Meet David Douglas
Story by Isaac Hinson | Photos by Jakob Burnham | Design by Meredith Massey
On the corner of 3rd and Water St. sits a quaint, welcoming beige building. There’ll be a chalkboard out front telling what’s going on inside that night; maybe it's yoga, or perhaps a game night.
There’s a small table with two chairs, and on the window right above are five big blue and white letters that read “KCRCO,” and directly under it: “Kittitas County Recovery Community Organization.”
The KCROCO’s Mission
The KCRCO specializes in assisting persons with substance abuse disorder through the entire recovery process.
Whether it’s the first early steps of recovery, or helping to maintain sobriety, the KCRCO is dedicated to making the lives of persons in recovery easier and providing them with the resources they need to succeed.
Since moving into the building in November 2021, the first face to welcome you into the building is usually David Douglas and his big bushy beard. The KCRCO is his passion project, and after two years of sustained success, he’s stepping down.
David’s Story
David’s passion for recovery does not come as third-party interest, it’s personal for him.
Douglas began using drugs and alcohol at a young age and is not only open to sharing his story, but also hopes he can encourage others to speak out about their struggles as well.
“That’s one of the goals of the organization,” Douglas says, “to encourage others in our community who are in recovery to talk about it so that the general public can see ‘Oh my gosh, Dr. D’s in recovery’.”
Douglas says his drug abuse began at age 12.
Douglas never had a consistent father figure in his life. His biological father was abusive and out of the picture from an early age, and his mother brought home men of similar character to his father.
After one of the few Dads who showed genuine care passed away, Douglas’ mother remarried, and he turned to drugs shortly after.
“I had a lot of trauma, drugs and alcohol were pretty attractive to me because they helped keep the pain at bay. Alcohol, marijuana and cigarettes were my mainstays for a while,” Douglas says.
Douglas ended up dropping out of high school and in an attempt to find some sort of path got his GED and set course for the military. This did not end up helping, as the military only fueled his abuse disorder.
“The military is an environment where drinking is pretty normal,” Douglas says, “So for a seventeen year old who was already drinking, it just fueled it.”
Douglas ended up getting honorably discharged, while almost getting medically discharged for his drinking habits.
From the outside looking in, Douglas seemed to have gotten his life together. At 23, he had a wife, a stable job and a roof over his head. But once looked at closely, it was clear to Douglas that he was not where he wanted to be.
“You’ve probably heard the term ‘functional alcoholic,’ that was me for a while.I was not a real good husband; I was not reliable in a lot of areas,” Douglas says.
Come 1990, Douglas had a neighbor who he had befriended. They would drink booze and smoke pot together when he wasn’t working or spending time with his family.
Douglas went over to his house thinking it would be business as usual, but he was met with something that would derail all the progress and good will he had built up.
“I went over to his house, and he had a different looking pipe,” Douglas says, “I went, ‘What’s that?’ and he said, ‘Crack cocaine.’ Within about three months I had sold everything I had in my two-bedroom apartment and lost my job.”
He had hit rock bottom. Everything he had worked for was gone. After this, Douglas decided to try recovery for the first time, beginning his journey back.
“That was my first opportunity to go to treatment,” Douglas says, “I went to treatment, it was good. I still have my little thing from treatment with all my notes and stuff in it.”
While at recovery, Douglas was told that on top of the crack, he should also consider quitting smoking marijuana, as well as cutting off alcohol. He knew that he needed to end his relationship with crack, he recognized it’s destructiveness and the effect it alone was having on his life. But alcohol and marijuana were harder to quit.
Douglas explains that despite having good intentions leaving treatment, the recovery didn’t last all that long.
At this point, Douglas was 25 and had moved back to Pierce County, WA. This aligned right with the insurgence of the meth epidemic and Douglas had gotten the worst of it.
Douglas says, “[I] started drinking again, started smoking pot again… and the meth epidemic was just hitting. It got ugly for me… it was at this point where I was like ‘Oh, this, you know, it’s not going well.’”
Douglas had a two-year stint with methamphetamines and in turn became a convicted felon, he knew something had to seriously change. He didn’t want to end up in prison, he feared loss of time with his family, as well as for his own safety in the prison system.
Come the mid-90s, he had re-admitted himself into recovery, this time with the true intent of maintaining a sober status.
“I was like ‘Yeah, okay, I need to quit everything,’” Douglas says. “I say my journey started before, but really it was at that point where I was like ‘I don’t want to go to prison… This isn’t who I am, this isn’t who anyone is.’”
After this epiphany, Douglas began to turn his life around. He began working consistently again and re-enrolled in school to study counseling. He stayed in Pierce County, enrolling at Pierce College Puyallup. However, work eventually brought Douglas and his then 10-year-old son to Kittitas.
Douglas’ recovery was going well. He had a long-tenured job at Fred Meyers at this point, and was still attending counseling, getting medication and had maintained a 10-and-a-half-year sobriety period.
In 2006, Douglas relapsed.
“I decided to return to use. It didn’t go well,” Douglas says, “I had been sober 10-and-a-half-years, right here in this town [Ellensburg, WA]. I drank and then everything came back.”
This relapse only lasted for about six months, and Douglas quickly got himself back on the track towards recovery.
“I went, ‘Okay, no, this just isn’t what I want,’” Douglas says, “I said, ‘You know what, why don’t you go back to school and try that’ and I just changed my view on how I live my life as a person in recovery. I think it's important to do all things needed to live a good life in recovery, so I continued my counseling and I focused on exercise.”
Douglas re-enrolled in school, restarting his education Winter quarter of 2009 at CWU. He’s been consistently in recovery since.
March of 2023 marks 16 years of sobriety for Douglas. He’s since earned his Doctorate and founded the KCRCO.
“GED to Dr. D,” He remarks.
What does the KCRCO do?
“So here at the KCRCO we offer those in the recovery community resources and advocate for them. We work towards breaking down stigma.” says Megan Clausen, newly appointed program manager.
The KCRCO has offered a wide variety of programs and opportunities for persons in recovery.
“Once you get cleaner, you’re like ‘What do I do with my time now?’” Clausen says. “So, we offer yoga, we offer stitching, we offer a fitness club, just things to do throughout the day… We can help with resumes. If somebody doesn't have computer access, we have computers here you can get on. We'll show you how to work Indeed[.com] We'll show you how to search up a job so then later you're independent and know how to find a job by yourself. We can also help with housing applications. Finding food sources, clothing.”
The KCRCO also serves as a hub for a network of other resources. With connections all around Ellensburg, people in recovery are not in better hands than those of Douglas and company.
In 2022, the KCRCO hosted five separate seminars, including housing and employment summits, training on substance use disorder, being a recovery ally and a history on the war on drugs. They also had 18 different recreational offerings, with 454 different people attending across them all.
“A lot of people like to turn an eye to substance use in this community especially if they'd like to think, ‘Oh, it's a small town. There's nothing going on here,’” says Clausen. “Whereas we have a huge substance use issue in this community. So, I'm glad that here at the KCRCO we're really able to spread that message that it's happening here, people are dying and it's an extreme issue. But we're able to break that stigma and say, ‘Hey, these aren’t bad people.’ They can come and crochet together and you'll meet some amazing, amazing people. And make the community improve lives.”
Douglas created the initial board for the KCRCO in 2019 just prior to the COVID-19 lockdown, and in the heat of the opioid epidemic. Douglas and the board continued to meet virtually through 2020, and in the summer of 2021 he was able to get the keys to the building, with a grand-opening in November 2021.
“It’s been gangbusters,” Douglas says, “It’s been really cool to see the community go ‘We need this’ and to see our traffic and the amount of people that come in wanting resources and wanting to support their lives.”
David’s next journey
Douglas has already stepped down as President of the KCRCO, currently serving as Executive Director, and come June he will be taking an even further step back as he begins a new endeavor.
“I’m actually stepping down June 1st,” Douglas says, “It’s part of the plan. I have another project I want to start working on… [The KCRCO]’s solid. We’re financially in really good shape for at least the next three years.”
Douglas’ next project remains in the world of recovery. He wants to open housing for persons in recovery to come stay for extended periods of time while they get back on their feet post-treatment.
“What I envision, and it’s a huge need right now [is] a place someone can come live for 90 days or more, I don't really want to have a timeline, but they live there. Mainly for people new in recovery, and then during the day they go out they look for a job or they go to school or they do whatever they do, but a residential type place where they can have a roof over their head, a good comfortable, safe place to sleep and resources. So, it would be this [KCRCO] with more and they would live here,” says Douglas.
Douglas has been preparing to step down for a while now, but he believes he’s leaving the KCRCO in good hands, and has all the faith in the world that things will run smoothly without him.
“We hired Brandi [Amundson] as our first recovery support specialist and she went from that role to our program manager,” Douglas says, “We have Megan [Clausen] who started as an intern from Central and she's moved up. So, having people that understand the vision and what I want for the KCRCO and just kind of letting that go, you know, of course it's my baby but I'm excited.”
Amundson and Clausen have since been promoted to Director of Operations and Program Manager respectively.
“I think the KCRCO would be nothing without David,” says Clausen. “He brings an extreme extreme passion to the recovery community… You can go to him, and he’ll know where to send you, he’ll know how to support you. He’s got a huge heart to help people survive.”
In terms of other goals, Douglas remains thinking big. He wants to continue to encourage others to seek help, while also continuing to tell his own story.
“I want to do consulting and help others to create recovery community organizations,” Douglas says, “My wife would tell you I want to do big stage speaking. I want to spread the word about recovery and changing one’s life.”