An episode of Changing the Conversation podcast
Mark Jenkins shares his insights and experiences providing harm reduction services in Connecticut with host Livia Davis. This episode is first in a series where we share the wisdom amassed by recovery leaders over the past 5 decades and reflect on the journeys that have laid groundwork for today’s recovery movement. Join us for future episodes!
July 28, 2025
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Livia Davis, Host (00:05): Hello. And welcome to Changing the Conversation. I’m your host, Livia Davis. I’m the Chief Learning Officer at C4 Innovations. Today’s conversation is part of a podcast series to delve into the profound wisdom amassed by recovery leaders over the past five decades. Through heartfelt conversations and reflective storytelling, we illuminate the journeys of those who have laid the groundwork for today’s recovery movement. Our aim is to not only preserve their invaluable insights, but also to inspire and guide current and future leaders in their ongoing pursuit of recovery. By understanding the history and lessons of our predecessors and current leaders, we hope to inform the path forward for the next 50 years. This podcast series is called Learning from Our Recovery Elders to Inform Our Work As Recovery Leaders. My guest today is Mark Jenkins calling in from Connecticut. Mark is the founder and executive director of the Connecticut Harm Reduction Alliance, an agency that has as its priority to promote the dignity and well-being of persons and communities impacted by drug use, homelessness, sex work, and incarceration. Hello, Mark. Thanks for joining us today.
Mark Jenkins, Guest (01:27): Good morning, Livia. Thank you for having me.
Livia (01:30): Mark, you’ve been working in the fields of harm reduction and recovery for many years. What would you like the next generation of recovery leaders to know about the history of the Connecticut Harm Reduction Alliance and why you founded it?
Mark (01:45): I really would like to see the integrity. I would like to see the foundations of really more so syringe service programs, harm reduction, I think as a whole, has been bastardized. The term has been co-opted. It has got several different meanings, and as it became a little more socially acceptable as a term, everybody was doing it in some form. And that’s not to say that some aren’t doing good work, but when we think about, when I talk about my predecessors and those who came before me, and the work they did, I’m actually wearing a shirt from Chicago Recovery Alliance. So Dan Bigg, you can’t mention Chicago Recovery Alliance.
(02:47): You can’t mention syringe service programs without talking about Dave Purchase, a very dear friend of mine whose photo was generally hanging behind me here. Mark Kinzly and Tony Givens, who their work attracted me to harm reduction. So I hope that folk are attracted to this work to serve those populations. So I think as far as the new batch of leaders moving forward in this work, I just hope we can maintain the integrity of what harm reduction always meant to me. And that was really to serve populations that didn’t have a voice, that don’t have a voice, that are overlooked or stigmatized.
Livia (03:53): So can you tell a little bit about why you founded the Connecticut Harm Reduction Alliance specifically?
Mark (04:01): Resentment. [Laughter] In short, a resentment because I had, I would say, almost a stubborn ignorance, and I remain convinced that who better to serve my community than someone who is from that community who is vested, invested, created harm in the community in which I founded this organization. Early on, a lot of the harm reduction work, especially here in Connecticut, was done by ASOs. And as such, they were ran by gay white men, and nothing against any particular group, but when it came down to it and working with the populations that we serve the most, even within our work, it was always met with pushback. I truly believe in this work. We see need, we find need, and we meet that need, and then you find the money to sustain it, and that just wasn’t the case. That wasn’t the case. And after a while it just became, it was really difficult to do your job.
Livia (05:40): So you started the Connecticut Harm Reduction Alliance, and just to note that it is peer led and peer run, and that is what I heard reflected in your comments regarding the importance of being of the community and in the community, invested in the community that you represent. So thank you for that.
Mark (06:07): And forgive me, as I search for the words to articulate even what I’m feeling now.
Livia (06:18): I’m not sure that anyone would ever think that this work is necessarily always easy, right? It is enriching, and it is meaningful, and it is something that can be mutually beneficial. But I don’t think that it is always easy or anyone would say that it’s always easy.
Mark (06:38): My role into this work as a person, I can say now in long-term recovery because I haven’t found it necessary to use a mood or mind-altering drugs since April 6th, 1997, yet and still my path here, I didn’t get it my first, second, third or fourth time. It was a series, and I think that’s what laid the groundwork, and why putting on and doing this work has never been work. It is like a comfortable pair of shoes. Some days your feet are tired, you just don’t want to wear them. But for the most part, it was never work. Once I started this, it was natural.
Livia (07:36): Thank you. Thank you, and thank you for stepping into those leadership shoes because that is part of leadership, and we know that we want others to do that. So what are your reflections regarding the future of harm reduction and recovery, anything that you might want to share with future leaders or emerging leaders?
Mark (08:01): Well, and this is prior to our current administration, everybody right now is just scared. They don’t know what’s happening. They’re scared to say certain words, they’re scared to do certain things. I can’t operate from a place of fear or uncertainty. It really is what it is. And I even told my board that I wasn’t going to change certain language for fear of a loss of funding because where I come from, we get it done with or without the funding. So again, as I was saying, that’s what happened. I don’t think people were listening. Like SAMHSA, as SAMHSA began rolling things out as you even begin to see, even with C4, everyone sought to bring the far left and the far right because recovery and harm reduction have always been at odds, and it really shouldn’t because there’s so much crossover. And so SAMHSA, I think, was really attempting to say, “Hey, we have to operate more from the more common ground that we share than far left and far right.”
(09:31): And I think for future harm reductionists, and especially to remain sustainable, you have to learn how to stay with, go after–because recovery’s going to get funded. Harm reduction, not so much. I mean, especially in the climate we’re in right now. So I believe you have to find how to continue our work, but still go where that funding is. I mean, for instance, my drop-in center, just recently, we got licensed as an outpatient substance abuse treatment center. So again, while I’m a trusted servant of a 12 step fellowship, I understand truly that everybody’s not there right now, and we have to be willing, harm reductionists have to be willing to accept that more of guiding people into abstinence based care, whether it’s medication assisted treatment, and I don’t think it ever was the enemy, but we’re more so I think from the recovery side, and I still have people in my chosen fellowship that think I enable people or still encourage use, and that’s not the case.
(11:19): I just understand that people are where they are, and right now we have to make sure people stay alive. We have to make sure because dead is forever, dead is permanent, and they don’t get the opportunities there. Folk today are not afforded the same opportunities I was. Yes, I come from a generation that said, you had to hit the bottom, you had to hit some bottoms before you would affect change. Today, we don’t have that. We have a drug supply that’s killing people in record numbers. So you have to operate outside the box, and that’s just it, where you can’t place recovery or harm reduction in a box. So that’s what I say… If anything I say to these leaders, “Keep an open mind. Really be open. Don’t be set in being an abolitionist, if you will. Be willing to give,” and I don’t say sacrifice your beliefs or sell your soul to the devil.
(12:32): I’m not saying that at all, but you have to understand that the bills have to get paid. It costs money to serve people, to engage them, and we have to learn how to operate truly where it’s intertwined where recovery and harm reduction coexist. It can’t be an either or. It has to be a both, and. And if folk who were maybe opposed to some harm reduction ways, we’ll get away with it more, because harm reduction has been minimized in many cases to fentanyl test strips and Narcan, whereas the harm reductionists like myself, yeah, they’re going to want to push for a full range of services and supports.
Livia (13:27): I love so much about what you said, Mark, because I think that as leaders, we need to grapple with, what’s our context? What’s the need? What’s ever evolving, and how can we always learn from other places as we find our way forward? So leadership is not static, and I really appreciate you sharing some of the reflections and the tension points that we often hear about. And how do we instead look at making sure that we understand and have knowledge of all the pathways, and because what is it we can then offer to the person in need in front of us in terms of knowledge of all those pathways so that there’s choice. So thank you for that.
Mark (14:24): I mean, that’s how this organization has grown. In Connecticut, SSP services come through DPH, but it’s DMHAS [Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services] that had all of the funding, all of the SOAR [SSI/SSDI Outreach, Access, and Recovery] monies. And if I had to wait for the other side to come up with other funds, this organization would not be what it is today. So acknowledging that there’s so much crossover in homeless services, homeless outreach, prevention, that’s what we did, and we always incorporated a full Harm Reduction. And when I say harm reduction, I say Harm Reduction with a capital H and a capital R, is everything that that entails. And it happened at a time, and the way I always presented this work, I guess I’ve been lucky that it’s been embraced, it’s been embraced statewide. And now our model nationally, it takes the best of it all and offers that, and as a result, our numbers have been just amazing. The people we reach have been amazing. And now my organization serves over 50% of the state of Connecticut, and that’s basically because we do the work.
Livia (15:59): You’ve served in the role as executive director for the Connecticut Harm Reduction Alliance for more than a decade now. And for emerging leaders who would want to consider running an agency like yours or is starting to run agencies supporting recovery or harm reduction, what are some things that you would like them to know for lessons learned?
Mark (16:24): Don’t do it. Get a job. Go home at night, and enjoy your family. [Laughter]
Livia (16:33): It sounds like it’s been hard and a labor of love.
Mark (16:39): Would I do it again? Yeah. You know why? To whom much is given, much is required, and I don’t want to get choked up after saying that, but there was always somebody placed in my life when I hit those lows that helped me get through those lows. And as such, I’ve been tasked to be in that space in many occasions, and that’s what’s driven my work. That’s what creates the passion to serve, and that’s, I think, what continues now. It’s like now we don’t have a lot of people who are just unabashedly determined to serve our populations, and that’s where I’m at now is that we didn’t have a seat at the table.
(17:46): All the things I heard from early organizers and everything about speak truth to power, all of those things that we didn’t, I didn’t have those. Those weren’t anything that I understood. And now that I’ve been afforded that, now that I’ve, in places where I didn’t have a seat at the table, I was able to create my own table that now we have to pass that on. I would be remiss if I thought I could go do something else right now. It wouldn’t work. It wouldn’t work because this is who I am, and this is what I do.
Livia (18:26): Thank you, Mark. I think your message about a passion to serve and your earlier message about really looking at being creative around funding, and looking at what does it take to grow your reach are two very powerful messages to share with others, so thank you for that.
Mark (18:47): Thank you.
Livia (18:48): So then lastly, before we wrap up, what keeps you going, Mark?
Mark (18:54): Early on it was resentment. It is amazing, once you overcome those obstacles, those challenges, you really have to find something else to push through. And now on a national level, establishing a trust, we started the United Syringe Trust because there was always, again, I think to make sure we keep syringe service programs alive, that we keep the spirit of that work alive where we’ll be hosting a pre-conference at the DPA Reform 25 in Detroit in November. That right now is what drives me to follow up their work on Dave Purchase, on Dan Bigg, work that Shilo Jama did. Making sure that people who want to marginalize communities, Black communities, Indigenous communities, that understand the necessity for this work, but may not have the resources. That they have somewhere they can turn to for some of those basic supplies to carry them through. That’s what drives me right now.
(20:26): We didn’t come this far to lose it, and it’s a necessity. I’m lucky that I check a lot of boxes, and maybe that has been part of what has allowed me to exist and be successful in this. I’m a disabled vet. I’m a person in recovery. I’m Black, but my father was White. I tell people I’m fat, so I can talk about fat people too. [Laughter] I check a lot of boxes. So while I love humor, I don’t have a problem speaking from the hip because of my history, because of all the boxes I check. And now to be able to set something up that can be passed on, because again, a lot of my predecessors are not here to do this work, and somebody has to, somebody has to.
Livia (21:43): Thank you. I love the fire in the belly, and I hope that your message about others having a similar fire in the belly is resonating. I just deeply appreciate talking to you today, Mark. And I just want to say a heartful thank you for joining us today.
Mark (22:04): Thank you. [Laughter]
Livia (22:08): And to our listeners, join us next time on Changing the Conversation.
Erika Simon, Producer (22:14): Visit C4innovates.com and follow us on LinkedIn and YouTube for more resources to grow your impact. Thank you for joining us. This episode was produced by Erika Simon and Christina Murphy. Our theme song was written and performed by Peter Hanlon. Join us next time on Changing the Conversation.
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