Beaverton sobriety treatment court gets national recognition

The Beaverton Sobriety Opportunity for Beginning Recovery treatment court is open to Beaverton or Washington County residents who have at least one prior Driving Under the Influence of Intoxicants conviction and who agree to the program’s strict requirements. About 200 people have graduated from B-SOBR since its launch in 2011.

Participants must agree to wear an ankle monitor and submit to biweekly testing to ensure their sobriety during the first few months. They must also attend regular meetings with their case manager and the presiding judge to monitor their progress for the 20 months or so it typically takes to complete the program. Beaverton police officers also make monthly visits to participants’ homes, which can help reframe negative interactions they may have had previously with law enforcement, and engage family members or others in the home to support the participant’s recovery.

In January, the All Rise Treatment Court Institute selected the B-SOBR program as one of 10 treatment courts to serve as a national model for new treatment courts for the next two years.

Joining us for more details are B-SOBR case manager David Finke, police liaison Officer Michel Wilson and Mauricio Molina, a recent graduate of the program.

Note: The following transcript was transcribed digitally and validated for accuracy, readability and formatting by an OPB volunteer.

Dave Miller: This is Think Out Loud on OPB. I’m Dave Miller. Earlier this year, Beaverton’s treatment court for people who’ve been convicted of at least one DUI was chosen as a national model by a criminal justice nonprofit. The program is known as B-SOBR. It stands for Beaverton Sobriety Opportunity for Beginning Recovery. It launched in 2011. Participants typically spend roughly a year-and-a-half in the program before they graduate.

David Finke is a case manager for B-SOBR. Michel Wilson is a program liaison with the Beaverton Police Department. And Mauricio Molina is a recent program graduate. They all join me now. It’s great to have all three of you on the show.

David Finke: Thanks for having us.

Michel Wilson: Thank you.

Mauricio Molina: Thanks.

Miller: David Finke, first – what does it take for someone to qualify for this program?

Finke: I think you kind of outlined it. The main requirement is to have at least one previous conviction of a DUI. Most of the people in our program have multiple DUIs – two, three, four. Misdemeanor level only, can’t be a felony. And then the other huge piece is really a desire to want to get well and healthy. That is the backbone of our program.

Miller: How do you assess that? It seems so internal, a desire to get well and healthy.

Finke: The initial part of the process is we do a screening. We use a screening tool called the Impaired Driving Assessment, [with] 34 questions and it assesses if you’re in the low, medium or high risk. Our program is designed for people that are in the high risk category, that need a lot of support, that really want to change their lives. So once they score into the program, it’s really a conversation between them and their attorney. Do they want to put in the hard work? Do they really want to put in the effort and energy to get well, to change their lives?

Miller: I suppose each case is different, but in general, if you say, “you can either take part in this program, or …,” what follows the “or”?

Finke: A plea deal. So it’s really the prosecutor and the defense attorney talking. And then, jail time. So ultimately, that’s decided by the attorneys, the number of violations and whatnot. That’s outside kind of my scope. But ultimately, it could be a significant period of jail, versus our program which, again, is 24 months or so.

Miller: Mauricio, do you mind telling us about the DUIs that led to your entering the program?

Molina: Yes, so the first DUI, it was in 2020, in August. And I got it because I went out drinking. I remember my friends offering me a ride home and I refused it. I said I was fine. I live five minutes away. I said I’ll make it home. And on my way home there was a red light. I remember stopping. Then I remember opening my eyes, it was green and I just went. And then police officers saw me coming into the opposite lane and they stopped me. I mean, obviously, I had been drinking. So, that was my first DUI.

Miller: That was the first one. But then there was a second. So what kind of punishment did you face after that first one?

Molina: It was a diversion program because it was my first DUI. I don’t really have a bad driving record or criminal record, so I did the diversion program. I went through it and the second one happened on February 4th, two years ago … 2022? 2022, yeah.

Miller: And what happened then?

Molina: There, it was an eye opener because I had court on Monday telling me that I got my license taken away, suspended because I didn’t complete the first DUI correctly, so my license got taken away. I wasn’t supposed to be driving. I wasn’t supposed to be drinking because I still needed to complete the diversion program. And on Friday, I got another DUI. I was celebrating that I was gonna be a dad, or that I am a dad. And yeah, I went out “eating.” I said that in quotes because I knew that I was gonna be drinking that day. And I knew I wasn’t supposed to. I knew I wasn’t supposed to be driving, but I was driving.

And yeah, like I said, I went out to eat, but I ended up drinking. And I just lost control of my drinking and I ended up getting drunk. On my way home, I fell asleep again, in the car. I parked on the side of the road and I guess somebody called to do a wellness check. They saw me in there. The car was on, I was in the driver’s seat. And I just remember getting pulled out of the car and put into a cop car. Yeah, that was the second one.

Miller: What might you have been facing in terms of jail time if you hadn’t entered this program?

Molina: I believe it was 30 days. I’m not 100% sure, which I couldn’t do at the time – I mean, I don’t wanna do it now – because like I said, I was gonna be a dad and I couldn’t lose my job. I couldn’t be away from my family. There was a lot of things I needed to do. So I just decided … Like I said, I wanted to change too. I saw the way that I was going, because I did the diversion program and I was like, I don’t wanna get farther into this problem. I wanna just get better. I wanna be better.

Miller: Michel, can you give us a sense for the steps in this program? There’s a succession of them, one after another … I think five, if I’m not mistaken. So what are the different steps entailed?

Wilson: So we have five phases in the program. The first one is obviously the most difficult, because they come in and they have a lot of requirements. So, for example, in the first phase, you come to court twice a month. You meet with David once a week. You have to have sporadic UAs, which I believe are three or four of them a week.

Miller: Urinalysis?

Wilson: Yes, urinalysis.

Miller: Looking for drugs or alcohol?

Wilson: Correct. You have a scram bracelet that’s put around your ankle and that’s to monitor any ingestion of alcohol. But there’s a lot of requirements. You have to attend AA meetings, the police are coming out to your home and doing home visits. As you progress into the second phase, the third phase and fourth, those requirements become slightly less. It’s more of just the amount of court appearances and meetings with David. But throughout the entire program, you’re continuing to actually have the UAs, and it is very intensive on what individuals are asked to do and accomplish within this program.

Miller: Mauricio, what do you remember about those early days when you had that bracelet on that I guess could tell if alcohol was being emitted from your pores? A lot of things at the very beginning.

Molina: Yes, yes, a lot of things. A lot of pressure, because like she said, you have to get the ankle monitor, you have to do the assessment, you have to set up your classes for knowledge and therapy. Then you just have to go to AA meetings. And for myself, my wife was pregnant. I got married that year. My dog got sick that year, so it was a lot of pressure at the very beginning. But slowly it gets easier.

Finke: And all while, you weren’t driving.

Molina: Yeah, and I wasn’t driving, yeah. I had to get creative with Uber rides, getting rides with friends. I got an electric scooter, a bicycle, yeah …

Miller: Michel, you mentioned that home visits are a part of that, and my understanding is that’s one of your roles in this. What are those home visits like for you? What are you looking for?

Wilson: So that’s correct. I have a team of five other officers and myself, and we go out and conduct the home visits. We are really split between the accountability portion of this program, and then rapport building and support, which is very unique to police work in general. The home visits are not designed to be a “we gotcha” kind of moment. It’s really to offer support, to build rapport, to reframe how individuals view the police, so that we can help all go down this path of the same goal of trying to help somebody become well and recovered.

So, within the home visits initially, it’s just getting to know individuals. We may get to a point where somebody is having some struggles and they have alcohol in their home, or they have a roommate who’s not supportive that we need to address, or it’s a situation where we have folks who are going to see multiple doctors and there’s some pills maybe they’re not supposed to have. So we do some of that more intrusive searching. But the majority of people we are just checking in, making sure they have support. Do they need anything? And really building that rapport, so that they can understand that we’re also somebody they can reach out to in the event that … anything, really, in their lives that they would need police for.

Miller: You’re here right now. You’re a police officer, but you’re not wearing a uniform. Do you wear your uniform when you go to do home visits?

Wilson: For home visits, we do wear uniforms. For our court days, I just dress in plain clothes.

Miller: David, how do you describe your job? And what does it mean to be a case manager for a program like this?

Finke: So case management is kind of what it sounds like – my job is to manage their case. Early on, with all the things that Mauricio was just talking about, is to help them find and access the resources, getting them a free bus pass, helping them identify where to go for treatment, helping them get set up with insurance, OHP. I may help them make phone calls to get things set up. Those that don’t have computers, download forms if they want to look for jobs, that sort of stuff.

So, I tell you I’m half of a probation officer and then half of a counselor, really helping to support them and in making the changes, working on wellness.

Miller: It’s interesting because Michel didn’t use those same words, but it seemed like she was talking about the same division. And I can imagine that being, whether it’s a police officer or a probation officer-adjacent kind of role, it feels different to me than being a counselor or cheerleader. Does it feel like those roles are at odds ever?

Finke: Yeah, I think the challenge and the beauty is each relationship is a little bit different, and the role that they need to play. For some people, they need somebody to be a little more clear and direct. And I’m often told that, “hey, be tough with me, don’t cut me any slack.” They know that they function best with that accountability and that structure. And others are like, “hey man, I can take care of me, ease up a little bit here.”

Miller: But it’s up to you to know if you can trust that?

Finke: Absolutely, right. So all the other kinds of resources that we have, from the collateral information from the UAs to the treatment providers, my role is to really kind of collaborate all those resources, make sure the team is aware of what’s going on and communicate with all the parties involved.

Miller: David, how do you think about relapses?

Finke: I think they happen. I think there’s this idea that they’re a normal part of the process, and for a lot of people they are. We have a number of people that go through the program that don’t have a relapse. They make the requisite changes to avoid the circumstances. And our approach, when there’s a relapse, I ask three simple questions: what happened, what did you learn and what do you want to do differently? And that really is the core of the program. When they’re entering the program, that’s my pitch to them. If you’re willing to talk about those three things, this is the program for you. What happened? What did you learn? And what do you want to do differently? At any point, you don’t want to talk about one of those three things, then it’s really hard for us to help and to effect change.

Miller: Mauricio, had you tried to stop drinking, to be sober before this court-mandated program?

Molina: Yes, I tried. And I can stop drinking. Well, I could stop drinking for a couple of months, maybe half a year, but it was starting again. I was thinking about the day that I was gonna be done with my mental six months, not gonna drink. And I was waiting for that day. And that day, I would usually get pretty drunk, once I was able.

Miller: Oh, this was just on your own. You say, like, “let me see if I can be dry for six months” and then you’d look forward to the end of it, knowing now I can drink again?

Molina: Yeah, and it would get worse every time. When I got my second DUI it was an eye opener, because like I said, I didn’t want to keep going down that road. Like I said, I wanted to make a change. So I want to be there for my family, my wife, my daughter and my mom.

Miller: How much hope did you have that you could actually do it though? I mean, with those experiences before doing it sort of on your own that were unsuccessful, did you believe at the very beginning of this that the program would work for you?

Molina: No.

Miller: You didn’t.

Molina: No, I thought it was gonna be another one of those [programs], like the diversion program, where I was just gonna do it and then continue living how I’d been.

Miller: But it would be better than going to jail for a month?

Molina: Yeah, definitely.

Miller: Was there a point when you thought maybe this will work?

Molina: Yes.

Miller: When?

Molina: It was when I was talking to David and we were going over the packet, the denial packet. Like every word that they had on that denial packet I have used. And then I was like, I used all this to tell myself that it’s OK to keep drinking. I just kept denying it and when I saw all this, it opened my eyes. I just keep saying the same things over and over, and it’s not working.

So now I can see that I won’t be using this and I’m just gonna focus on getting better, listen to what they have to say. I think AA meetings were a big part of the process because there you have people who have gone through what you have gone through or even worse. And they’re better, they’re happy, and I wanted that. I wanted to be happy. I wanted to be better.

Miller: What do you think would have happened to you if you didn’t have this program?

Molina: I would be there in jail or probably dead. Yeah, or maybe the hospital.

Miller: Or maybe killed somebody else.

Molina: Yeah, I mean that would be probably the worst thing.

Miller: Michel, one of the points that we’ve heard over and over on this show when we’ve done interviews with people who are in recovery is that successful recovery, it can only happen if the person who has some kind of substance use disorder chooses for themselves to change. There has to be something internal, otherwise it’s not going to work.

But there’s also this other idea that we’ve heard about – sometimes people speak up really passionately and I think it’s embedded in a treatment court – that an external push has a role. But they seem like really different things. I’m wondering how you think about this balance, between the internal desire for change and the external push that you represent?

Wilson: So I would say, initially, the majority of individuals that come in, they’re just avoiding jail. They’re not to the point of having any concept of some sort of internal change. Like Mauricio just said so beautifully, yeah, you just want to get through the program: “I’ll get it done, I’ll go back to my old life.” And I think at some point that switch occurs. So initially, the external motivating factors are in place to help people get to that internal motivation, have that kind of ambivalence that they want to make an internal change.

So when they come in and say, “I’m just avoiding jail,” that’s perfectly fine. Because I know that the majority of people will get to this place where they have either this epiphany or something’s working, their life is happy and healthy. And now, internally, they want that for themselves. So you definitely, initially, see the external motivators. I have the scram on, so I’m not going to drink because I don’t want to get “in trouble.”

Then eventually, it starts to switch into a place where they determine for themselves that this is the life I really want to have. I really do want to be happy and healthy. So I don’t necessarily think they’re kind of two separate things, almost. It’s kind of just a process that usually kind of naturally occurs. And obviously, getting people to have enough sobriety to be able to kind of get to that place is important too. So those external motivators are critical to kind of buy that time of sobriety.

Miller: David, how do you help people get to a place where they, without using alcohol and drugs, can weather the major challenges of life that are going to happen?

Finke: You’re talking about resilience and everybody has a different capacity for that. And this is a human condition, it’s not just an addiction issue. I think one of the things that Mauricio talked about is that coming from inside. My goal isn’t to say you’ve done wrong, or drugs or alcohol are inherently good or bad. Let’s talk about your relationship with them. And then from there, it’s, what do you want to do differently? How do you want to do differently? And how can we help?

That’s the cool thing about our program. It’s not just, “hey, don’t drink.” For most people, that’s the easy part. It’s, how do I change my life? How do I get healthy? And that’s from nutrition, to sleeping, to exercise, to relationships and finances, and all these things. When there’s chaos in all those areas, why not drink? And we find that when people start to kind of sort things out, build a life worth being sober for, it’s just easier – and that takes time. That’s why our program is 20-plus months for people, and then for those that may need even longer, three years or more.

Miller: Mauricio, I mean, do you feel like you’ve gotten skills from this program that you simply didn’t have in your adult life before?

Molina: Yes.

Miller: What’s an example?

Molina: Just, letting go of things that I can’t control. A lot of things I would worry about, things that I just couldn’t control, get angry about stuff. And now, I think about it. Can I fix this? Yes, and let’s see how I can fix it. If I can’t, then I’m just gonna keep going on my day and hopefully things get better.

Miller: David, there’s been a lot of public focus on the opioid crisis for a lot of good reasons, even before fentanyl, but certainly after fentanyl, just with just a kind of italicized sense of urgency. But because of that, I feel like we don’t talk that much, haven’t talked that much in recent years about the impacts of alcohol. What impact do you see on Oregon society from alcohol?

Finke: Across the board. I mean, it’s legal, everybody uses it, it’s in commercials, it’s socially acceptable. There’s not a lot of fentanyl t-shirts out there and promotional billboards. Alcohol is everywhere, every event that you go to, every movie theater, restaurant, and that makes it really hard. So people get comfortable with it early on. Frequently, it’s social and hanging out with friends, then it transitions to letting off steam on a weekend. And then it’s just managing life and it takes on a life of its own. That part of that denial that Mauricio was talking about is really recognizing the impact that it has – physical health, mental health, social health, financial health, relationships, employment, all these areas. And to each their own, everybody is affected differently. Again, until you can assess your own impact, your own damage, the work really doesn’t begin until that occurs.

Miller: How do you assess the effectiveness of this program? It’s been going on for 14 years or so.

Finke: Yeah. You know, one of the things is our recidivism rate, which we monitor via criminal history after graduation. We track it for three to five years. Our recidivism rate is under 10%, which is really great.

Miller: And specifically the recidivism for DUIs?

Finke: Correct.

Miller: Under 10% after five years?

Finke: Yeah.

Miller: Or within five years.

Finke: Yeah.

Miller: That actually seems surprisingly low, based on recidivism rates that we’ve heard in the past, broadly, for people who’ve gone to prison or jail have been convicted of some crime … 10% seems awfully low.

Finke: And for us, that number has gone down. So I’ve been there for six years. When we started, we were closer to 15%. And capturing all those numbers from before, those numbers have just decreased. So we’re doing something right. I think that’s why we’ve become a mentor court. We’re using best practices, we acknowledge when we’re doing something that isn’t working and that we want to do better.

Miller: Michel, what does it mean to be a mentor court as selected by this All Rise Treatment Court Institute, a national model?

Wilson: Yeah, so All Rise is really kind of the training and advocacy part for treatment courts. They select 10 courts over a three-year period to be a mentor court, and there’s more than 3,000 treatment courts in the U.S. It’s a really grueling process to be selected for mentor court. So what that means for our court is that we’ll be hosting other courts to come out. In April, we’ll have our first court come and we will help train them. They’ll get to observe our court. And then individually, an officer could call me or a case manager could call David and ask questions about, how do we do home visits? They could call the judge and ask about having specific dockets, things like that. So we really help to guide and train other courts, basically because we’ve kind of become one of the gold standard courts for the country.

Miller: You’ve been doing this for 11 years now, right?

Wilson: That’s correct.

Miller: Am I right that you have enough seniority that if you wanted, you could do something else, you could say, all right, take me off of this job?

Wilson: So actually, B-SOBR is a side job for me. I actually work 40 hours a week as a patrol officer on mountain bikes right now. So I’ve been working 15 to 20 hours a week on extra time to do this program.

Miller: And that’s your choice.

Wilson: Yes, and it’s because I’m so passionate about it. I mean, treatment court to me is the way of the future. It’s absolutely beautiful to watch humans change their lives in a positive way to become really incredible citizens and have these happy, healthy families. Like, for example, Mauricio had a baby in our program and to see him become such an amazing father. So it truly is an absolutely incredible process to watch and it’s, for me, my true passion as a police officer.

Miller: We’ve heard over the years that because of the nature of police officer jobs, you often see people at their worst or on their worst days. Does this part of your job give you an opportunity to see the opposite?

Wilson: Yes, and I would say this program is really a two-way street. We get to reframe how these participants see police, because obviously they’re being arrested for a DUI, so they’re probably not having what they would consider a great experience with the police. But then we get to know them on an individual level and we build these bridges so that they can see we’re humans too and that we’re really here to help them. We want them to be happy and healthy.

On the flip side of that, with police having really traumatizing tough jobs, we get to see people improve their lives. And often in our day to day work, we arrest someone or we help someone, we never know what happens with them. Here, we get to watch that transformation and we often have the arresting officers come to graduation. We have tears, we have hugs, we have incredible comments to each other. And it really is this full circle moment, where police can see the good that they’ve done and the participants can see how much we care about our community.

Miller: Mauricio, what was your graduation day like?

Molina: It was awesome. It’s a big milestone for me because it’s a long program. It’s hard, it’s not easy. I mean, there was a lot of times where I wanted to just be done and get out of there. But like I said, that day, it was awesome, seeing my family there. It was awesome to actually get to meet the officer who arrested me, because I didn’t remember his face. It was nice hearing people that were sitting there that are also part of the program, telling me that what I said that day kinda helped them or motivated them to keep going.

Miller: Oh, these are people who are still in the program who watched you as a kind of success story?

Molina: Yeah, and that was because every time I would look down and see the people sitting there, I would think that was me. And I hope that they’re me in the future. I hope they can graduate and be successful.

Miller: Why did you want to tell your story on the radio today in such a public [way]? I’m very thrilled that you did, but I’m curious why you agreed to this?

Molina: I just wanna … I hope that anyone hearing this can benefit from this, can look for help, because there’s a lot of people that are wanting to help. But sometimes you just have to go out there and look. And if I can help one person, at least one person, that’s enough for me.

Miller: Mauricio Molina, Michel Wilson and David Finke, thanks very much.

All: Thank you.

Miller: David Finke is case manager for the Beaverton Sobriety Opportunity for Beginning Recovery Program – that’s B-SOBR. It’s for the city of Beaverton. Mauricio Molina is a graduate of this treatment court program. Michel Wilson is a Beaverton police officer and the police liaison for the program.

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