the opioid epidemic and the damage that it had compounded with the downturn of coal.

Jeffrey Brown: So you came to fill one need, in a sense.

Doug Naselroad: Yes.

Jeffrey Brown: And then you found another one.

Doug Naselroad: Yes. There was a larger purpose that came with the people in addiction.

Jeffrey Brown: In partnership with a local rehab center, the county’s drug court and the nearby Appalachian Artisan Center, Naselroad co-founded a program called Culture of Recovery, providing workshops for blacksmithing, ceramics, and lutherie to those in recovery.

Doug Naselroad: String instrument making involves a long curve of delayed gratification. You have a labor-intensive activity. The rewards are not immediate. You really have to come back day after day and week after week to get to that result.

If you engage in that and do so consistently, it is our experience that people can really dig out of addiction when they find another focus.

Jeffrey Brown: In 2019, he started Troublesome Creek as a nonprofit, hiring those like Haney who had taken to the craft. The company is named for the creek that runs through Hindman, which in the summer of 2022 lived up to its name, flooding quickly as part of an historic disaster that killed 45 people in the larger region, including 22 here in Knott County.

Downtown Hindman was underwater, and the building that housed Troublesome Creek’s factory was inundated, destroying instruments and hundreds of thousands of dollars of equipment.

Doug Naselroad: It broke everyone’s heart. My boys were just like, Doug, did we just get fired?

Jeffrey Brown: They thought they had lost the work, the jobs, everything.

Doug Naselroad: The work, the job, their dream, their home in this place. And almost instantly I realized I had to gather them up and say, all right, boys, get your work boots on, we’re going to dig out.

Jeffrey Brown: For half-a-year, the luthiers of Troublesome Creek became a cleanup crew, mucking out the space.

Doug Naselroad: We cleaned up and salvaged everything we could, and the rest has been replaced by donations and grants and just hard work.

Jeremy Haney: This whole neighborhood was underwater.

Jeffrey Brown: Jeremy Haney took us to the apartment he had just moved into when the flood hit down the road from the workshop. Everything in his ground floor apartment was destroyed.

Jeremy Haney: I thought it was a total loss. I didn’t think I would ever get to go back to work building mandolins there. And it was a bad feeling too because I thought I was going to have to go back home to where I grew up at, and that wasn’t the option for me.

Jeffrey Brown: The 1930s era building the Troublesome Creek is housed in was owned by a community college. And once reconstruction was completed, it was donated to the instrument making nonprofit, including a community space for performances.

Doug Naselroad: Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the Knott Downtown Radio Hour.

Jeffrey Brown: We saw the first post-flood performance there of an occasional livestream musical review featuring local artists.

(Music)

Jeffrey Brown: And even a few songs by employees of Troublesome Creek.

(Music)

Jeffrey Brown: Brian Owens is one of the newest employees coming to the work after more than two decades of addiction.

Brian Owens, Troublesome Creek Stringed Instrument Co.: Opioids, methamphetamine, heroin, fentanyl, I have done it all. Went into this rehab that got me into this place on a overdose, prison, back, prison again.

Jeffrey Brown: After landing in rehab, he pushed hard to start learning guitar making at Troublesome Creek.

Brian Owens: I thought maybe I could get my foot in the door a little bit because I knew what I was doing. So I talked a lot of big stuff to get in here.

Jeffrey Brown: But you knew something. I mean, you knew it could really help you.

Brian Owens: Yes. Yes, I have never done anything that I have woke up and said, wow, I get to go to work. You can’t keep a job in addiction. You get a job, but you can’t keep a job. This is the longest I have ever kept a job in my life and I have had this job a year. And that’s pretty pathetic, but it’s just the case now. Yes, I love this place.

Jeffrey Brown: Are there failures along the way? I mean, are there people you have seen relapse?

Doug Naselroad: Yes. Yes.

Jeffrey Brown: Yes?

Doug Naselroad: One or two, which is heartbreaking every time.

Jeffrey Brown: But for those that can stick, Naselroad says there is real transformation on the other side.

Doug Naselroad: I judge success in the lives of these people. I would like to see us become a major economic engine in a tiny little town. And we’re well on our way to that. But there’s different ways to measure profit.

Jeffrey Brown: For the “PBS News Hour,” I’m Jeffrey Brown in Hindman, Kentucky.