New photo exhibit puts a face on recovery

(Photo by UTHealth Houston)

For Shajee, recovery included having someone show up when he needed it most.

“In a world of strangers, I had somebody come and advocate for me like they were family,” he said.

Now, at 36, he is working toward an associate degree and hopes to become a drug counselor.

Shajee’s face was also among 10 featured in RECOVERY Heroes, a traveling photography exhibition unveiled Sept. 21 at UTHealth Houston that celebrated the courage and resilience of people in recovery from substance use disorder. The unveiling was held in recognition of National Opioid Awareness Day and during National Recovery Month.

Created through Honor’s HEROES, an initiative of the Center for Behavioral Emergency and Addiction Research at McWilliams School of Biomedical Informatics at UTHealth Houston, the exhibition uses portraits of program participants to bring into focus the human stories behind recovery.

It will travel to hospitals, universities, libraries, government buildings, and community venues, where organizers hope the portraits will challenge stigma, promote understanding, and demonstrate that recovery is possible.

The photographs provide an opportunity to recognize something that often goes unseen: the work of recovery, according to James Langabeer, PhD, EdD, co-founder of Honor’s HEROES and the Robert H. Graham Professor in Entrepreneurial Biomedical Informatics and Bioengineering at McWilliams School of Biomedical Informatics.

“We don't often get a chance to celebrate and to recognize the people that are doing the hard work of treatment and recovery, and it isn't easy work with substance use disorders,” Langabeer said. “There's lots of ups and downs. We use this opportunity, this awareness day, to recognize some of the people in our own program and show that they come from all walks of life. It could be any neighborhood across the state of Texas, and you'll see that from our photos.”

Seeing the person beyond the stigma

For those gathered at the unveiling, the portraits represented more than the progress of a program. They represented people, families, setbacks, second chances, and futures still being written.

“Hopefully it makes others realize these are just people, that there's a human underneath, and that they deserve respect, but also encouragement and love and all the things that it needs to get through the recovery process to see them as humans,” Langabeer said.

That message was echoed by Andrea J. Yatsco, PhD, assistant professor and director of operations at the center, who has worked with Honor’s HEROES since its early years.

“This is a great way for us to showcase that we are having an impact, that we are meeting people where they're at and we're able to help somebody get out of active addiction, step into recovery, and be a part of their story,” Yatsco said. “We're so grateful to be able to have that opportunity.”

Jiajie Zhang, PhD, dean and The Glassell Family Foundation Distinguished Chair in Informatics Excellence at McWilliams School of Biomedical Informatics, similarly reminded those gathered that “behind every statistic is a human being, a family.”

From treatment to a new direction

Two of those people, Emily and Shajee, attended the unveiling and spoke about what Honor’s HEROES has meant in their lives.

Emily, 41, has been part of the program since 2020 and will celebrate six years of recovery Oct. 11.

“They helped me with their four pillars: health, home, community, and purpose. I wish everywhere had a program like this,” she said. “There's been a real epidemic in this country, and I feel so many lives would have been saved if they had only had this program. This is a very specific outlet that is so needed.”

Shajee described a model of addiction treatment grounded in compassion, science, and advocacy.

“HEROES has been such an amazing program. They apply a certain nuance in addiction treatment that's necessary. And I think for a long time, the ways we approached people with addiction was a little draconian,” he said.

He recalled the difference made by recovery support peer specialist “Coach” Crystal Walsh, who advocated for him at a particularly vulnerable time.

“If I didn't have Coach Crystal to come and advocate for me, no exaggeration, Lord knows where I could have been,” Shajee said.

That support, he said, became part of a larger transformation.

“Now I'm moving toward my associate degree, and eventually I want to be able to be a drug counselor. You guys are legitimately heroes, so thank you.”

An unexpected exhibition takes shape

The portraits themselves were not originally intended for an exhibition.

Marco Bracamontes, MA, senior communications specialist at the center and the photographer behind RECOVERY Heroes, initially photographed the 10 participants for a presentation on the process of recovery. What began as a relatively straightforward assignment grew into something larger.

“I thought this was an opportunity to really gather an insightful image of each one of the subjects,” Bracamontes said.

Bracamontes said he deliberately kept the images authentic, resisting the temptation to digitally alter what the camera captured.

“There is no manipulation in these photos that you see here. This is the real stuff,” he said. “My goal was to capture and to print the colors, the faces, and the smiles of these wonderful people.”

The resulting photographs became RECOVERY Heroes—an exhibition intended to take those faces, and the stories they represent, into communities across Texas and beyond.

Building pathways to recovery

Honor’s HEROES grew from the Houston Emergency Opioid Engagement System, launched in 2017 to connect people with opioid use disorder to treatment and recovery services.

The program integrates patient care, research, community engagement, and health education and works with healthcare providers, first responders, local governments, and community organizations. Services include medical and behavioral healthcare, peer recovery support, care navigation, overdose prevention, and community outreach.

Langabeer said the program has now worked with more than 50,000 people.

“We can't save every life, but we try to get out after every single person we find out about, and this program just keeps going strong,” he said.

Research on the program has also examined a coordinated approach that brings together medical treatment, counseling, peer support, and follow-up care.

A legacy built around hope

The program entered a new chapter in 2025 following a gift from Sherry and Barry Wallace, whose daughter, Honor Nicole Wallace, died in 2022 at age 25 after struggling with substance use.

The Wallaces sought a way to turn their loss into support for other individuals and families. Their commitment included immediate support for the program and an endowment designed to help sustain its work. In recognition of the gift, the program was renamed Honor Nicole Wallace HEROES.

During the exhibit unveiling, Langabeer recognized the family and the role their support has played in expanding the program.

“They lost their daughter to this devastating disease, and they are helping us to grow and are really vested with us,” Langabeer said.

For those whose portraits now make up RECOVERY Heroes, the exhibition offers another way for that mission to move beyond clinics, research, and statistics. It allows people to see recovery face to face.