Central photo: Mike Belleme for The New York Times

by Patricia Leigh Brown

In Kentucky, where music is the lifeblood, an apprentice program run by luthiers provides meaningful jobs and helps remove the stigma of opioid addiction.

HINDMAN, KY. — The heritage of handcrafted stringed instruments runs deep in this tiny Appalachian village (pop. 770) stretched along the banks of Troublesome Creek. The community has been known as the homeplace of the mountain dulcimer ever since a revered maker, James Edward (“Uncle Ed”) Thomas, pushed a cartload of angelic-sounding dulcimers up and down the creek roads, keeping a chair handy to play tunes for passers-by.

Music is the region’s lifeblood: Locals like to say that “you can toss a rock and hit a musician.” But these strong cultural roots have been tested by the scourges that devastated Eastern Kentucky, an early epicenter of the opioid crisis. Hindman is the seat of Knott County, one of the poorest regions in the United States and one that continues to grapple with overdose death rates that are twice the national average. It is also in the top 5 percent of counties most vulnerable to the rapid spread of H.I.V. and hepatitis C, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The decline of the coal industry has brought even more economic hardship to these isolated hills and hollows — providing fertile ground for Appalachia’s signature epidemic.

But last year, an unlikely group of renegades — suspender-wearing luthiers from the Appalachian Artisan Center here — embarked on a novel approach to the hopelessness of addiction called Culture of Recovery, an apprentice program for young adults rebounding from the insidious treadmill of opioids and other substances. Participants, about 150 so far, learn traditional arts like luthiery — the making and repairing of stringed instruments — under the tutelage of skilled artisans. They come to the program through a partnership between the Artisan Center; a local residential rehab center for men, and the Knott County Drug Court, which is just down the block from the Appalachian School of Luthiery.

“We’re dusty old woodworkers, not trained therapists,” said Doug Naselroad, the master luthier who with a former colleague dreamed up the program. “But so many times now, giving somebody something to do has proved to be a powerful step in their recovery.”

Doug Naselroad, a master artisan, plays a mountain dulcimer in his Hindman apartment that he made as an exact reproduction of one created in 1928 by James Edward “Uncle Ed” Thomas. Mr. Naselroad is a founder of Culture of Recovery, which teaches traditional instrument making to adults rebounding from addiction.Credit…Mike Belleme for The New York Times<

The factors that have led to the crisis here have followed a circuitous route, like the hairpin turns on mountain roads. They include a sky-high poverty rate, a legacy of accident-prone industries, high incidences of childhood trauma, low educational attainment and a fatalism springing from a lack of opportunity and geographic isolation. These treacherous social determinants laid out a welcome mat for Big Pharma.

“That Oxy is vicious,” said Randy Campbell, the Artisan Center’s executive director, referring to Oxycodone. He drove up a steep road to the family cemetery where his 64-year old brother, James Turner Campbell, was laid to rest from addictions to that drug and alcohol. “It grabs the educated as well as the noneducated.”

The art of crafting an instrument by hand requires keen focus, attention to detail and commitment to a goal — qualities that can help during recovery, in concert with therapy, peer-support groups and other rehabilitation work, experts say. The process is not linear: most people relapse at least once, said Kim Cornett Childers, a Circuit Court judge in Knott County who presides over the drug court.

Some opt for other activities like yoga, adult education or prayer groups. The power of Culture of Recovery, Judge Childers said, is the reconnection with the region’s resilient artistic heritage. “Many clients have never had anyone tell them they’re proud of them, or done something they’re proud of,” she said. “Now they’re creating something tangible and beautiful.”

The program was started with a $475,000 grant from ArtPlace America, a consortium of foundations, federal agencies and others who fund arts projects dedicated to community development. The results, albeit from a small sample, have been promising: About 94 percent have successfully graduated from the drug court, up from 86 percent before Culture of Recovery started. Most initially came to the court with indictments for drug possession, trafficking or burglary. The recidivism rate, which was already low, has dropped by more than half, with fewer people incurring new criminal charges, she said.

Kyle Larison, left, and Brad Whitehill working on instruments at the Appalachian School of Luthiery in Hindman, Ky. Both came from Hickory Hill’s recovery program.Credit…Mike Belleme for The New York Times

Historic dulcimers from the 19th and 20th centuries at the Appalachian School of Luthiery.Credit…Mike Belleme for The New York Times

John Hamlett, a master craftsman, creating a maple mandolin at the Troublesome Creek Stringed Instrument Company. He designs mandolins and is teaching the art through the apprentice program.Credit…Mike Belleme for The New York Times

Transforming Wood Becomes a Passion

One of the graduates is Nathan Smith, 39. Now a tenacious and promising luthier, Mr. Smith was swept up in a typical pattern in which the physical demands of his job shoveling coal and operating machinery led him beyond his doctor’s initial prescription for pain pills. He began buying them off the street — “It helped me work and not hurt as much,” he explained — and then started reselling the pills to support his habit. The result was a drug trafficking charge, a brief stint in jail and then entry into the Court’s intensive, supervised outpatient treatment program, which lasts 18 months and often more.

Mr. Smith gravitated to luthiery, making his first dulcimer, played on the lap, and apprenticing at the school for nearly a year. “I fell in love with it real quick,” he said. “It is something I had a passion for that I didn’t even realize.”

He has been off drugs for two years and four months and is employed full-time with the Troublesome Creek Stringed Instrument Company, a new nonprofit founded by Mr. Naselroad in partnership with the Artisan Center. Two of the company’s six full-time employees are former Culture of Recovery apprentices. All are in feverish deadline mode, honing the high-end artisanal guitars and mandolins made from Appalachian hardwoods that they will be taking to the National Association of Music Merchants trade show in Anaheim, Calif., on Jan. 16.

Troublesome Creek hopes to garner enough orders to expand its operation and hire more committed Culture of Recovery apprentices. It offers a potential career path and the kind of meaningful work that pays a living wage without a college education. This effort is a rare economic beacon for the county and received an $865,000 boost from the congressionally funded Appalachian Regional Commission, which assists communities in 13 states affected by job losses from coal mining and related businesses.

With his scraggly beard and pencils tucked into his cap, Mr. Smith showed off his training guitar recently: a black walnut and spruce beauty with a cursive “Smith” inlaid in abalone on the neck. The act of transforming a piece of wood into music still fills him with awe. “It’s an amazing feeling to hold a guitar and know I made it myself,” he said.

>Nathan Smith with a guitar he made. He apprenticed at the Appalachian School of Luthiery through a drug court program and now works at the Troublesome Creek Stringed Instrument Company. He has been off drugs for more than two years.>Credit…Mike Belleme for The New York Times

Earl Moore was the first apprentice to Mr. Naselroad and founded the luthiery program while still struggling with addiction. He apprenticed for six years, building some 70 instruments and reconstructing his life. His progress served as the blueprint for Culture of Recovery.Credit…Mike Belleme for The New York Times

Kimberly Patton holding a ceramic angel that she made. She became involved with the Appalachian Artisan Center through the drug court program and, as a successful graduate, has been teaching at Culture of Recovery.Credit…Mike Belleme for The New York Times

Jeremy Haney with a guitar he made. Mr. Haney came through the Hickory Hill Recovery Center to learn instrument making at the Appalachian School of Luthiery. He is now an employee at the Troublesome Creek Stringed Instrument Company.Credit…Mike Belleme for The New York Times

The sprawling factory in a former high school is imbued with the aromas of Red spruce and other woods, and the shoptalk is about screws and laminated steel chisels. Designing a fine stringed instrument requires years of experience, which is why most musicians don’t attempt it. The density of Appalachian hardwoods compares favorably with imported tropical rosewoods, Mr. Naselroad said. Though Osage orange and Black locust have traditionally been used for fence posts, they have what luthiers call a great “tap tone.” “The wood talks to us a little bit,” he explained. “It has to ring like silver.”

Creating Something ‘Tangible and Beautiful’

The name “troublesome” comes from the creek’s propensity for flash-flooding. It is one of many memorable place names — Mousie, Rowdy, Dismal Hollow — found among the jagged cliffs around Hindman. The city, built mostly from native stone, is “strung out along the creek like pearls on a necklace,” observed Ronald Pen, a professor emeritus at the University of Kentucky.

The main bridge is named for Jethro Amburgey (1895-1971), a dulcimer maker who taught generations of students at the historic Hindman Settlement School, which emphasizes Appalachian traditions, especially literature.

In true mountain style, Mr. Amburgey was related to “Uncle Ed” Thomas (1850-1933), credited with pioneering the Appalachian, or mountain, dulcimer with its heart-shaped sound holes and an hourglass form one maker described as “shaped like a lady with a quiet and lonely sound.”

Thomas was also a distant cousin of Jean Ritchie (1922-2015) in nearby Viper. During the folk revival from 1940s to mid-60s, she did more than anyone to popularize the dulcimer in Greenwich Village and beyond. “Hey, what do you call that contraption?” Woody Guthrie asked her at the 1948 “Spring Fever Hootenanny” in New York, according to her book “The Dulcimer People.” “Why, you can get more music out of them three strings than I can get out of twelve!” Ritchie set the stage for the dulcimer’s broader embrace by musicians including the Rolling Stones (in “Lady Jane”) and Joni Mitchell’s irresistible album “Blue.”

The Troublesome Creek Stringed Instrument Company in an old high school in Hindman teaches and employs members of the community going through rehab programs as well as Drug Court.Credit…Mike Belleme for The New York Times