Recovery center gives women time they need

Slogans are the billboards lining recovery’s road, carrying bits of time-honored wisdom meant to keep addicts moving forward. The staff and clients at Amethyst Inc. are partial to,

It suits Amethyst, a provider of intensive, long-term addiction treatment and recovery housing for women and their children.

The latest graduating class of 13 women was the largest yet. Eleven celebrated Friday morning at the Reeb Avenue Center on the South Side. The other two couldn’t join them, with good reason. They couldn’t get off work.

The Amethyst program was founded in 1984 by a group of women who wanted to address the specific needs

of women working to recover from addiction. The treatment, and length of stay, is tailored to each client based on her special needs. Of the 13 latest graduates, some had been with Amethyst for four years.

As long as the client is progressing, Amethyst will be there for her.

“Our goal at Amethyst is long-term, lifetime sobriety,” said Clinical Director Sara Niemeyer.

Amethyst offers outpatient services, job and family support, housing and intensive counseling to mine the personal traumas that drove the women to begin using drugs and alcohol.

“We go back and dig into those issues,” Niemeyer said.

“Treatment is not easy here.”

Amethyst joined forces last year with Alvis, a larger agency that provides services and housing primarily to individuals and families who have become involved in the criminal justice system. Gloria Iannucci, Alvis’ senior director of communications, said the smaller program was a good fit with Alvis, which treats about 8,000 clients a year across Ohio.

“Our programs are generally shorter-term than Amethyst,” Iannucci said.

Amethyst treats about 200 clients, who are taught to persist. To stick and stay.

“Stay,” Niemeyer said at Friday’s graduation, “until the miracle happens.”

Managing Director Linda Janes aid the miracle unfolds over five stages of treatment: hope, foundation, empowerment, community and leadership.

“When we talk about Amethyst, we’re talking about new beginnings,” said Denise M. Robinson, president of Alvis. “You survived a life-threatening journey. It says so much that you are here. Regardless of the ups and downs, you have come out on top.”

Each woman stood before a standing-room-only crowd of loved ones and other clients in the Reeb Avenue Center gymnasium, speaking with candor and grace about life before and after Amethyst.

“When I came to Amethyst, I weighed 87 pounds,” Regina Walker said. “My spirit had been broken.”

For Stephanie Rollins, 47, the trauma started early. Her father was killed. She was sexually abused. By 12 years old, she was running away from her South Side home. By 21, she had two children and was stripping for money.

Cocaine addiction drove her down onto the South and East Side streets, where she languished for 20 years.

Four years ago, the courts directed her to Amethyst.

“It took me two years before I felt OK in my skin,” she said. “Two years would not have been enough for me.”

She stuck with it even as the losses continued. Her daughter is now incarcerated, and her son died of a drug overdose three years ago. Only recently did she truly believe that she has the strength to start life anew, that “I don’t think like a prostitute” anymore.

She has her grandchildren in her life, and she plans to pursue counseling as a career, helping others as the staff at Amethyst did her.

“Even if you’re afraid, touch the darkness,” they instructed her. “We got you when you come back out.”

At the ceremony’s close, the graduates stood on stage and handed a red carnation to each of their “sisters,” the women still in Amethyst or just getting started.

Some of them likely weren’t buying all of this just yet, this promise of rebirth and talk of miracles. It was a lot to take in.

Amethyst would give them the time they needed.

“It works if you work it,” one of the graduates had implored. “Don’t leave. Stay. Stay. This is all about hope. If I’m standing up here, trust me, it works.”

She and the others beamed at the applause directed their way from family and friends, and from Amethyst’s remaining sisters, dozens of miracles just waiting to happen.