Jerrod Markle of Butler paints a picture at Hope Night at The Art Center downtown. Markle, a member of the Hope is Dope advisory board, was taking part in one of several activities meant to release good feelings.

Drugs, about 40 people in Butler were reminded Monday, are not the only route to a good time.

As an epilogue of sorts to Butler County Community College's “Reset Your Brain” classes, the college's staff, the local group Hope is Dope, which ran the class, and The Art Center on Main Street organized a night of fun. After all, good times are key to addiction recovery, according to Hope is Dope's leader and the author of a book by the same title, Steve Treu.

“Endorphins are the body's opioids,” Treu told the crowd. “Say it with me everyone: 'We must produce endorphins.'”

The night's festivities were all centered around releasing good-feeling chemicals into the brain, according to Tracy Hack, BC3's coordinator of community leadership initiatives. Fun nights spent with others can help mend out-of-whack brain chemistry, the theory goes.

“When you do drugs, you start to fill your brain with fake endorphins,” Hack said. “Anybody in recovery has to start work on making their own endorphins.”

So on Monday, they brought out the finger paints. Some people painted at little art easels. Attendees munched on pizza and listened to music echoing around the center.

The meeting was a trial run. It's hoped to be a companion to recovery programs in the area. If it continues, future sessions may involve things like yoga or comedy shows. They're all going to be free. The next will likely be in January. “Reset Your Brain” classes begin again in April.

These kinds of companion events are needed, Treu argues, because many recovering addicts feel emotionally depleted once they've gotten sober.

“People leave recovery and suddenly feel deflated,” Treu said.

One of his team members, Ken Clowes of Butler, embodies that particular part of the message. Clowes recently gave a talk in Youngstown, Ohio, titled “Perception is Transformative.”

With Treu's help, Clowes kicked a 10-year opioid addiction four years ago, he told the room. He would get sober for a spell, then fall back into addiction when the world seemed too hostile to take him in.

In an interview before his speech, Clowes described a stigma he felt as a recovering addict. He described it as one of the hardest parts of getting and staying sober. He wants to change that stigma.“If we don't,” he said, “we're not helping addicts at all.”He opened up to the crowd Monday.“I felt anxiety, depression, a sense of worthlessness,” Clowes said. “And every time I got sober, I would still have those feelings.”Why? Treu and his wife, Kristen McLaren Treu, say it's because there isn't an easy route into the community that one needs to replace the good feelings that come from drug-use. But if a community realizes it isn't welcoming its recovering addicts, the doors to recovery swing wide open, they hope.“We don't need anything else,” McLaren Treu said. “This community already has what it takes to make it happen.”Rich Boeh, a friend of Treu's and a biology teacher at Butler Intermediate High School, said he sometimes hears about students struggling with addiction, and he feels he can see some students heading down that path. But standing at Hope Night, he sounded hopeful.“You have to find peace with yourself,” Boeh said. “Once you find that, you're not going to run into much trouble.”

Ken Clowes tells his story of beating addiction at Monday's Hope Night event at The Art Center on Main Street.