A substance abuse counselor is arrested after a public breakdown and thrown into the exact county holding cell where her own recovery began — forced to relive the night a circle of women refused to let a desperate young woman give up. That young woman was her.
In fifteen minutes, the film moves through what the addiction and recovery system rarely lets people see together: the gap in access to medication-assisted treatment, the clinical burnout that breaks the counselors meant to help, and the quiet cruelty of incarceration toward people already in crisis.
But at its core, YTHROW is a story of hope — of women with every reason to look away choosing instead to hold each other up. Written by someone who lived through opioid dependence, worked as a substance abuse counselor, and now works to change the systems meant to help people like her.
“In a place built to strip people down, these women choose to lift each other up.”
— Christine Oliva-Castillo, Writer & ProducerA licensed clinician and survivor of opioid addiction who writes from inside the systems she’s describing.
Veteran Walt Disney Company director — The Lion King 1½, Tinker Bell, Pocahontas II.
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