Tugg Massa is one of the Ohioans who headed to Houston this week to help clean up after the devastation of Hurricane Harvey. But this Akronite’s reason for the trip is tied as much to another crisis – the nation’s addiction crisis.
Massa spent 27 years actively feeding his addiction. The last four, he’s been sober and running a self-help group called Akron Say No to Dope. He’s got a friend who runs one of the temporary staffing agencies that’s supplying labor for the cleanup in Houston.
Massa says both of them know the kind of desperation that leads some people to apply for those temp jobs. So he was recruited to head to Houston as kind of a counselor, crew boss and message of sobriety hope.
“I’ve been down here ministering to quite a few people and seem to be getting through to them,” Massa says. “They keep calling me sir, and I say, ‘No, I’m Tugg. I’m just like you except for I’m on this side of addiction now, and I’m able to help people.’”
The reason he’s there is his own experience coupled with that of a friend who runs temporary staffing agencies around the country.
“He’s done this for quite a while,” Massa says. “When things of this nature comes into play, he knows who’s coming to try to get the jobs. It’s probably the guy that’s been in prison a couple times. It’s probably the people that are addicted. It’s somebody that doesn’t have a good work history. These people are willing to do the jobs that you or I are not willing to do.”
Then he pauses and corrects himself: “I will do any job.”
The job now is cleaning out a flooded storage complex and the prized belongings – and memories -- of many people.
“There’s people’s whole lives in there that are just ruined,” Massa says. "Personal pictures… service medals… baby shoes, antiques that were passed down generation to generation.”
It’s emotionally taxing for anyone, including those fighting addiction. But Massa says there’s a kind of balance at play here.
One of the 19 people he’s working with – half of whom he believes are addicts – was released from prison a few weeks ago. He told Massa he put in applications every day since his release, but got no work.
And Massa says he describes Harvey’s damage as “a blessing and devastating at the same time. Devastating that these people had to lose all their things but on the same hand it’s a blessing because they are able to work.”
Massa says he has an important lesson learned to bring back to his work with addicts in Akron.
“I’m going to come back with an understanding of how devastating something like this can be throughout the community and see how people are banding together,” he says.
He pointed to a group of teachers – out of work for weeks and most of their classroom materials lost to the storm – who set up a smoker in a parking lot, cooked sausage and asked for donations.
“It was amazing how they banded together to help the kids,” Massa says.
For those in recovery, he says, “It’s OK to go to meetings and things like that, but if you’re not doing service work and you’re not giving back to the community, you’re not really part of the solution. You’re just faking it to make it.”
Before he heads back to Akron and his work with addicts here, Tugg Massa says he’s likely to go over to Florida, where Hurricane Irma is expected to cause extensive damage. He says that where he’s likely to find many more desperate people looking for work – and hope.
