SITE Services Help Scott Castle Turn from Addiction to Career Helping Others
Scott Castle's journey from addiction to career is a testament to the power of second chances and the transformative impact of collaborative programs like SITE and drug court, and now he’s using that experience to provide support for others battling the same issues he faced just a few years ago.
Now 44, Castle said he started using when he was 13 years old, first with marijuana and alcohol, and by his early twenties, prescription pills had gained popularity in Central Appalachia.
Scott Castle
“I fell in love with OxyContin; it destroyed me,” he said. “One day, they disappeared, and it went from that to heroin and meth, and it was over with after that.”
Castle was working at a mill when his life took a drastic turn in 2009 and an accident left him grappling with the loss of his hand, shattering his sense of purpose and stability. In 2017, after years of addiction and an arrest for manufacturing methamphetamine, he was presented with a choice to either enter Drug Court in his native Martin County or serve 20 years in prison.
“It was my first time being in trouble like that,” he said. “I battled addiction for years and years, but just lucky, I guess. Sooner or later, it catches up to you.”
Castle eventually moved to Floyd County and entered the drug court program there, where he first met Jimmie Wilson, who at the time was a support specialist with the Strategic Initiative for Transformational Employment (SITE). An initiative of Eastern Kentucky Concentrated Employment Program (EKCEP), SITE bridges the gap between recovery and productive participation in the workforce by providing eligible Kentuckians with valuable career services while actively cultivating second-chance job opportunities.
For Castle, who had previously only worked manual labor jobs and said he didn’t have a lot of employable skills at the time, the thought of gainful employment seemed like it might have been a long shot considering his history. But Wilson was able to connect him with a position at the Prestonsburg Goodwill and secured a start date there in 2018. She also dropped Castle off some clothes to his case worker before he started his new job and even helped cover the cost of his transportation, providing him with gas cards.
“[SITE] has so many resources and connections with second chance employers, and it was easier than I thought the number of people willing to work with drug court,” Castle said. “Any problem that ever arose, any barrier I faced with employment, she could help with.”
While his new job allowed Castle to earn a wage and fulfill his obligations through drug court, he also knew that he wanted to go into a peer support program where he could use his own experience in addiction to help others. That would require training and a test to get registered with the state and the Department for Behavioral Health.
“It’s one addict helping another,” Castle said, “providing counseling and mentoring.”
With support from SITE to help cover the costs of his training, Castle passed his test in 2019 and earned his peer support certification. Wilson connected him with a job at a local rehabilitation center that was new to peer support at the time. Castle led two groups a day, three days a week, and individual one-on-one sessions with clients.
Castle was making a difference for others, and within four months, Wilson called with another job opportunity in peer support in Floyd County. Again, she was able to assist him not only with that job connection, but provided funds from SITE to cover the cost of dress clothes and shoes he would need.
“I was hired before I even got there,” Castle said, noting that Wilson had done a lot of the work to land the job for him. All he had to do was show up on the date and time she had given him.
“That’s priceless to know you have someone like that in your corner,” he added.
Fast forward to March 2024 and Castle has not only maintained his sobriety but also his career as a peer support specialist. He has since gone on to work for Mountain Comprehensive Care Centers, the same organization that played a part in him getting clean. In November 2023 he picked up a second job and began working with the Floyd County Drug Court, directly assisting individuals in the program where he spent nearly two years working to turn his life around.
“One of the proudest moments of my life was going back and working with the people who helped me get clean,” he said. “They helped give my kids their father back and helped me get back to me.”
From here, Castle said he wants to grow professionally. He is enrolled in college and continues to weigh his options, and the notion that he even has options for a career isn’t lost on him. His turnaround from the depths of addiction to recovery and career is one that he says he’s not sure he could have done without the people he met through treatment, drug court, and SITE.
“The SITE program, without it, I wouldn’t have known this career existed, let alone gained the confidence or the ways and means to get started on it,” he said. “The SITE program not only educated me but also [helped overcome] the barriers I faced. From my experience, the SITE program can help eliminate those barriers and help you not only maintain the skills to find gainful employment and support your kids, to be a man and raise your kids right to see dad do something that they are proud of. That is what SITE has done for me.”
EKCEP, a nonprofit workforce development agency headquartered in Hazard, Ky., serves the citizens of 23 Appalachian coalfield counties. The agency provides an array of workforce development services and operates the Kentucky Career Center JobSight network of workforce centers, which provide access to more than a dozen state and federal programs that offer employment and training assistance for jobseekers and employers all under one roof. Learn more about us at http://www.ekcep.org, http://www.jobsight.org and http://www.facebook.com/ekcep.
